I figured I'd get a thread going here, even though other Jackalopes are in posession of the pics... I've got some nice video, it's downloaded to my laptop but I still gotta edit the footage. In the meantime I'll post my review of a kickass weekend 
A few weeks ago, Instigator, stuntmatty and greasey monkey decided to try to sneak over to Cleveland to ride Ray's MTB Indoor Park without telling anyone else. Fortunately the JBI (Jackalope Bureau of Investigation) learned of their sinister plan to bogart all the kickass stunts for themselves, and a full scale assault was sucessfully implemented.
The first wave of Jackalopes arrived in Cleveland on Friday night to perform the necessary preparation for the next morning's attack. Included were Gee Spot, Mtbkngrl, Tweek, kettenring, Echo, TreeSaw, and Sq-earl. Unfortunately due to Gee Spot's birthday, much more time was spend consuming alcohol than actual battle preparation. However due to TreeSaw's pancakes and bacon, the troops were ready to go in the morning as planned.
We arrived at Ray's after some driving around aimlessly trying to figure out what road leads to the smokestack. Fortunately it had snowed, so there was a path plowed that led right to Ray's front door. If not for that we would probably still be driving around in that huge industrial complex. When we pulled up, there was a truck there that looked just like Instigator's. BLAST! We had been beaten! As it turned out though, it was not Instigator's truck after all, so we proceeded inside to fill out our waivers, pay our (very reasonable) admission fees, and scope the place out.
My first impression was, man this place is huge! And there are tons of stunts here! Then I walked a little further and saw that it was about 3 times as big as I first thought! At that point, all brain activity ceased except for the basic functions of putting on gear and climbing on my bike.
The first thing I saw when I rode onto the main floor was the Outer Loop, with a funky bridge thing followed by a big berm. My legs didn't even wait for me to decide what I wanted to ride first, they just started cranking towards that berm. After blasting around the berm, I saw a nice little step-up tabletop. Fortunately I had hauled ass around the berm so I had plenty of speed for the step-up. After that was a sweet tabletop, which I wasn't going nearly fast enough to clear. Then the low-high kicker corner jump thingy, followed by 3 huge tabletops. Man this was kicking ass, and I hadn't even found a stunt yet!
I used the 3 round tabletops to get back to the front area, and realized that being in XC shape didn't mean squat here, I was already out of breath. I decided to do a run through the beginner course, since I didn't even remember what it felt like to have my tires on a stunt. By this time there were Trailblazers jerseys all over the place, it was pretty funny. I zipped through the beginner loop and decided it was exactly that, fun but not for me. Luckily the beginner loop ends right at the start of the sport loop, so I didn't need to use my brain.
I hammered into the sport loop, and found that this was much cooler. Wooden berms, the bridges got a little skinnier and higher, the corners got a little tighter, and there were little obstacles starting to pop up like teeters and off camber stuff. That sport course was a blast! Just techy enough to be challenging, some nice optional stuff, and MAD FLOW. I knew I would be spending a lot of time there.
The sport course ends right at the beginning of the expert course, so once again I was spared the hassle of activating my brain for what to do next. I did several runs of the 5 rounded tabletops with the big vert wall berm thing in the middle. Eventually this turned into a "highmarking" situation, and I think pretty much everyone got above the Ray's logo and past vertical. Those jumps were sweet, and I knew I would be spending a lot of time there too.
At that point I noticed that Tweek and Sq-earl were on the stunt section of the expert course, and tearing it up. I knew most of the expert stunts were beyond my ability, but I gave some of them a try anyway. Did the double teeter which was awesome, the little "moving cart" thing, the spinning bridge, and the highest bridge in the place which went to 3 different sized drops. I knew Tweek, Sq-earl, stuntmatty and Instigator would be spending a lot of time on the expert section. Every time I looked over there one of those guys was balancing on some little peice of wood that was barely wider than their tires.
