On page 41 of the latest issue, there’s a photo and blurb about Ray’s Indoor Mountain Bike Park. It’s a warehouse in Cleveland filled to the ceiling with pump tracks, jumps, skinnies, and even a little cross-country course, all protected from the gloomy Midwestern cold. In a word, SICK.
But the news about Ray’s has been out for a while, so I guess I shouldn’t feel bad about getting scooped.
I went out there in early February, ready to make some quantum leaps in skill. I had spent a lot of time daydreaming about the place and oogling the website (hmmm, does that count as work?), so I could form a plan of action. I primarily wanted to work on the pump track, which I knew would improve my racing. Using momentum to gain free speed — by pumping turns, dips, rollers and other trail features — could only make me faster and better (cue bionic woman music). But there was no reason to pass up the skinnies and jumps as well, since we had a night and two days to spend. Shazaam.
We flew in on a Friday (Hello, Cleveland!!), and when Ray’s opened at 5pm, we were there with our enormous bag of pads, pedals and helmets. We rented bikes, since flying with our own would have been cumbersome and expensive; plus crashing our own bikes seemed less appealing than crashing someone else’s.
Minutes later, on our Gary Fisher Mullets, we were railing along the cross-country course, trying to warm up and get an overview of the layout.
For starters, there’s the beginner room. An intelligent progression of skinnies starts with a simple 2 by 4 lying on the ground, and works its way into gentle curves and longer stretches. A rock garden and a log pile offer some realistic trail features, but the rest of the place is all man-made. Which is great: everything is built to be safe and bombproof.
After messing around in the beginner room for a while, we did another lap of the xc course and found the pump track. Sweet! I started on the more-forgiving outer loop while Rob tested himself on the tight and steeply banked inner loop. I gotta say, it’s easy to underestimate how anaerobic this stuff is. Two laps in and we were gasping; several laps later we were nearly revisiting our late lunch. Damn.
The goal of a pump track is to use body English in a similar way to pumping a swing. You push and pull the bike over the rollers and around the turns until you’re generating so much momentum that you no longer need to pedal. And through that experience, you learn that every dip in a regular trail is a chance to gain speed without turning your legs. And since a bermed turn is just a sideways hole in the ground, you pump those too. Fun! The sensation of flying around the track like a train on rails is hard to describe, but it’s something you might want to put on your to-do list.
You should also add knee/shin and elbow guards to that list. Dropping into the track yet again, I fell victim to the wicked understeer that can occur with dirt-jump bikes and their funky geometry. I went down hard, taking a handlebar to the gut with sickening speed. But the pads protected my other sensitive areas, and after walking funny for a few minutes, I shook it off and got back to it. No broken arm, no concrete rash. Bonus. Oh, and don’t take clipless pedals. Even though you may feel uncomfortable without your clipless (as did we at first), you’ll quickly come to appreciate the ability to eject instantly off the platform pedals.
We spent the next four hours trying everything we could: elevated skinnies with teeter-totters, jumps, berms, etc. The whole time, we chatted with other nice folks, who were surprised we traveled all the way there from Colorado. There were people of all ages and abilities, and no detectable attitude that I could see. Even the six guys doing 360s off the huge jumps looked mellow and friendly.
By the end of the weekend, Rob and Stuart had perfected the pump as well as made huge strides in their jumping ability. They looked a lot more comfortable and adept than when we arrived, which was impressive. Sadly for me, luck was not on my side. After herniating a disc in my back a year ago, I am prone to the occasional flare-up when I try challenging things on the bike. Saturday morning I somehow tweaked the sucker, bad. Then I spent the rest of the weekend in agony, compounded by the frustration of watching everyone else having a good time. By Sunday night, the pain was so crippling I had to ride through the airport in a wheelchair. Needless to say, this ranks as one of the worst mountain bike experiences of my life.
However, the power of Ray’s has not been tainted. I might take another trip there next winter, when my back will be stronger. In the meantime, I want to get a pump track built around here (besides the one at The Fix). If you’ve got a back yard to spare, let me know!
The National Trail in Phoeniz, Ariz.
