Rat Race Manchester Urban X
The Manchester Ring Route
Rob Howard / 09.08.2005
Teams had taken much longer to reach the kayaking/orienteering stage than expected, and the waiting marshals were puzzled as to how Saab Salomon had gained such a big lead on the ride out from the city centre to the first activity. They didn’t know the race favourites were the only team to pick a good route out of the city, and it gave them a big advantage.
By the time the chasing teams arrived Saab Salomon had split up and were half way through the stage. Tom Gibbs was heading off on foot to find orienteering checkpoints, and Helen Jackson and Bruce Duncan were paddling across the lake, having chosen a well-inflated Sevylor. (Many of them were not.)
After crossing the water they carried their canoe up to the nearby River Mersey and crossed it to find Gibbs again, then Gibbs and Duncan swapped places. Duncan ran the orienteering route in reverse back to the start point, and Gibbs and Jackson paddled back up-river, back to the start where they regrouped.
The river here was narrow and looked like a canal, set between deeply cut grassy embankments. The give-away that it was not a canal was the small rapid in the middle of the section used for the race. It was intended that teams should go down this, but on a test run by the marshals the bottom of their Sevylor was ripped on the rocks. Gibbs was disappointed. “They wouldn’t let us go down the rapids,� he called as he paddled towards the take out point. Only a few other teams had arrived by the time Saab Salomon returned to their bikes to begin the long ride to the next stage near Stockport.
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