Around lunchtime, the rest of the crew rolled in, with horror stories of a closed highway and a 2 hour detour from hell. But their spirits would soon be raised by the beauty of 71,000 square feet of stunts and jumps. Arriving in the second attack wave were Instigator, stuntmatty, greasey monkey, Sorgie, Alex, Crashby, and Squid. I thought there were a lot of Trailblazers jerseys earlier, well now it was just getting rediculous.
Everyone was ripping stuff up, and it seemed like every time I stopped riding long enough to look around someone was doing something that was pushing the limits of their abilities. Eventually the tired muscles became too much to bear and we headed back to the hotels for some much needed showering, food, beer, bourbon, and Gee Spot's birthday cake.
Sunday morning arrived, and enough coffee, pancakes, bacon, and Advil were consumed to make another attack run. Everyone was well warmed up and confident from the day before, and more people started hitting the expert stuff. Gee Spot and Mtbkngrl in particular spent a lot of time over there on Sunday. TreeSaw somehow went from being afraid of everything to cleaning the sport course, which caused me to have to activate my brain to try and figure out how that could have happened. Everyone was kicking ass all over the place.
Despite the seemingly huge number of opportunities to stack in that place, there were almost no incidents. Tweek managed to impale his boys on his stem while jackhammering through a rock garden, and I managed to lose my chain (damn singlulator) hammering towards a jump, and greasey monkey had a few entertaining bails on the higher hip jump, but thankfully there were no serious incidents.
One time I was following Squid through the jumps (at an admittedly unsafe distance) and some asshat stopped on top of one table, causing Squid to stop and me to almost eat concrete, that was scary. But overall it seemed like the excellent flow of the place keeps rider interference to a minimum. Much better than any skatepark I've seen.
Overall Ray's gets like 30 thumbs up. Ray is a cool dude who can be seen out on the floor representing on the stunts with the best of the riders in the place, and the next minute he's behind the counter talking business like a pro. With a dedicated smart guy like Ray running that place, it looks like a bright future.
Now let's get some pics in here Jackalopes! Warning: any attempts to derail this thread will be moderated. Deal.
A few weeks ago, Instigator, stuntmatty and greasey monkey decided to try to sneak over to Cleveland to ride Ray's MTB Indoor Park without telling anyone else. Fortunately the JBI (Jackalope Bureau of Investigation) learned of their sinister plan to bogart all the kickass stunts for themselves, and a full scale assault was sucessfully implemented.
The first wave of Jackalopes arrived in Cleveland on Friday night to perform the necessary preparation for the next morning's attack. Included were Gee Spot, Mtbkngrl, Tweek, kettenring, Echo, TreeSaw, and Sq-earl. Unfortunately due to Gee Spot's birthday, much more time was spend consuming alcohol than actual battle preparation. However due to TreeSaw's pancakes and bacon, the troops were ready to go in the morning as planned.
We arrived at Ray's after some driving around aimlessly trying to figure out what road leads to the smokestack. Fortunately it had snowed, so there was a path plowed that led right to Ray's front door. If not for that we would probably still be driving around in that huge industrial complex. When we pulled up, there was a truck there that looked just like Instigator's. BLAST! We had been beaten! As it turned out though, it was not Instigator's truck after all, so we proceeded inside to fill out our waivers, pay our (very reasonable) admission fees, and scope the place out.
My first impression was, man this place is huge! And there are tons of stunts here! Then I walked a little further and saw that it was about 3 times as big as I first thought! At that point, all brain activity ceased except for the basic functions of putting on gear and climbing on my bike.
The first thing I saw when I rode onto the main floor was the Outer Loop, with a funky bridge thing followed by a big berm. My legs didn't even wait for me to decide what I wanted to ride first, they just started cranking towards that berm. After blasting around the berm, I saw a nice little step-up tabletop. Fortunately I had hauled ass around the berm so I had plenty of speed for the step-up. After that was a sweet tabletop, which I wasn't going nearly fast enough to clear. Then the low-high kicker corner jump thingy, followed by 3 huge tabletops. Man this was kicking ass, and I hadn't even found a stunt yet!
