Rat Race Back For 2006

The ever so slightly barking mad Rat Race Urban Adventure Race series is back for 2006 with events taking place in all three of last year's city venues - Bristol, Edinburgh and Manchester.

As usual, teams of competitors will battle their way through the urban environment using a combination of mountain biking, running, kayaking and even ropework with a few googlies thrown in for variety.

The event, now in its third year, is the first of its kind in the UK and allows normal people to compete alongside hardcore adventure racers over a weekend-long event in teams of three.

The organisers are expecting over 2000 adventure racers to take part and the event has a new sponsor as well in the form of Columbia Sportswear, which is hoping to use the series to spotlight some of the more capable parts of their range and, particularly, the technical Titanium kit which includes lightweight stuff aimed squarely at fast movers like adventure racers.

Jim Mee, who invented the Rat Race in 2004 after a successful career of managing extreme sports events for Red Bull, says that the Rat Race Urban Adventure events are aimed at providing extreme challenges for seasoned adventure racing pros alongside entry level adventures ideal for total novices.

'We design these events as things many people can train towards.' He says. 'Our races are not purely the domain of the seasoned athletes. The response from the novice teams was incredible in 2004 and 2005 and we hope this will continue..'

The dates for this year's Rat Race events are:

Bristol - 17/18 June

Edinburgh - 15/16 July

Manchester - 05/06 August

You can find full details, conditions of entry, animated rat intros and more at www.ratraceadventure.com