Words: Mike McFayden
Inside this very old and large industrial park in a section of Cleveland, OH, you come to terms with the true meaning of Americana. Buildings and industries that stand through the test of time, modest homes on a quiet street, hard working folks and a true blue collar way of life. However, for one man, a struggle has gone on throughout his life in this city not far from the hustle and bustle and the glitz of downtown lights. Ray Petro found himself at rock bottom one day and realized he had to make a change. A carpenter by trade, he took a space in an old industrial park that had the look and feel of a war zone and with a few pieces of wood, nails and lots of hard work and determination, built a mountain bike mecca that has the attention of an entire industry.
I Shouldn’t Be Here
Ray Petro is a modest guy with humble beginnings…almost tragic you may say. He never rode a bike during his 20’s opting for a very harmful lifestyle if you will. “In my 20’s I didn’t do any biking. I was more into the self destruction thing. So, I’m sitting in a bar, it’s 1995; I’m 29 years old, addicted to cocaine and Stoli and a guy comes into the bar with a mountain bike magazine. He’s in spandex, a bright jersey with a GT Zaskar and a new Manitou fork with those little rubber elastomers in ‘em. I look at the guy and he shows me this magazine and I say; I can’t believe you guys pay thousands of dollars for bicycles. I look at this guy as he keeps drinking and he rides his bike home from the bar drunk as a skunk. Needless to say that sparked my interest.” Looking back on things now, Ray was probably closer to death than most of us want to feel like so on April 1, 1995 after purchasing a bike one month prior, he attended his first AA meeting. Even on his first ride, he had to pick up some drugs on the way out to it and meet up with some riders. Even going to his meetings, Ray was not fully on the wagon yet. “I go for my first ride and on the way to meet these guys; I had to pick up some coke. So I picked up my drugs and sampled them and got a bit too wired so I stopped and bought a fifth of Stoli and waited for these guys to pick me up for my first mountain bike ride. I was starting to feel the effects of the booze so I snorted more coke to counter it and realized this was not the way to live.” Somehow, Ray needed to find that change to make things happen.
QUOTE: it’s 1995; I’m 29 years old, addicted to cocaine and Stoli
He began spending all of his extra money on bikes and parts at his local shop. He spent thousands of dollars just so he wouldn’t have to spend his money on drugs instead. A creative outlet some would say. He bought three bikes in three months and began to fall in love with something new and constructive. “I was riding my bike a ton and going to meetings and working enough to pay my bills and just tried to get my head wrapped around life without drugs. So I guess I changed addictions from drugs and drink to bikes.”
Mickey Helps Me Come Full Circle
Winters in Cleveland, OH are not for the weak. By Thanksgiving, it is either too cold to ride or there is snow covering the ground. Most of the people Ray rides with are family folks who have kids and do family holiday things during the Thanksgiving break. Ray wants to get out and ride seeing a perfect opportunity when everyone is home during the day and has actual time to spend riding bikes. Most have plans that don’t include him so he spends his holiday the only way he knows best. “I ended up getting drunk on Thanksgiving weekend. I disappeared from AA and my sponsor for three days and then I realized again that I can’t live like this, probably close to death again in one weekend. So I got back on the wagon and called my sponsor and went right back into meetings.” It was during this detox period that Ray reflected and focused his creative energy on something he knew could work. An indoor place to ride bicycles would be a big boost for the local and regional riders in the area during the cold winter months. It was the last time Ray saw the bottom of a bottle. He has been sober now for 12 years.
During the course of the following summer, Ray happened upon a local event in mid-Ohio called Mickey’s Mountain Bike Challenge. The Challenge is a 6 race series on Calvin Mickey’s farm near Hopedale, OH. “I did my first race there and I fell in love with racing; downhill, slalom, cross country. I go back and start buying as many bikes as I can since I am not buying drugs and booze anymore. So this place is born out of those fantastic summer months of racing at Mickey’s Mountain Bike Challenge.”