I used the 3 round tabletops to get back to the front area, and realized that being in XC shape didn't mean squat here, I was already out of breath. I decided to do a run through the beginner course, since I didn't even remember what it felt like to have my tires on a stunt. By this time there were Trailblazers jerseys all over the place, it was pretty funny. I zipped through the beginner loop and decided it was exactly that, fun but not for me. Luckily the beginner loop ends right at the start of the sport loop, so I didn't need to use my brain.
I hammered into the sport loop, and found that this was much cooler. Wooden berms, the bridges got a little skinnier and higher, the corners got a little tighter, and there were little obstacles starting to pop up like teeters and off camber stuff. That sport course was a blast! Just techy enough to be challenging, some nice optional stuff, and MAD FLOW. I knew I would be spending a lot of time there.
The sport course ends right at the beginning of the expert course, so once again I was spared the hassle of activating my brain for what to do next. I did several runs of the 5 rounded tabletops with the big vert wall berm thing in the middle. Eventually this turned into a "highmarking" situation, and I think pretty much everyone got above the Ray's logo and past vertical. Those jumps were sweet, and I knew I would be spending a lot of time there too.
At that point I noticed that Tweek and Sq-earl were on the stunt section of the expert course, and tearing it up. I knew most of the expert stunts were beyond my ability, but I gave some of them a try anyway. Did the double teeter which was awesome, the little "moving cart" thing, the spinning bridge, and the highest bridge in the place which went to 3 different sized drops. I knew Tweek, Sq-earl, stuntmatty and Instigator would be spending a lot of time on the expert section. Every time I looked over there one of those guys was balancing on some little peice of wood that was barely wider than their tires.
Around lunchtime, the rest of the crew rolled in, with horror stories of a closed highway and a 2 hour detour from hell. But their spirits would soon be raised by the beauty of 71,000 square feet of stunts and jumps. Arriving in the second attack wave were Instigator, stuntmatty, greasey monkey, Sorgie, Alex, Crashby, and Squid. I thought there were a lot of Trailblazers jerseys earlier, well now it was just getting rediculous.
Everyone was ripping stuff up, and it seemed like every time I stopped riding long enough to look around someone was doing something that was pushing the limits of their abilities. Eventually the tired muscles became too much to bear and we headed back to the hotels for some much needed showering, food, beer, bourbon, and Gee Spot's birthday cake.
Sunday morning arrived, and enough coffee, pancakes, bacon, and Advil were consumed to make another attack run. Everyone was well warmed up and confident from the day before, and more people started hitting the expert stuff. Gee Spot and Mtbkngrl in particular spent a lot of time over there on Sunday. TreeSaw somehow went from being afraid of everything to cleaning the sport course, which caused me to have to activate my brain to try and figure out how that could have happened. Everyone was kicking ass all over the place.
Despite the seemingly huge number of opportunities to stack in that place, there were almost no incidents. Tweek managed to impale his boys on his stem while jackhammering through a rock garden, and I managed to lose my chain (damn singlulator) hammering towards a jump, and greasey monkey had a few entertaining bails on the higher hip jump, but thankfully there were no serious incidents.
One time I was following Squid through the jumps (at an admittedly unsafe distance) and some asshat stopped on top of one table, causing Squid to stop and me to almost eat concrete, that was scary. But overall it seemed like the excellent flow of the place keeps rider interference to a minimum. Much better than any skatepark I've seen.
Overall Ray's gets like 30 thumbs up. Ray is a cool dude who can be seen out on the floor representing on the stunts with the best of the riders in the place, and the next minute he's behind the counter talking business like a pro. With a dedicated smart guy like Ray running that place, it looks like a bright future.
Now let's get some pics in here Jackalopes! Warning: any attempts to derail this thread will be moderated. Deal.
: 
neaky: 
![=[Stinky]=](/data/avatars/m/0/414.jpg?1000521489){kind=avatar}
