News

Howydaydooday Rat Fans. We are into the last week of Rat Race planning, crossing the i’s and dotting the t’s. We’ve been measuring up access for the travelling circus that is the Rat Race event village; including the now famous Action Arena, the ever popular Slippery wall and some other titillating and M.A.D. trials that we’ll show you when you get here. You can Register between 2000 on Friday until 2200 and from 0700 Saturday to 0930 and at this time you can collect certain skeleton information and one SI card (dibber) per TEAM, but we retain the exciting and crux Final Routing Data until 1000 Saturday morning. There will be a few marked up maps to help you through this stage, but the important point here is; Register early and clear the decks ready for 1000 rat'o'clock.

Well, it's been along time since you were in the dark wet month of March, but hacking around the bright and liberating Rat Race course set by Shane Ohly on St. Patricks' Day. He truly liberated what turned out to be a great City - full of surprises, stadiums, bridges, greenery, canals and junctions of spaghetti, and many thanks to all those venues for letting the Rats in! There were great responses and welcomes for us all.

As the Bristol Rat Race draws to a close for 2008 it's time to think back on all the action, the pain, and those incredible challenges that give the race it's unique Bristol flavor.
For the Mean Streets this year the event had an Olympic theme (but with a twist, naturally) and a suitably nautical element appropriate to an ancient Port: Torches to chase (but hopefully not extinguish), rhythm gymnastics on the Clifton Downs, cycling (on Choppers), a freestyle swimming relay with optional nudity, "sailing" on upturned sailing dinghies (strung end to end right across the Floating Harbour), hurdles (carrying milk crates) and kayaking (but blindfold, or it would have been to easy).

It's count down time for Bristol, and thanks to Jim "Warped Mind" Godden and Chris "Crazy Horse" Gazeley we have a heap of wild challenges waiting for you.

Hello again Brighton Rat fans, less than four weeks to go now and we are busy here tweaking and preening the challenges and measuring up at our fantastic event village location. More on that later. We think that you will love our approach to the Brighton Rat Race. The city centre has a fantastic regal medina styled adventure in store among other interesting challenges and the beach life is just peachy.

Welcome to the summer and to the Bristol Rat Race 2008! We have a Gert Lush adventure in store for you this 14/ 15 June as we once again prepare to turn Ol’ Brizzle into an urban adventure playground in the name of sport. This year’s event will deliver a powerful punch of action and our planners have been working hard to ensure we liberate the very best of the sights and sounds of the city with permissions for things you just would not normally be allowed to do; prepare to feel like you are involved in a city heist!

Spring has sprung and a smorgasbord of new events has blossomed along with it for us to tell you about! It’s been a busy few weeks here in Rat HQ as we have been working hard to secure these dates for the 2008 calendar. As you can see on our website at www.ratraceadventure.com, it’s now crammed full of urban adventure across the British Isles! Can we possibly fit anymore in? Probably…

Ni Hao Ratfans!

It’s the 7th February – and the Start of the (Chinese) Year of the Rat! Yes that’s right, 2008 is the Year of the Rat and to celebrate, we’re offering a special deal to all those who are entering our NEW events in Brighton and Newcastle and we are EXTENDING our Early Bird deal in Birmingham too!

2008 is here and so too are 2 new Rat Races; we are pleased to announce that alongside the new Birmingham event launched just before Christmas, we are good to go in BRIGHTON and NEWCASTLE with two new Rat Races. We will be running the events in these super cool locations on the new Rat Race Nine 2 Five format, giving participants the opportunity to compete over a Saturday-full of action, adrenalin and adventure.

Dust off your bowler hat and set your watch to the chime of Big Ben. Cor Blimey Guv'nor - it's the London Rat Race!

The summer is fading (what summer!?) but the Rat Race most certainly is not - our hotly anticipated London event is looming on 29th and 30th September 2007 and it promises to be a corker. We really want to tell you where it's headed but we can't - but we are going to give you one hell of a weekend on the streets of London. We'll just whet your whistle below and let you do the guessing...

