| The Vail Lake Resort in Temecula offers a variety of outdoor activities from hiking, camping, fishing, boating and most importantly, mountain biking. It is 11,000 acres of privately owned land and has the largest private lake in California. Vail Lake even hosts XC, Super D and downhill mountain bike races. If you feel like doing a riding, camping, boating trip then you can make a weekend out of the Vail Lake Resort. It’s also a good place to do a family ride since there is a decent variety of trails you can ride. |
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Although it's not a huge riding area you can still put on some miles by taking on the various trails that are available to ride. There is a main fire road that goes up and around the trails and then you can take a variety of trails back down and then ride back up again. There are also trails that go along the ridge before going down giving you a longer ride. The fire road is not that steep or long so you shouldn't have any problems doing it 3 or more times in one day. You also get a nice view of the lake from the top and can ride down right to it on some singletrack or fire road.
The singletrack trails vary in regards to terrain and difficulty. Some of them are rocky and steep while others are fast and smooth. One way to decide on what you want to ride down is to ride up the fire road and stop and look at the trails going down and pick out the ones that look like fun. You will also find that one trial connects to another trail giving you different paths to take. There is not much in the way of tree cover so you get a pretty good view of what's around once you get up high enough.
Vail Lake Resort Video
Vail Lake Resort Review
The Vail Lake Trials offer a decent variety of trails you can check out and some of them are really fun to ride down. It's a good place to make a day of since you can do other things after your ride such as BBQ or hit up the lake. And if you are into camping you will be right there after you are done riding.
Like mentioned before the climb is not too bad and can be done several times without killing you. Just keep in mind that Temecula can get really hot in the summer so your mileage may vary. Once you do the climb and get an idea of what the singletrack ride down will be you can pick your spots and enjoy the descent. If you keep going on the fire road you will be down by the lake and eventually end up where you started so if you are into fire road rides there is always that option.
Overall the trails are not too difficult and if you are into rocky technical areas you will find some here although they are not super technical. There are some smoother faster trails that can be a lot of fun because you can get some pretty good speed and really feel like you are flying. As you get closer to the bottom it gets more sandy which can be a bummer to ride in. When you show up you will have to pay your $5 riding fee and they will give you a map of the trails so you can get an idea of what is what.
If you are into jumps then you should definitely check out the jump line. It’s at the bottom of the hill near the parking lot\campsite and offers quite a few different jumps from table tops to gap jumps. The only downside is that it's not really on a downhill so you have put in some pedal power to get the speed to really attack the jumps.
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Directions to the Vail Lake Resort
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To get to Vail Lake head out towards Temecula and make your way to the 15 freeway. From there take the CA-79 S exit (Temecula Pkwy) and follow it for about 9 miles and turn left onto Vail Oak Rd. When you get into the park you will come to a guard shack where you can pay your day fee and get your map. Then they will direct you where to park and where the trails start.