The Bail Out Clause
During the winters of no riding, he used to sit at home and make models of what he wanted his indoor park to look like. He envisioned a festival type of atmosphere, one where everybody is there to have a great time and ride their bikes with their friends. He also thought about the huge costs involved with making something like this actually happen. “I would take a box of dirt but dirt wasn’t working. I really didn’t know what it was going to be like.” He walked into this experiment in his first year with a vision, a bleak vision but a vision to make something everyone would want to be a part of. When he viewed the space, he was happy to find a facility large enough to hold his dream in, but a disaster to look at. The roof leaked; there was trash and debris everywhere from the previous tenant and an all-round feeling of darkness in the building. “The first year I had to spend all of my own money to get this place up and running. I put a ton of money into it from the start. I had purchased something like 800 light bulbs, 300 or 400 ballasts for the light fixtures, I had to have all the heaters serviced and then find out that half of them didn’t work anyway nor would they ever so I had to replace all of those. I spent close to $40,000 just to get the building in working order and that didn’t even include anything to ride on.”
QUOTE: I really didn’t know what it was going to be like
So finally he has a workable space and he’s patched up the roof to the best of his abilities and he now has a clean space with which to begin building. He brings in his friend Joe Prisel, a local ramp and trail builder (also a professional bike rider) to start on the construction of the ramps and trail work inside the warehouse. What he didn’t have yet was any extra money to fabricate Ray’s into a more stable operation. He was taking out loans and using his life savings and own hard work to build what you see today. He continued working his remodeling business to pay for all of the wood and supplies needed to make an indoor mountain bike park. “The only thing I did to procure any type of money was that I gave a buddy of mine who had just been laid off, I gave him a cell phone and told him to call the bike companies and ask them for banners so we could make this a festival type of atmosphere inside. Some companies laughed and others sent over banners out of pity. The sponsorship thing started working when people came in to check it out during the first season. My first sponsor was Tri-Flow and that was due to a friend in marketing at Tri-Flow (a Cleveland company owned by Sherwin Williams) who was able to secure us some money to build some stuff. GT and Mongoose were the first bike company sponsors because of their local rep in Cleveland named Dick Brink. He came in and absolutely loved the concept.” GT and Mongoose eventually joined Ray and sponsored the GT pipe park and foam pit area. They also sent him over some bikes to use as rentals for those that wanted to visit the park without their own bike. It wasn’t until Subaru visited the park that things finally became viable for him. “Because of Subaru, I was able to do this project (that’s what it was at that time) for another season. I actually had a bail-out agreement with the landlord that if this didn’t fly, I could leave at any time. I mean, this has never been done before and she said no problem, just sweep up and leave it a little better than when you got here and we’d be okay.” Thankfully for us he’s never had to exercise that clause in his contract.
The Dream Grows
Each year, the square footage adds up inside Ray’s MTB. He started with 66,000 square feet, and then bumped to 72,000, the next season to 88,000 and now is at 97,000 square feet of riding space and next year will be over 100,000 square feet adding in some small projects. “Next year we will redo the Fisher pump track, the Mongoose Expert section, the Moen Sport Course will become the Mountain Cycle Sport Course. We will add more climbs for the Gary Fisher XC Loop into the beginner room. For the BMX riders, we are adding a street style section with stuff to grind and try to get more BMX riders in here.” BMX riders are a small portion of his business but he continues to expand on terrain features to accommodate smaller bikes. He needs their extra dollars to continue to grow his business and branching out to other disciplines is what his sponsors would like to see him do anyway. BMX riders will hopefully make the transition into mountain biking and support their favorite brands. Even at the Red Bull BIKE event held in February, Aaron Ross and Taj Mihelich were on hand to compete in a mountain bike event. For those of you who don’t know these two, a simple web search will produce many sites with photos and stories of their status in the BMX world. “I’ve taken dozens of BMX riders out on the trails with me and stoked them out so much. Now they’ve gone out and purchased mountain bikes and realized a whole other world than the local dirt jumps with the views and exercise and all around good feel you get from riding your bike in the woods and in the mountains.”
He relies on the Founder’s Club of Ray’s MTB to help build and remodel the park in the off-season. These guys feel like they have some ownership of the place when they come in to build and see the results of their hard work bring smiles to everyone’s faces once finished. “I don’t need to do my remodeling work anymore and can focus on the park completely. We’ve grown over 200% in five years of being open.”
