Rat Racers and Urban Assault rodents were everywhere as Manchester's Urban X event combined adventure racing and a unique urban climbing competition - words and rather nice pics.
In a magnificerntly late stylee, we can now bring you the results
of the first ever urban climbing event in Manchester which took place
on Saturday 6, August in conjunction with the third and final 2005
Rat Race urban adventure race event. Come to think of it, we could
tell you about that too...
Aerial Assault
The urban climbing thing, the 'Bruntwood Aerial Assault'
was contested by 13 teams of top climbers who competed against one
another on a variety of buildings. Manchester's City Tower in
Piccadilly Gardens was turned into the world's highest vertical
climbing wall for the day at 335 feet and was scaled by only three of
the competing climbers.
Other buildings used included Bruntwood's Square One Office
building, The Great Northern Shopping Centre's steel "Spire," Ellis
Brigham's Castlefield shop front, the underside of a canal
footbridge, the Central Public Library and the Royal Exchange
Building.
Course setter and top climber Steve McClure commented:
"The variety of buildings in Manchester offers a great mix of
route choices, from the glass and steel of the modern buildings, to
the completely different experience to tackling the brickwork and
iron cladding of the older buildings and factories."
The event was won by Team Hard Grit, comprising Nick
Sellers and Sam Whittaker with Myles Gibson and Ben Heason of team
Big Wall/Red Chillies in second place and Tim Emmett and Mikey
Robertson of The Water Babies team coming in third.
Rat Race
The third and final TNF Rat Race Urban Adventure took place
on the same day and was won by Team Saab Salomon comprising
Bristolian leader Tom Gibbs, 33 and Helen Jackson 27, from Bingley,
near Leeds and Bruce Duncan, 24, from Edinburgh.
Apparently they had a bit of a point to prove after losing their
unbeaten record in UK racing at the Edinburgh event and the
motivation obviously worked as they won by around 40 minutes over the
63km course.
In second place was Team Sleepmonsters comprising Chris McSweeney
from Worcester, Jen Brown from Taunton and Mark Chryssanthou, from
Leeds. In third place was The Ole Gunners team, with Andrew
Middleditch from Sheffield, Phil Winstall from Sheffield and Karen
Davison from Hathersage.
The event included approximately 10km of running, 45 km of
cycling, 6km orienteering and 2km of kayaking. To spice things up,
there were additional tasks including having to complete an electric
guitar rendition of Wonderwall...
Some 65 teams of three took part in the event - the youngest
competitor was Alex Westerby aged 20 and the oldest was Nick Martin
aged 62. Teams from all around the world entered including racers
from South Africa, Australia, Hong Kong and Luxembourg.
www.ratraceadventure.com
Rather nice pics by Andy McCandlish.
