Calavera

Earlier this year yours truly rented a room in a house whose back porch opened right onto the north trail of Carlsbad's Calavera Preserve. It was quite a treat going to sleep to the sound of the wild almost every night, and enjoying the view of an open stretch of land while nursing the morning coffee before heading off to work, where I'd spend the day dreaming of my days off when I'd get to take the Smorgmobile 2.0 out on the dusty trails in the 'backyard'.

Calavera Preserve has many many trails to explore. Currently just about all of them on the Preserve are open to bicycle. You do have to know the lay of the land quite well before heading out, though, as none of the trails in the adjacent Dept of Fish and Wildlife's Carlsbad Highland Ecological Reserve is open to bike (although I've seen a lot of mountain bikers on it). Generally you are fine if you stay north of the white concrete barrier/fence on the south side of the Cerro de la Calavera.

My pad being on the north side of the Preserve, I generally roamed well north of the boundary.

Most of the trails are quite road-bike-able... until they are not (bwahahaha). You just have to invest a bit in practicing your bike-handling skills, and stay quite vigilant on terrain awareness (so you don't suddenly find yourself in the weed (or rut... or even well hidden drop off!).

Oh, yeah, mtb shoes also work way better than road shoes...

Getting to the Volcano is quite a nice riding skills challenge when you aren't on a full suspension mtb, but the view is quite worth the effort.

Enjoy the view, but never lose sight of what you are riding into!

Top of the Skull

The top of the 'Skull', the Cerro de la Calavera, is a wacky place...

Some rocky fun on the trail.

No matter which set of trails you venture onto, any day on the bike is a perfect day!