Lake Chabot is one of the more well-known destinations in the East Bay for mountain biking. That's probably not because it has any sweet singletrack or adrenaline-pumping technical trails, but more because it provides a decent-enough selection of trails and sufficiently long loops for riders living in its vicinity.

Don't expect any significant amount of singletrack here. Almost all bike-legal trails here are fire roads, if not paved ones.

This ride starts out on the paved trail along the lake shore. (Expect kids, roller skaters, picnickers, etc.) While this part of the ride is pretty easy as you'd expect, it's actually not pancake-flat like you might expect a lake-side paved trail to be. There are plenty of brief ups and down that will take a little effort. Keep that in mind in case you intend to bring any tricycle riders or octogenarian parents along for this part of the ride.

Once West Shore Trail passes over the dam, the fire road segment of the ride starts. This coincides with the first extended climb on the ride (about a mile long). When this climb ends and it starts feeling like you're at the beginning of a descent, you'll reach a junction of trails at the trailhead labeled as the "Clyde Woolridge Staging Area" on the park map. If the user comments on this page are any indication, this intersection is a confusing one. The fact that two separate junctions follow each other in quick succession here (if you turn right on the first one) doesn't make things any easier. You can take a look at the photo to which I've just linked (and the image that follows that one) for some guidance. My photo captions reflect route directions. But, quickly, the rule of thumb for following this particular ride route successfully through these particular junctions is "always stay to the right".

Following those junctions, when the short descent on Jackson Grade drops you to the bottom of Grass Valley near the stone bridge marked on the park map, you have the option of shortening your ride by about three miles (corresponding to only about 300 feet of elevation gain, though) by taking that bridge to the other side of the creek and continuing uphill from there. This "panhandle" at the northern end of the route plot does little more than go up and down along the same stretch of Grass Valley, but it also happens to be a very pretty segment of the ride, mostly under cozy tree cover on the way out and with views of oak-dotted hill sides on the way back, which will be especially idyllic during the season of green grass.

After you come back out of Grass Valley and return to Brandon Trail, it's not long before the other unbroken climb of the ride begins: about a mile long where you gain roughly 300 feet. Riders in good shape won't even break a sweat doing this one; the grade is mostly around a comfortable six or seven percent.

It's worth pointing out that portions of Live Oak Trail get a little steep as it descends back toward the lake shore level. The trail is still a wide fire road, though, and even inexperienced riders shouldn't have much trouble here as long as they are a bit extra careful about controlling their speed and their braking.

Toward the end of ride, the route traverses a flat marshy area near the lake shore where it also crosses a fairly long and very narrow pedestrian and bike bridge. Trying to ride on that bridge without scraping the handlebars against the railings was a nice and unusual bit of fun. After that, you'll be on the paved East Shore Trail, which takes you back to the parking lot.