The Rat Race returned to Edinburgh for the fourth year with the city continuing to offer a difficult and diverse challenge as racers faced checkpoints ranging from the strenuous to the sublime.

29th/ 30th September will see London ratified for the first time. This epic event will provide the culmination to the 2007 Series and will see the Rat Race Adventure Series champions crowned at the event village in the shadow of mighty Tower Bridge.

The London Rat Race will be as grand as the city it is staged in – think famous landmarks, big ropes, audacious navigation stages and some pretty quirky checkpoint locations! With the event village being right next to the new Mayor of London’s office and Tower Bridge in the heart of London, the course could literally go north, south, east or west from here. But in true Rat Race style we won’t be telling you where until hours before you begin.

The man on the maps is World Championship adventure racer and British Champion Nick Gracie, who is ideally qualified to be your host for the weekend, being a born and bred Londoner and therefore knowing the nooks and crannies of this city like the back of his hand. You could say he’s the AR equivalent of a Black Cabbie – on a bike! Roll up Guvnor – because our Manor is now your Manor as we invite you to join the Rat Race in Old Smoke – an unprecedented adventure that will reveal the beating heart of the capital as you have never seen it before.

Click here to see a taster of what the Rat Race London might have in store for you.

Where are we going in 2007? Well, we can announce that we will be back to all locations we have ratified so far - that’s BRISTOL, EDINBURGH and MANCHESTER. Entries open for all of these events on the 23rd October.

1st Place:
Team British Champs – 1242 points
Gaz Parry and Andy Earl

2nd Place:
Team Manchester Climbing Centre – 1194 points
Dave Barrans and Simon Hudson

3rd Place:
Team Peak Bolt Fund – 1108 points
Neil Mawson and Jon Fulwood

And so the Rat Race Urban Adventure Series of 2006 comes to a close in Manchester. Just when racers thought things couldn’t get any more bonkers and bizarre, some cult checkpoints thrown into the race will have people talking for ages about another classic Rat Race. As far as hair brained schemes go, this one was certainly up there!

The dust has just about settled on the Edinburgh Rat Race 2006 where around 500 competitors took on the call of the Rat at the spiritual home of the race. Once again they faced challenges ranging from the epic to the surreal, with some, such as the ropework section in Blackford Quarry, verging on both! Cows, Ninjas, Photo Shoots, Karaoke, Gorillas and Bananas all (somehow) fitted in perfectly with the running, mountain biking, kayaking, climbing and abseiling, along with everything else that went on around the 9+ hours of racing that took place this weekend.

Last weekend saw around 450 racers take part in the Bristol Rat Race where they took on all manner of challenges. These ranged in difficulty from finding a taxi and eating ice lollies to the slightly easier tasks of scaling buildings and epic zip slides into the Avon Gorge, all found around a route of over 80km on bike, foot and kayak! After close to 10 hours of racing the leading teams were still only separated by a little over 6 minutes, while further down the field there was plenty of fighting for position between the 100+ teams taking part.

While the Rat Racers are prepping and sweating it out over the weekend of 17/18th June, there’ll be non-stop fun and entertainments for the rest of us mortals content to enjoy the extreme and action sports from the comfort of the funkiest Event Village to date.

All Rat Racers will be delighted to know that once again Ellis Brigham will be partnering the Rat Race Urban Adventure Series, and bringing an outdoor store to all three Rat Races - ideal for any last minute compulsory kit purchases, and great shopping for anyone on the hunt for brilliant outdoor clobber.
We recommend, however, that you do sort out your kit well in advance of race weekend, since that Saturday will be pretty full-on for even the most organized teams. So to help you sort this out (from the comfort of your own desk), Ellis Brigham have an exclusive early-summer Rat Race offer, where if you spend over £50.00 online or by Mail Order, you get free postage. This saves you the trip into the shops when you could otherwise be training!