Over the past seven years, Ray’s MTB, an indoor BMX and mountain bike park, has become an oasis from Northeast Ohio winters. Located off West Boulevard in Cleveland, the expansive warehouse-turned-weekend warrior and dirt jumper haven has attracted youth and adults alike.

As another season comes to an end, Ray’s MTB, which is the vision of local bike enthusiast Ray Petro, has booked its first-ever inaugural Raffle Jam on Sat 4/30 and Sun 5/1, a customer appreciation event of sorts. CoolCleveland talked to Ray’s MTB Assistant Manager Jeff Genzen about the unique event and the facility’s popularity in the community.

CoolCleveland: Let’s start out talking about Raffle Jam. What exactly is the event?

Jeff Genzen: We have not done it before. Basically what we’re doing is we have a bunch of our sponsors kicking in prizes, and we’re going to be having a raffle April 30 and May 1. It’s kind of an excuse to have a party on the last weekend we’re open. We just wanted to do something to get a lot of the customers excited. Especially the BMX kids to give them a reason to come. We wanted to do an event aimed more specifically at them instead of just like an average week where’s it’s more adult-centered. But we’re still going to have stuff for everybody. It doesn’t matter what kind of bike you ride.

In a nutshell, what is Ray’s MTB?

It’s an indoor mountain bike park. If you’re into riding bikes – BMX, mountain bikes, jumping, cross-country – it’s somewhere you can ride indoors during the winter and escape the bad weather. It was the first of its kind, and normally we’re open October through April.

Using a skating analogy, Ray’s MTB with its street, expert, jump and grind areas seems like a place Tony Hawk would create to test his talents.

That was kind of the initial motivation but Ray has tried to cater the design more for all ability levels whereas with something like Tony Hawk, who is the best of the best, you could have things where you have to be an expert level or above to ride. That’s not what Ray is trying to do. He’s not trying to set the bar so high that only expert riders can come ride it. He’s trying to set it up so anybody can come ride it. If you can ride a bike, you can come out and start and work your way up and build up your skills. You can kind of progress, that way you don’t have to be like an expert rider walking in the door the first time.

Ray’s MTB also seems like it could be providing a community service giving kids something to do with their time during the offseason.

Sure, but that’s not the primary intention. It’s not like other times when you go to skateparks or similar facilities and it’ll be dominantly teenagers. There’s definitely a lot of that here, but there’s a lot of adults. The majority of customers are adults. Now as long as the kids can act reasonably adult, yeah, it’s an outlet. It’s something positive for them to get into where they’re not out doing stupid stuff.

Finally, are some folks surprised to learn that Ray’s MTB attracts more adults than youths?

Maybe initially but I mean at this stage the majority is adults. Especially on the enthusiast side, enough people have been out here to get an impression of it and at this point kind of know what to expect. But yeah, it’s definitely all ages, all types of bikes are welcome and it’s an outlet for whoever would fall in that group.

Raffle Jam takes place from noon to 10PM on Sat 4/30 and Sun 5/1 @ Ray’s MTB (located off West Boulevard in Walford Industrial Plaza), 9801 Walford Ave., Cleveland. It’s $24 adult/$12 child each day. Waiver required by each rider. Bike rentals (and safety gear) available for rent. Call 216-631-7433 or visit http://RaysMTB.com.

Freelance writer John Benson spends most of his time writing for various papers throughout Northeast Ohio.

When he’s not writing about music or entertainment, he can be found coaching his two boys in basketball, football and baseball or watching movies with his lovely wife, Maria. John also occasionally writes for CoolCleveland.com

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