Ray's

Hey ya’ll, sorry for the delay on the shred report but man life is hectic! I am still trying to sort out all the details of this crash so I can be done with it both mentally and financially, not to mention all the other bike related things I’m trying to sort out prior to the spring thaw! This summer is looking to be pretty busy as well. I’m hoping to bang out the Lexington build/rebuild in 1 long weekend and then just have maintenance to deal with at that park. I will also be working with Tim Wegner to rebuild the jump line and build a pump track in Maple Plain, so there will be a small bike park on the west side of the cities. Last but not least, still working out the details on the Cottage Grove bike park and if that one goes through it will be the largest and most all inclusive riding area in the metro! More details to come when we get thing finalized. Oh and I forgot, as I’m not directly involved in this one other than being on the MORC board, Elm Creek is applying for the Bell Helmet/IMBA grant to get a bike park built at the trail head. Oh and Cuyuna has also secured a good amount of funding and a Lee McCormick design fort there bike park! Oh and I heard a rumor that Duluth is looking to add a bike park this summer as well! Ha, so crazy MN went from the land of no bike parks! I get one built and bam this phenomenon explodes across the state! Who’s next? Mankato? St. Cloud? Grand Rapids? Who knows?!?

Anyways on to the shred report, so Trevor and I left my hours about 645am on Friday headed east to Milwaukee and Ray’s Indoor Mountain Bike Park. The drive went super smooth and we got there bout 1215pm. We made a quick stop at Wendy’s for some value menu lunch and off to Ray’s. When we go there we were met with a surprise. The day we chose to go ride was the Wisconsin Bike Federation Winter Carnival! Yeah we got worried we drove all that way and weren’t going to get to ride and then they told us we could ride but we had to join the Federation and that was $35 bucks. We weren’t so excited about that but if they would have just explained the whole thing instead of just lighting the fuse and dropping the bomb on us we would have jumped all over it without having to speak to the manager. The manager came out told us by joining today we would get 10 drink/food tickets, get to ride today till 5pm and a free pass for another day. It actually turned out to be a great deal! We got to meet a bunch of cool people, ride, watch a stunt demo show and drink 3 glasses of premium Wisconsin brew, all for $35! Oh and now Trevor and I are official WI bikers, haha! It’s all good!

When we finally got to riding it was a bit confusing and overwhelming at first but we soon go the hang of it and got right to shredding. We started with a quick lap around the XC loop, followed by a stint at the pump track and then the Sports skills section. I couldn’t believe how fast that pump track was! It was fun putting on a show for some of the people that didn’t have a clue how to ride one, gave a few pointers out and then we continued on our way. After a few runs on the sport section Trevor figured out how to get to the big jump line and we spent much of the afternoon sessioning the jumps! They were a blast but you really had to be on to flow the whole thing. I would say it took me almost 2 hours to finally cleaning run through the 3 main jump lines. The 4^th jump line had an awkward blind hip in and after two pretty good crashes trying to air that hip out I said screw it and went into the Park area. Trevor had that line pretty dialed by the end of the day.

The park was a great time. I realized what I had been missing out on since I stopped riding skate parks at 17.  Met one of the workers that was off duty, his name slips my mind right now but he was fun to ride with. He was a ripper and had some good pointers. After a handful of tries I landed my first 360 to deck! It felt so great; I did it 2 more times! Then I had to make a trip to the truing stand where Trevor had to true my rear wheel! We rode for another hour or so but by 5pm we were absolutely shot! Maybe we could have rode more had we taken a couple hour break went and got food and came back but it was great ride! We finished off the day at Ray’s drinking good beer watching some rippers tear up the park!

The extra bonus of the location of Ray’s is that my uncle only lives 10 miles away in this sweet little town of Cedarburg. I called him up a couple weeks prior and asked if we could stay there and of course we could! We headed to Cedarburg to meet up and he took us out to this killer pizza joint. It was this little dive bar that made kill deep dish! It was so good! After dinner it was some hanging out and chatting and then passing out as fast as my head hit the pillow! I was wiped out!

In the morning we loaded up the car, thanked my uncle for his hospitality and headed to Rays. We could tell right away that we rode hard the day before. The muscles a little sore and the hands slightly raw! We shredded for about 4 hours with my buddy Brian from St. Cloud. It was great seeing him and his wife up there. It’s always fun to ride with Brian he is such a good technical rider! I learned a few things that I will have to work on this summer that will definitely take my riding to the next level!

After absolutely blowing out my leg muscles with 4 hours of straight killing it, it was time to call it a day for me. Trevor rode for another 20 minutes while I chatted with Brian’s wife Jenna. When we left we went to this little Irish Pub near the freeway and had some killer burgers and some good Irish brews and hit the road!

Over all it was a rad weekend and I can’t wait to get back there. Hopefully 1 more time before spring comes but either way Trevor and I both agreed that we will be hitting the street and park riding hard when spring comes, especially during that time when the roads are clear but the trails are still closed!

Good times! If you haven’t been there you need to get to Ray’s, even better we need one here in the metro!

Keep it real!