Weekend at Ray's

Last year's sabatical took me to Ray's MTB in Cleveland. This year I thought I'd check out their Milwaukee location, and I brought Erich along to peer pressure me into trying more stuff. 

This Ray's was much like the one in Cleveland- although more big box store, less industrial warehouse. It has a few XC skills sections- beginner, sport and expert, as well as a park/jump section all connected by XC 'trail' that runs through the whole place.

Here's the start of the Sport section:

 

Here's Erich reflecting on how rad he's just gotten at the finish of the Sport section:

 

 

The place is designed to allow you to challenge yourself without huge risk. Many of the most challenging lines have (relatively) safe bail out options. Don't get me wrong, you could definitely do some serious damage to yourself if you wanted to, but if you've got your noggin in the right place there's no reason you'd get hurt.

This time around I wanted to challenge myself to get my wheels off the ground. The Micro Rhythm section was perfect- a series of table top jumps long enough to work up a rhythm (eh? get it?), but not so long that it was intimidating or exhausting.

Here's a video of me riding this very section. My favorite part is the tiny child riding this better than me.