After the holiday buzz has subsided and the craziness of Black Friday melts morphs into Cyber Monday, Tuesday has started garnering a higher meaning. For the past five years or so, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving has become known as Giving Tuesday. While not as popular as the consumer free for alls known as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday can help to offset those consumerist holidays and make the world just a little bit better.
There are plenty of worthy causes for your hard earned dollar this year, but if you’re looking for something a little closer to home, you should check out the #RideForRay fundraiser. As you might have already heard, Ray’s MTB founder Ray Petro had a bad crash on some of his home trails in Cleveland and faces a long road to recovery. The crash left him with two broken vertebrae (C5 and C6), and paralysis from the neck down. The good news is that he’s already starting to regain some feeling in his extremities, but it seems he has a long, tough fight ahead of him.
Ray has done so much for the mountain bike community from creating one of the world’s best indoor mountain bike parks, to helping build, design, and maintain public trails from Ohio to Florida. The scariest part of it all is that by the sounds of it, it was one of those silly little crashes that could happen to anyone. Not only is Ray a pillar of the MTB community, but he’s also a genuinely nice guy and is completely deserving of our help. If you want to donate directly to Ray, a GoFundMe page has been set up in his name.
Additionally, Jeff Lenosky has teamed up with Metro Printing USA to create a #RideForRay T-Shirt with all of the profits going directly to Ray’s recovery. Available in adult or youth sizing, both shirts sell for $27 and include shipping.
Heal up quick, Ray! We’ll see you back at Ray’s MTB before you know it.
