Cedar Hills Park at 9580 Eden Prairie Road has 15 new acres of dirt. The city scheduled the grand opening of Cedar Hills Bike Park for Saturday, Oct. 24, with a ribbon-cutting at 11:15 a.m. and the trails open to ride all day. Before this, local mountain bikers had been driving to neighboring communities to ride, according to the city's parks director in a report by Eden Prairie Local News.
Experienced riders will find terrain here too, but most of the park is designed for people still learning: kids on their first trail bike, parents who haven't ridden singletrack in years, and anyone who wants to practice on a berm before trying a steep descent. Once you see it that way, the layout, the rules and even the parking make sense.
Most of the trail is meant for beginners
HometownSource reported that the final design has more than two miles of trail. Routes are marked green for entry level, blue for intermediate and black for expert. Every route on the west side is beginner level, and about 70% of the trail is designed for all abilities.
The city's bike park page uses a four-level scale, and its lowest level goes further than most trail systems bother to:
- Adaptive: wide and free of obstacles
- Easy: gentle hills, small obstacles and loose terrain
- Intermediate: varied terrain and steep slopes
- Advanced: requires advanced skills on both natural and built features
The two sources use different labels. HometownSource uses the color scale, and the city's trail map marks routes as Easy/Adaptive, Intermediate and Advanced. For a first visit, the takeaway is the same either way. A rider who has never been on dirt has most of the park to work with, so a family can come once and still have somewhere left to progress.
Start in the Bike Playground, then move up
The city's map divides the park into four areas: the Bike Playground, Skills, the Flow Zone and Coyote Ridge. That order works well as a progression for someone new.
Bike Playground. HometownSource lists rollers, berms and rock tunnels among the playground features, plus a bike repair station near the parking lot. This is where a young rider gets used to the feeling of a wheel going up and over something.
Skills. The skills area diagram names five features: North Star, Loon Landing, The Tree Fort, Monarch Flight and Swirl. The names are Minnesota-themed, which makes it easy for a parent to call out "meet you at Loon Landing" across the lot. The city describes the skills area as a place to practice and build confidence before heading onto the trails through the park's natural areas.
Flow Zone. This is the first step up. The map calls out a section named "Minne-Flow," with both Intermediate and Advanced sections marked. A rider who handled the playground berms comfortably can try the intermediate line here.
Coyote Ridge. Coyote Ridge is the last named area on the map. Read the difficulty markings at each trailhead and choose by those, since the map rates routes individually.
The rules a family should know before the first ride
Most of the posted rules are standard trail etiquette. A few of them affect who can ride and how.
- Helmets are required for every rider. That includes the adult who only planned to watch from the playground and then decides to ride.
- Singletrack is one-way. Follow the arrows and stay on the designated trails. Riders are also told not to alter trails or features.
- The multi-use trails have a yield order. Bikers yield to faster bikers. Hikers and snowshoers yield to bikers. Everyone should announce themselves when coming up on someone else.
- Pedal-assist e-bikes are allowed. E-motos, scooters, ATVs and other motorized vehicles are not.
- Dogs are not allowed on the multi-use trails, except service animals. Drones are not allowed either.
The e-bike rule matters for families with teenagers. A separate city rule sets 15 as the minimum age to ride an e-bike. The bike park page gives no minimum age for regular bikes.
The dog rule matters for anyone planning a single family trip. A dog walk and a bike ride at Cedar Hills don't fit together on the multi-use trails.
Why the city built it, and why the wet-trail rule matters
On April 21, 2026, the City Council awarded the construction contract to Pathfinder Trail Building for $420,800. The only other bid was $443,129.52. Eden Prairie Local News reported that the money comes from the city's Park Improvement Fund, which is made up of fees developers pay for parks and recreation amenities. A resident committee worked with a professional designer on the proposal.
Keeping local riders from driving elsewhere was one goal. The other was protecting land. City officials said a designated facility would steer riding away from sensitive conservation areas where bike ruts and erosion had become a problem.
That history is why the wet-trail rule is more than a suggestion. The city asks riders to stay off the trails when they're wet and says trails may close during extended wet periods. The park exists partly to stop ruts from forming elsewhere, and it only keeps doing that job if riders don't rut the new trails while they're still settling in.
The final design is also smaller than the first plan. A 2025 preliminary proposal called for a three-mile entry-level trail and a 1.5-acre skills park, with a possible later phase on Flying Cloud Airport property that would have needed approval from the Metropolitan Airports Commission. By April 2026, the city said that airport land was not available for now. Other city sites were being discussed. HometownSource reported that the final design has more than two miles of trail and a bike playground of just over an acre.
Parking, hours and a plan for the first visit
The city says parking at the main Cedar Hills entrance is limited. The overflow lot is at the west entrance of Flying Cloud Fields, 9311 Mitchell Road, about a mile north. The new park is likely to be busiest on its first few weekends, so it helps to know about the overflow lot before you load up the car.
The bike park page doesn't list its own hours. Eden Prairie lists its city park hours as 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
A first visit with a mixed-ability group might go like this:
- Look at the sky and the forecast first. If it rained recently, wait.
- Park at the main entrance if there's room. If not, use the Flying Cloud Fields lot on Mitchell Road.
- Get everyone's helmet on at the car, and check bikes at the repair station near the lot.
- Warm up in the Bike Playground on the rollers, berms and rock tunnels.
- Move to the skills features, such as North Star, Loon Landing and The Tree Fort, before anyone heads onto the trails.
- Ride the beginner routes on the west side, following the one-way arrows.
- Let confident riders try the intermediate line in the Flow Zone, and leave the advanced sections for another day.
What the city hasn't said yet about winter
A 2026 project report listed a year-round connection to the outdoors as one of the park's goals. The city's posted rules mention snowshoers in the yield order, but they don't address fat biking, freeze-thaw closures, or where trail conditions will be posted. For now, the city's bike park page is the official source for updates. The wet-trail rule is the one to follow as November brings rain and the first freezes.
At Local Roots Real Estate, we like keeping track of new places like Cedar Hills, because a new bike park changes what a Saturday morning looks like in Eden Prairie. If you're curious how a new amenity like this fits into the neighborhood you live in or are considering, reach out for a free home valuation and neighborhood consultation. We're always happy to talk about trails.
