This ride puts together a decent amount of fire road and a little singletrack riding in an area that, I'd say, doesn't have huge amounts of either one. The ride does a fire road climb from Pacifica all the way to North Peak on Montara Mountain, then descends back mostly by the same route with some variation added right at the end.

One note about parking, first: You need to know that the stretch along Higgins Way shown on this page as the suggested parking spot features "2-Hour Parking" signs. So, if you expect your ride to take two hours or less, you shouldn't have a problem parking there. If you'll be taking longer, you will need to look for other street-side parking without this restriction. You should be able to find something within a couple of blocks, such as around the intersection with Adobe Drive and Peralta Road, or a little further down the hill.

The climbing portion of this ride follows Old San Pedro Mountain Road. This is currently a park trail topped with old pavement that's crumbling in most places and has completely disappeared at a number of brief segments. In an earlier life, this road seems to have been one of a few roads used historically as the main coastal thoroughfare along this segment of the Peninsula before Highway 1 was built. Possibly owing to this, the climb maintains a very tame grade for the first 2.5 miles. The first mile of this stretch averages a grade of a little over 4%, and the remaining 1.5 miles averages just under 6%. There's close to a mile of equally gentle descent right after that, as the partially washed-out and overgrown road (now effectively a singletrack trail) descends along the folds of a hill side.

Then it all changes when the route reaches an intersection on a ridge top with North Peak Access Road coming up from Montara beach. Here, the trail turns plain evil and attains an average grade of 17.5% over almost half a mile. There are short bursts during which I'm pretty sure the grade exceeds 30%. This short part of the ride is not fun by any definition of the term. Simply think of it as something you need to get past, in order to get on with the rest of the ride.

Including the part where the grade partially slackens but still remains serious, things don't ease up for close to a mile from that ridge-top intersection. But then, they do. The rest of the climb to the peak will still have you working, but it's nothing to whine about.

Closer to the peak, you'll start seeing antenna facilities and a tighter network of (dirt) roads and trails due to their presence (presumably). There is also a curious abundance of abandoned car wrecks around this portion of the ride. In fact, you'll notice that the route plot shown on this page reflects a short side trip to see a couple of these.

The views from the peak may not be competitive with what you get to see from Mount Tam or from some East Bay peaks, but, being a 1900-foot peak, they're not too shabby either.

Doing this ride on a day that's popular with riders, it was easy to notice that these trails have some regular local riders who know the ins and outs of not just this main route up the mountain, but also a number of side trails and shortcuts. Seeing that, my riding buddies and I decided to sample some of these trails ourselves on our way back down, instead of tracing the same exact route back to the trailhead. You'll therefore notice that our track diverges from the original way we took when we're back near the beginning. This section enters a eucalyptus-covered area filled with singletrack trails, some stunts, banked turns, etc. Trails here are quite technical and some descents and turns were fairly steep. But, it made a nice addition to an otherwise fire-road-only ride.

Actually, when you reach the junction of Old San Pedro Mountain Road and North Peak Access Road at the top of the next ridge after Saddle Pass, you have an option to ease or extend the ride. Instead of turning uphill toward the peak at this intersection, you can start heading gently downhill along the rest of Old San Pedro Mountain Road. Right at the third curve before this trail reaches the "bottom" near the ranger residence, a short signed connector trail will take you to Gray Whale Cove Trail. You can then take this trail north until it dead-ends at a parking area on Highway 1, near Gray Whale Cove State Beach. This is an almost-level trail that continues along the hill side, varying in form from a narrow fire road to a very overgrown narrow singletrack. It doesn't present many opportunities to satisfy any technical biking urges, but it's a delightful slice of coastal bliss with the sound of the surf on one side and birds chirping on the other. Unfortunately, there aren't any loop options from here. You'll have to double back to return to Old San Pedro Mountain Road. That's how you can ease the ride, since you'd be avoiding the serious climb to the peak. The option for extending the ride would simply involve doing Grey Whale Cove Trail in addition to the full climb to the peak...