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 also not pancake-flat as 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 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.