There is a ghost at Vulture’s Knob. It will always be there, even after the sounds of mountain bike tires slipping up the slatey climbs and roaring down the rutted clay descents exist only in the memories of countless riders who became the life of the place over the four decades of its existence.
They’re part of the ghost. The racers, and the drinkers with riding problems, and the people who found mountain biking helped ease the pain of whatever they were fighting through, and the people who just rode because they loved to ride mountain bikes. They rode the original gnar, scratched and scraped into a few steep ravines in the Killbuck Valley in north central Ohio (a few of which functioned as trash dumps for ancient owners of the place).
And there have been many owners and race promoters and groups of people who tried to make the place go. They are the true ghosts. The people who actually owned and paid taxes on the land and allowed anyone to ride to their desire on some of the oldest and nastiest trails you’ll find anywhere. Yes, anywhere. In Ohio.
No, VK wasn’t Squamish or Doctor Park or Soquel Demo Forest or Bennett Gap or the Golfie or someplace in the Alps. But the first lap always hit you hard no matter who you were. And you rode the second lap and it felt better. You stopped there because in a small way, you survived. Now it was time for a beer with your buddies.
Legend has it that the ghost stole all the signs on that last weekend VK was open. They disappeared. Then reappeared when the recent caretakers of the place protested that the signs were theirs, to be placed on a new property where the Knob would be resurrected.
But everybody knows you have to die to be resurrected. And ghosts never really die.
The ghost got Phat Jay a few years ago. He was taken out on a stretcher. Nearly broke his neck. On another night, his Groovy Cycles custom-built , sweeter than any bike you have ever known, got stolen there during a late night event. Never to be recovered. It’s fitting, I guess, that he ate shit again on our final ride, got back up and kept riding. But the ghost had already exacted its toll. Really, on Jay’s heart. He was one of the pioneers of Vulture’s Knob, one of those people in the early days of mountain biking who were hucking shit on flat bars and 26 inch wheels, and volunteering their time to create a place where people could ride and not have to worry about all of the rules.
And Weeze, too. An untraceable, ghostly figure who’s ridden everywhere. He’s already created the Son of the Knob, though, on the other side of the valley, and the descent is as fast and loamy and loose as anything at the Knob.
Of course, Vulture’s Knob was always too good to be true. It was private property. Somebody owned it and paid the bills. They allowed us to ride it in the benevolent spirit of brotherhood, I guess.
Somebody bought it a few weeks ago, and I guess they don’t understand. It’s ok. But part of the ghost is wondering what I could’ve done to help keep the place open. And that’s not ok.
Vulture’s Knob was a place that we visited less and less frequently over the years when the metro parks and Cuyahoga Valley National Park realized that people wanted to ride bicycles in the woods, on trails heavily financed and machine-built to last the ages. No doubt, we have good times at the East Rim Trails, the first purpose built mountain bike trails in a National Park.
But evenings at VK were something different. There will never be anything quite like seeing the sunset in your rear view mirror as you drive back out the dusty road, knowing you just shared something you really love, with people who do too.
You stopped that one night. Got out of your car. Maybe a little boozy, but good enough to check out the sunset. Take it all in. Pause.
It was cool.
Travels with Pops 