North Ridge (Red/Blue Dot)

Dogs Unknown

E-Bikes Unknown

To find the trailhead from the Ice Skating rink side, start at the Olympia Shelter parking lot (across Pierce Mill Rd from the Skating Rink). Ride up North Ridge Rd for ~50 yards. The trail will start on your right in a small grassy field. The trail winds up the initial ~0.25-mile climb before beginning the long, flowing ride. The trail is continually marked with red-blue blazes, but does not cross any other trails which makes it easy to unplug and cruise through.

More information on North Park Trails and Freeride area at Trail Pittsburgh's website:

trailpittsburgh.org/north-p…
trailpittsburgh.org/north-p…

Also known as North Ridge Bypass, Rainbow, and Pfundstein Trail.



This trail, blazed red with blue dot, runs from North Ridge Road near the Ice Skating Rink to Irwin Run where Babcock Blvd. intersects Pierce Mill Rd. and is commonly referred to in its entirety as the "Bypass." It offers a more technical MTB experience distinct from its neighboring trail on the opposite side of North Ridge Lane, the Red Bridle Trail, sometimes also used by equestrians. Each end of the trail has ample parking with the north entrance by the skating rink having hardstand restrooms. 

The middle portion of this trail, from its northern crest in the proximity of the Montana shelter to the beginning of the Pfundstein section at Wisconsin shelter, is known to locals as "Rainbow" and was inspired by and established in the mid-1990's by several local mountain bikers, including Dave Brunger and Bill Kirk, who years later also assisted in the development of the North Park Skills area by the North Park swimming pool. This section climbs and descends and is the most technical featuring rock gardens and twisty off-camber singletrack. 


The trail was then extended in the late-2000s on either end, from the skating rink to the north end of Rainbow, then from the south end of Rainbow to Irwin Run. This initiative was planned and led by North Park's Trail Steward team of Brian DelVecchio and Michael Rodack, under the guidance and expertise of David Biber, then President of the Pittsburgh Trail Advocacy Group (PTAG now d/b/a Trail Pittsburgh). The Bypass was born out of PTAG's first formal cooperative trail development agreement with the Allegheny County Parks Department and with the goal of making North Park a regional premier mountain biking destination. 

The Pfundstein Trail section, which runs from the Wisconsin Shelter to Irwin Run, was named after a deceased German mountain biker who worked in Pittsburgh and loved riding North Park. It is marked with a plaque on a large stone along the trail adjacent to the Wisconsin Shelter. Pfundstein is a faster flowy downhill trail. Dozens of PTAG volunteers putting in hundreds of hours of labor can be credited with the construction and maintenance of these painstakingly hand-built, bench-cut sections of trail.

The entire trail was built to be ridden from the Ice Skating Rink side to the Irwin Run side, but it can be ridden in either direction. The climbs become descents and the descents become climbs in the opposite direction making things more interesting! The climb from Irwin Run along the Pfundstein section is a hard and technical one but can be bypassed by taking the Red Bridle Trail up to the Wisconsin Shelter from Irwin Run to ride Rainbow backwards.