One of Colorado's newest trail areas. Floyd Hill opened in July 2018 and is a network of multi use trails with a few bike only and hike only trails peppered in. Some of the trails are known to be rocky and narrow while others are wider and filled with berms, jumps, alternate lines and bike optimized features.
The new parking lot/trailhead is on the west side of the large vacant brown building on top of Floyd Hill. The main parking area holds 20-ish vehicles with an overflow spot on the grass for another 15-ish. There are additional parking lots across I-70 and down the road.
The trailhead is at nearly 8,000 feet in elevation making this an easy access, high elevation system which is okay to be done in the heat of summer. Your best bet is to ride them clockwise starting with a mellow climb to the west from the lot on Lower Loop. You'll have some additional climbing in the shade as you get to the Upper Loop and a good amount of downhill to look forward to once you get to the ridge.
Designed with both biking and hiking trails, this new trail system sits just 15 minutes from Golden just off I-70. The Sluice (aka Segment 4) is a brand-new 1.3-mile downhill trail and the crown jewel of these world-class trails for bikers, while hikers will have a more peaceful trail experience via hiker-only options.
The Floyd Hill Trail system has come together in just two years and is the culmination of cooperation between stakeholders including COMBA, Clear Creek County, Clear Creek County Open Space, Mountain Area Land Trust, Trust for Public Land, Great Outdoors Colorado and Gates Family Foundation. Sponsors include Team Evergreen Cycling, Yeti Cycles, Pedal of Littleton, Wheat Ridge Cyclery and Colorado Deck Master.
The Sluice -AKA Segment 4
The Sluice is a 1.3-mile bike-only directional downhill trail. Built specifically for bikes on public lands in Clear Creek County, the trail is the first of its kind on Colorado’s Front Range, an area encompassing the foothills west of Denver.
As the area’s first purpose-built downhill mountain bike trail, The Sluice features a variety of manmade features-the majority of which are not found elsewhere on Front Range trails-including jumps, berms, drops, step-downs, step-ups, technical rock lines and several optional alternative lines (places where the trails splits giving riders more and less challenging choices).
Dropping 700 vertical feet-with I-70, Colorado’s main mountain artery, as a backdrop-the Sluice’s main trail is rated blue square/black diamond, with the alt. lines varying in difficulty from black to double-black diamond.
My bike: Yeti SB140