It has been quiet some time since I have been over to the east side of Black Mountain in Rancho Bernardo. Man I have been missing out. There has been some really good contouring single tracks built on “Little Black Mountain” that are replacing the stupidly steep old jeep routes that were previously most of your options out there.
The great thing is these are fully above board legal trails. The local community and the San Diego Mountain Biking Association working with the City of San Diego have a good thing going out there.
The route I have been kinda digging as of late has me starting from the Black Mountain Open Space Park and head south along west base of the mountain to connect to the main fire road climb where I head up to the peak. After the peak I drop down the Black Widow Trail. I climb back up the main fire road where I then cut over to Little Black Mountain and ride the loops out and then connection up to the Nighhawk trail to Miner Ridge Loop. From there I do the eastern half of that loop to Lilac and then to the Ahwee that takes me back to the park. Here is a link to that route. The end of the Ahwee is cut off due to my GPS watch running out of juice so your distance should be slightly longer. (I need to update my website page on this trail system)