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Loopy in Manchester

Rob Howard / 09.08.2005

Any Manchester night clubbers who made their way home via Piccadilly Gardens in the early hours of Saturday morning had a surprise in store. The gardens were full of frantic activity, with tents and a stage erected, and the world’s highest vertical climbing wall marked out to 350 feet high on a nearby tower block. And all around the city square dozens of athletes in black race shirts were registering, preparing bikes and munching early breakfasts. The Rat Race Urban X had arrived in central Manchester for the day!

It was an early start as this Rat Race was all condensed into one day, with a morning street orienteering stage and a longer afternoon stage, which would take competitors out of the city centre on their bikes. Only the more experienced teams in the Adventure class would do both stages, the Rookies would just race in the morning. And at the same time as all this was happening the Bruntwood Aerial Assault, a unique urban climbing contest, was taking place as well!

The first start was at 9am, and registration had begun at 7am, with teams being given a mini A-Z map and their route when they signed in. To make the most of all the sites and situations course planner Gary Tompsett had found in Manchester city centre the course had a North and a South loop, a rough figure of 8 around the gardens, and then a final longer loop reaching the outskirts of the city centre.

After a warning from Gary not to ‘intimidate and frighten pedestrians’, came a processional start, which was supposed to be a gentle jog across the gardens, and over the tram lines to a Sportident box, which was the true, timed start. This didn’t stop the faster teams muscling into the front and racing off as they anticipated possible queues at some of the earlier checkpoints. Right at the front were Saab Salomon, SleepMonsters and The North Face.

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