QUOTE: I feel totally blessed that the cycling gods chose me to run this
A Modest Man Achieves Legendary Status
As a child, Ray was always the chunky kid in school. He never felt like greatness would ever come his way. He stuttered and felt like he was the odd man out at all times. He’s grown to love the sport of cycling and can’t imagine that he has been able to provide the community and himself with such a gift. “I never take any credit for this place. I feel like I am just a funnel that the bike gods ran through. I’ve had so much help from so many people that I don’t like the attention of it all. It’s just not me. It feels natural for me to be humble. I think most of the success comes from the whole “Field Of Dreams” idea. An average guy, who is an average rider, has this idea and says screw it, let’s do it. I took my life savings and all my time, got some help and did it.” He gets emails and phone calls from all over the world of people who have seen his story on CNBC or the web and tell him that he has made them want to realize their own dreams. He’s inspired them to open up their own business or tackle their own achievements. “It’s really flattering but I could never take the credit for anything. I’m just Ray Petro.”
Something happened mentally when Ray was named as an IMBA epic ride in 2008. It put the icing on the cake of legitimacy and drove him to hold even his own self to a higher standard. IMBA epic rides are all mountain trails and areas; nothing indoors has ever made the list until now. He now has sponsors all over the park and continues to be approached to do bigger and better things. At the 2008 Sea Otter Classic, Ray will help Jeff Lenosky build a dual bike stunt race, which will attract many riders and fans alike. “I always said, that if I could make a living doing what I love, be able to pay my bills, I would have no need for an Escalade, just to keep a nice home on the west side of Cleveland which I have, I’ll be fine with that. I’m in a peculiar situation where my success has come later in life rather than at a young age.”
He believes that he will be able to cement his contribution to this sport if he can remain viable at Rays’ MTB. Red Bull calls on him to produce events that are unlike any others in the industry. Many companies hold special events to unveil their own new products there and he also hosts women’s only weekends for female riders to come out and ride with professional women and not feel intimidated by all the male testosterone in the building. “Without people, this is just a building with sticks of wood. When the whole thing with IMBA happened, I stopped considering this an experiment. I had to hire a bookkeeper, to do payroll and this has finally become a legitimate business. They say that if you can make it through the first three years you will be fine. Wouldn’t you know it they were right. The first three years were a true struggle. This season I started to have fun, figured out safety and what people liked to ride and figured out a real plan for it. I feel totally blessed that the cycling gods chose me to run this.”
Ray’s MTB is open from October to April and resides at 9801 Walford Ave. in the city of Cleveland. Find out more information and see a live webcam of the park at raysmtb.com
-MB
Quotes from a few attendees of the Red Bull BIKE Battle
Aaron Ross (A 21 year old professional BMX rider)
“I’ve been riding mountain bikes for 2 days. I’ve been to Ray’s once before on a BMX trip. First time here I was overwhelmed. Pieces of wood on the ground and you were supposed to ride on them. It’s just insane. This is a place where anybody can ride. There’s a track for just pumping around, people can bring their parents, absolutely anybody can ride here, and there are things for all skill levels.”
Ray Louder (A 35 year old from Delanco, NJ)
“This is my first time at Ray’s and I had heard so much about the park and read so much about it in magazines that I had to come out. Was somewhat intimidated about the size of the park and the skill level needed but found everything to be very user friendly. This place is unreal. Definitely worth piling up 15 to 20 people in a van and taking a road trip out here.”
Mike and Beck Adams (A father and a son who is 11 years old from Michigan)
“We come out as often as we can. Sometimes 2 or 3 times a month. This is our 20th trip. When Beck started coming he (Beck) could barely roll over many of the jumps and can now jump over the Red Bull box with ease on the outer wall.” Beck says, “I love the three drops in the expert section and hitting the expert jumps and the foam pit.”
Steven Bafus (A 20 year old professional mountain bike rider)
“This is my second time to Ray’s. The first time I couldn’t believe the size of it and the creativity that’s gone into this building. I loved the Moen sport course and its various lines. My favorite section is the smaller jump line going into the Red Bull Berm. It is really fun here and I would recommend a trip to Cleveland during the winter to ride at Ray’s for anybody of any skill level.”
Full face helmet guy (A 50 year old bicycle enthusiast from PA)
“This is my second time coming here. I drove in from a town that is 200 miles away. Saw an article about the place in a magazine. I was frightened the first time coming out because it looked really technical and more than I might be able to handle with this bike. After a few runs I learned to relax and find most of the trails easier and more fun to ride. Anybody who likes bicycles should see this place and come have fun. I’ve now ridden ten hours and I’m still not the least bit bored.”
This article originally appeared in the May/08 issue of Mt.Biking Magazine.
