Rat Race Urban Adventure at Bristol

Saturday, 27 June, 2009

Bristol is preparing to be infested with adventure racers as the ‘Rat Race’ returns to the city in 2009. The team-based event will see the city transformed into an urban sports playground as racers are challenged to take part in a range of physical and mental activities including running, mountain biking, abseiling, climbing and kayaking.

Saturday’s “Mean Streets” is billed as ‘the team running event with bite’. It is designed predominantly as a running (or walking) event and is open to competitors of all abilities. Participants will have 3 hours to hunt for up to 25 checkpoints hidden all over the city centre. Sunday is a bike-based adventure that takes teams further out towards the city limits and encompasses more overt adventure pursuit, such as kayaking, abseiling and navigation.

In previous Bristol Rat Races the activities have included crossing the Avon Gorge with zip wires and abseiling from the Bristol and West Building at Temple Quay and from the cranes at the old Industrial Museum. Competitors have also been challenged with underground navigation in Redcliffe Caves and tried their hand at the modern extreme sport challenge, “Parkour,” in Castle Park.