THROWBACK THURSDAY: INDOOR RACING AT RAY’S MTB

It was 16 years ago this month that the MBA staff flew to Cleveland, Ohio, to check out the indoor mountain bike park known as Ray’s MTB. The park’s creator, Ray Petro, had invited some of the top women racers in North America to come and compete in a time-trial race that was held on the hand-built trails inside the former parachute factory which Ray and his friends had converted into an indoor mountain biking facility. The MBA staff was blown away by how much fun it was to ride there, thanks to all the features that Ray and his fellow workers had built there. Catharine Pendrel (above, in the Luna jersey) was one of the racers who was invited to race at Ray’s that weekend. Catharine would go on to win two Elite Women’s XCO World Championships in the coming years, but she didn’t win this weekend. It was fellow Canadian Emily Batty who scored the win.

Emily would go on to become one of the most popular racers in the mountain bike world, and she would also take two third place medals in the UCI’s Elite Women’s XCO World Championships in the years that followed. Emily never did beat Catharine Pendrel for the win in the World Championships, but on this weekend in January of 2009 at Ray’s MTB, Emily Batty was the one who was unbeatable.

Emily Batty (center) took first place in the Ray’s time-trial race. Judy Freeman (far left) took second, and Catharine Pendrel (second from left) took third. Lindsey Bishop (fourth from left) and Melissa Thomas (far right) took fourth and fifth. Try-Flow, a Cleveland-based lubricant company, put up lion’s share of the purse money for the event.