Noah and I have been wanting to check out this Ray's Indoor MTB park phenomenon for a while now and I promised the boy that I'd take him this year. Well, thanks to Andy Devault and a few others who made it possible, we finally got our chance over the first weekend in February.
I picked Noah up from school on friday around lunchtime to give him time fto finish his spelling test. the rest of the regional crew ( Merritt, garlic, Andy devault, jeff, stephen luke, john pig, and Braggi) left the night before and were probably getting pretty close to Ray's by the time we started out of NC. After a few hours of driving, noah and i stopped in charleston, WV for a sledding break and played for about an hour before getting back on the road. we pulled into rays parking lot at about 9:45 friday night, just in time to fill out the waivers.
The sledding break in WV.
We met up with the NC/VA crew at a quaint little Italian eatery and shared a piece of cheesecake while we listened to the earlybird group talk about the riding that day. we finally made our way to the hotel and stayed up way too late watching comedy central with Jeff and Brad (Garlic).
i think we started riding at about 11-ish on saturday and we rode non-stop, minus an hour for dinner, until 10. i was beat by about 8 and i wanted to leave but noah wouldn't have it....he did 6 laps of the xc course just for kicks after dinner while i vegged out by the fire. the kid was a machine!
merritt, andy, garlic, braggi, jeff and the nc/va crew were tearing it up all day while noah and i sessioned some flowy lines and eventually made our way to the foam pit.
jeff was hitting up the subaru street park
i remembered that i suck at park
and by the way, if you've never been, Ray's has the ski lodge feel once inside; plenty of warm fires to relax beside and domino's pizza is just a short delivery wait away.
noah and garlic took a break.
noah worked the expert jump line a bit...
then dialed in the small jump line
...then worked on some skinnies on the little bike (he didn't want anything to do with his mtb)
and mastered the step-up in the beginner room
next we tried out the foam pit.
noah's first attempt
and by the third attempt the hand came up....
and then came the 180
and even my fat butt dialed in the 360...now i just need to clean it on dirt
thanks to andy and stephen luke for getting me to go finally. i've never been anywhere that i can ride for 15 out of 28 hours and not get bored!
i owe a great debt of gratitude to these guys because not only did they make it possible for me to get to ray's but they also treated me to snowshoe for the first time in October 2008. these guys epitomize true ambassadors to the sport and really awesome friends to boot.
So that's my Ray's write up on about 4 hours of sleep from having to work too late last night. I highly recommend Ray's to any mountain biker of any skill level. There is zero attitude and only good vibes coming from that place. Major thumbs up to Ray for making such a rad place to visit and ride
...and of course, the video.
I picked Noah up from school on friday around lunchtime to give him time fto finish his spelling test. the rest of the regional crew ( Merritt, garlic, Andy devault, jeff, stephen luke, john pig, and Braggi) left the night before and were probably getting pretty close to Ray's by the time we started out of NC. After a few hours of driving, noah and i stopped in charleston, WV for a sledding break and played for about an hour before getting back on the road. we pulled into rays parking lot at about 9:45 friday night, just in time to fill out the waivers.
The sledding break in WV.
We met up with the NC/VA crew at a quaint little Italian eatery and shared a piece of cheesecake while we listened to the earlybird group talk about the riding that day. we finally made our way to the hotel and stayed up way too late watching comedy central with Jeff and Brad (Garlic).
i think we started riding at about 11-ish on saturday and we rode non-stop, minus an hour for dinner, until 10. i was beat by about 8 and i wanted to leave but noah wouldn't have it....he did 6 laps of the xc course just for kicks after dinner while i vegged out by the fire. the kid was a machine!
merritt, andy, garlic, braggi, jeff and the nc/va crew were tearing it up all day while noah and i sessioned some flowy lines and eventually made our way to the foam pit.
jeff was hitting up the subaru street park
i remembered that i suck at park
and by the way, if you've never been, Ray's has the ski lodge feel once inside; plenty of warm fires to relax beside and domino's pizza is just a short delivery wait away.
noah and garlic took a break.
noah worked the expert jump line a bit...
then dialed in the small jump line
...then worked on some skinnies on the little bike (he didn't want anything to do with his mtb)
and mastered the step-up in the beginner room
next we tried out the foam pit.
noah's first attempt
and by the third attempt the hand came up....
and then came the 180
and even my fat butt dialed in the 360...now i just need to clean it on dirt
thanks to andy and stephen luke for getting me to go finally. i've never been anywhere that i can ride for 15 out of 28 hours and not get bored!
i owe a great debt of gratitude to these guys because not only did they make it possible for me to get to ray's but they also treated me to snowshoe for the first time in October 2008. these guys epitomize true ambassadors to the sport and really awesome friends to boot.
So that's my Ray's write up on about 4 hours of sleep from having to work too late last night. I highly recommend Ray's to any mountain biker of any skill level. There is zero attitude and only good vibes coming from that place. Major thumbs up to Ray for making such a rad place to visit and ride
...and of course, the video.
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