Ray's Indoor Mountain Bike Park

As promised, Grace and I took a trip to Ray's yesterday and met up with our friends Nate and Jen, and a few of their other friends as well.  Nate and I went through the Orthotics and Prosthetics program at EMU together, and he is doing his orthotics residency at Cleveland Clinic.  Since Ray's is also in Cleveland, Nate and Jen have been regulars there this year.

Ray's is in an old parachute factory that Ray Petro has converted into over 100,000 square feet of heated, indoor mountain bike riding.

This is the sport section, at a rare moment when there was nobody on any of the runs.  I am standing on the starting deck and there are about twelve different routes, not all of which can be seen in this picture.  There are some box jumps, teeter-tooters, logs, rocks, skinnies, flexible bridges, and more.  On the other side of the blue fence in the background is the expert section, which contains many of the same types of features, just taller, bigger, narrower, etc.

There is also a beginner room, which is actually a lot of fun for any level of rider.  And an added bonus is that it is usually not as busy as the other sections.  The cross country loop runs through the beginner room, so you can stop in for a few stunts, then finish up the XC loop.  The yellow blur is me getting ready to do a couple little drops.


Ed at Ray's Indoor Mountain Bike Park from Ed Brewer on Vimeo.

Here, Grace is about to roll into one of the boardwalks in the beginner room.  She was a little nervous about going to Ray's, but ended up riding a lot of different stunts and had a lot of fun.  She is already planning our next trip!  In the video below, keep your eyes out for the dog, which can be seen from 6 seconds to 9 seconds.


Grace at Ray's Indoor MTB Park from Ed Brewer on Vimeo.

She kept moving and sometimes was hard to get a picture of her.  I am on a route that goes up in the roof trusses, and that blurry streak on the right side is Grace about to ride the log crossing.

There is also a pump track; here Nate is coming off it after a few laps.  If you're not familiar with what a pump track is, check out the video below of Nate riding.  The idea is to pump the bike up and down over the waves, and no pedaling is needed.  You can get up quite a bit of speed once you get the hang of pumping.  And it is a tough workout; everyone that rode it agreed that two or three laps was enough at one time.

Nate at Ray's Indoor Mountain Bike Park from Ed Brewer on Vimeo.

Jen and Graham are taking a break on the pump track start/finish deck.  I never managed to get pictures of their other friends that were there; Fritz, Aaron, and Dennis.

After riding, we finished off the day with a bite to eat before driving 2 1/2 hours home.  Surprisingly, today I am not really sore.  A little tired, but otherwise feeling pretty good.