Bristol 2007 Report

The dust has settled on Bristol and Bath after the first Rat Race of 2007 once again proved to be full of adrenaline, excitement and downright zaniness.

Saturday night’s mean streets prologue contained its usual mix of physical and farcical challenges, with marshals, not to mention the general public, being faced with karaoke in the street, terrible “brizzle” accents and men wearing make up singing “The Time Warp”. More physical challenges included the impressive abseil into the Avon gorge, cave orienteering, parkour, water slides, kayaking and the infamous chopper bikes.

The North Face took the Saturday night honours, scoring 440 out of a possible 500 points and getting home just under the 3 hour limit. Aberdeen Asset Management were slightly late back, but still comfortably in 2nd spot with 409 points with Tea and Medals 3rd with 365 points. Masters of the Mean Streets were the Usual Starlets with 335 points, roaring into 2nd place with 260 points were ROAR and 3rd went went to Wreckthatchick, only 5 points ahead of whos the daddy!!

Sunday saw teams take the train, or at least the old train line, to and from Bath with much of the cycling along the old railway route taking in a few challenges along the way. Anagrams and school sports were instore for teams en-route to Bath where they spent much of the day facing 3 challenges around the historic spa town. The kayaking on the canal was made more difficult by an aggressive/protective swan while the queueing for the ropework at Bath leisure centre provided a welcome break for some. Street orienteering completed the trio of tasks in Bath but it wasn’t quite as simple as just finding the checkpoints, once there there were challenges such as tree climbing and table football!

On the route back to Bristol teams were cooled down with a climbing challenge under a bridge which was completed by dropping into the water and swimming back to shore. A further opportunity for getting wet was just along the river where the blindfolded kayaking challenge took place where two blindfolded paddlers were joined in the kayak by their third team member who had to guide them round a course.

This wasn’t to be the final challenge of the day though as once teams were back in Bristol they had one final challenge to face just when they thought it was all over, getting over the huge rotating cable reels set at head height.

First over the line, or rather the reels, was Aberdeen Asset Management who completed the Sunday course in a time of 5:33:54, just under 10 minutes clear of Helly Hansen UK with Team Inov-8 a further 10 minutes back and The North Face 10 minutes behind them.
Final results saw Aberdeen Asset Management in first place over 20 minutes clear of The North Face with Team Helly Hansen UK taking third spot. Top female team were once again Columbia SALT in 6th place overall.

1. 8:42:21  Mix Aberdeen Asset Management
2. 9:03:43  Mix Team The North Face
3. 9:14:46  Mix Team Helly Hansen UK
4. 9:21:55  Mix Team Inov-8
5. 10:08:22  M  The Drowning Rats
6. 10:24:49  F   Columbia SALT

Full results available here.