Event Format

Bristol Rat Race is running as the original Weekender event.

Saturday Evening: Mean Streets

The Mean Streets kicks off at around 5pm and involves 3 hours of checkpoint hunting in the city centre by running and walking. You will have been given a map of the city at Registration and at the end of the briefing you will have also been issued your checkpoint descriptions card and have marked up your map. The Start is now upon you and you will join hundreds of other competitors on the Start line. From here, the “course” is up to you – from the Starters’ gun, you will visit as many checkpoints as you can in a 3 hour period, navigating your way. Each checkpoint (CP) is awarded a different points value and the values of these CPs are the last part of the puzzle. You will not actually receive the info on CP values until AFTER the event has started! It’s actually immediately after in fact you will dart out of the Start line and grab a “give-out” sheet which has the CP values on them. Some are high value and some are not; some far away and some close at hand. Some are “activity” CPs – which means you will encounter some adrenalin, adventure or bizarre activity there. Approximately half of the CPs have activities. It’s up to the team exactly where you go and which CPs you attempt to get to. Go as fast or as slow as you like and enjoy the great views of the city, the camaraderie with other teams and possibly from time to time, enjoy being lost! You might experience some physical challenges, you might get wet, you might go underground, you might go into buildings, you might do some parkour, you might have to solve a mental problem and you might even have to do something fairly strange. But whatever you do and wherever you go, you will see some famous places, some hidden places, some special places and lots and lots of people. After all, it’s Saturday evening and you are on the loose in a busy city! Enjoy rubbing shoulders with the public, but respect the environment you are in and be responsible at all times. 

When the 3 hours period is nearly up, you must make your way back to the village to ensure you do not get back too late, as escalating points penalties will be inflicted if you are. The idea is to use team tactics, route choice and the values of the CPs to steer you around the Mean Streets and get back to Rat base with as many points as you can. The winner of the Mean Streets will have the most points. Simple as that. For adventure competitors, we will use our results ratification-izer-ation-formula to turn this points score into time and this will be added onto your time from the next day’s adventure…
For more info on pricing for Mean Streets events, check out the pricing page HERE.

Sunday All Day: Adventure Event

OK, so you have conquered the Mean Streets. Now it’s time to turn up the heat for the Rat Race Adventure course. This is where we introduce ropes, boats and bikes and much much more as you foray further into (or out of) the city and possibly further still.

It all starts on Saturday night, actually. When you are back from the Mean Streets, you get ANOTHER route material – the route book. DO NOT LOSE IT. Your team will only get one and we do not have many spares. This is your Bible for the Sunday route; just like with the CP descriptions and the give-out sheet for the Mean Streets, you will use this route book alongside your map throughout the Sunday event. But it will not guide you like a Saharan nomad; you’ll have to use it to prepare your route and plot the CPs on your map yourselves. This is all part of the challenge – navigation is a core component of the Rat Race. But it’s not one to be feared. It’s fun. You are in a city. How wrong can you go!!?? Ensure your maps are marked up in plenty of time for the start of the event at 0730 on Sunday. Turn up with plenty of time, prepare your steeds, check your gear and maybe throw a bit of brekky down your necks at the onsite caterers. Then gather for the second mass start of the weekend – the Start of the Adventure class event. From out the traps, you will have between 60 – 80km of distance to tackle. This sounds a lot and it is a challenge for sure. However, remember some key things here:

1.) Most of the distance is covered on the bikes, linking in other sections of the course

2.) You CAN miss sections out if you don’t fancy them. This relates to the foot sections especially. The Rat Race is designed to allow this. You take a time penalty instead and continue in the race

3.) There are cut-offs, after which time you will be routed onto shorter courses. So if you fall behind for whatever reason, don’t worry we will not leave you out there when everyone else is enjoying their first beers at the party

As you know, the Rat Race course is kept a secret until the weekend of the event, so we can’t tell you where you will be going or what exactly you will be doing right now. However, we CAN tell you a little about the distances involved and some key components of the event.

Read more about the Rat Race Weekender here.