Bikedock Belles

The mixed team put in a great performance at the Bristol Rat Race in June (5^th mixed team and 8^th overall) and were hoping to build on this in London. Having bonded during Terrex, over numerous plates of chips!, the boys hoped Andrea would understand their need to visit Wimpy bars during the London race. No chance! This was a sprint in comparison to Terrex. No time for eating!

The event HQ was at Tower Bridge and the team arrived early afternoon on Saturday, in time to build their bikes, register, check into their accommodation ….having already completed a challenge….getting three bike bags and the 3 of us into the back of a black taxi!

Unfortunately there were no bonus points for this, points that were much needed at the end of Saturday evening's Mean Streets.

MEAN STREETS

The Mean Streets lasts from 5pm to 7:30pm and involves checkpoint (CP) hunting in the city centre. The course is entirely up to you – navigating your way around as many checkpoints in the 2½ hour window. Each checkpoint has a different points value, which you only find out after the starting hooter sounds at 5pm. There were 26 CPs in London, some that required completing a task at rather than just "dib" (just pushing your electronic timing chip into the CP box) and go.

At the first CP it appeared our chosen route was not the best, with a large queue already just to dib at the top of a tank. This event boosted the record number of teams ever entered in a Rat Race, so crowds were to be expected! On top of the manic streets and crowds anyway in London! Grrrrrrrrr. You can take the girl out of the country, but……. !!

By the time we reached the War Museum, where the task was to crawl up a scrambling net onto a tank, there was a massive queue and we made the tactical decision to bin it and move on without the points. Our route then took us to a variety of London hotspots, with tasks such as karaoke, busking, pool (where Ivan demonstrated extreme skill and a clear misspent youth!) and table football (where Andrea proved girls can play the game, not surprising after spending 6 months in Paris in bars rather than in university where she was meant to be!).

Having faced aggressive protestors and riots in Paris, Andrea should have been prepared for thugs at Waterloo on Saturday – but even the Marshall was scared and left his station before teams arrived to complete a graffiti task! Teams were instructed to locate the Marshall and complete the task. With no Marshall in sight, about 30 teams were running back and forwards like headless chickens wondering were they in the right place. Needless to say the top teams were not impressed at this waste of time!

By 7pm the Average Joes team had collected 13 CPs and gambled that there was time to go for 2 more before making the 730pm deadline to the finish – after which time you get penalized for every minute of lateness. As darkness descended, the team ran as fast as possible back from Millennium Bridge to Tower Bridge, clocking out just 30 seconds past the 730pm deadline.

A total of 15 CPs located, the team was not particularly happy, but Bristol Rat Race proved that this team is stronger on the second day (the 9 to 5) than the Mean Streets.

At the end of Day 1, the team was lying 22^nd overall in the Weekender category. Weekender means doing the Mean Streets and the 9 to 5, whereas you can enter just the Mean Streets and just the 9 to 5 rather than both.

9 TO 5

The Rat Race 9 to 5 traditionally involves over 65km of biking around various activities, on-road and off-road, with added activities such as running, kayaking and abseiling.

With so many teams in London, in a bid to avoid a pile-up in the bike compound at the 9am start on Sunday, a special task was set and achieved the desired result of splitting up the field of over 200 teams, of which 139 teams were Weekenders.

Competitors had to run from Tower Bridge to Millennium Bridge (about 6-8 minutes for the fastest teams), where they were given grid references and descriptions for 6 pubs at the other side of the river. After marking up the map, teams ran to the pubs and had to write down their names and when all 6 were located, designated letters had to be unscrambled to work out a password.

Only if the correct word is given to the marshals at the bike compound, are you allowed to get your bike!

It was 45 minutes into the race before the Average Joes headed out on their bikes, and on arriving at the second CP (the first CP was a dib and go, the second was a task – run orienteering in Peckham Rye Park) it appeared that the team was well up the substantial field of competitors.

After a run of about 20 minutes, the Joes were back on their bikes and off to Blythe Hill, where they had to roll down a grassy bank. Dizzy blonde isn't in it!! From there it was a fast cycle (well, once the wobbles subsided!) to a Powerleague Soccer Centre, where each team member had to dribble a ball on a pitch and then score a goal. Andrea astounded the keeper by proving that girls can "bend it like beckham" too!

After this, there was more biking and a river crossing before arriving at the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre. The task here was meant to be jumping off a high diving board, but there had been a double booking and British Olympic divers took priority! So instead, us mere Rat Racers had to swim a length of the pool! Then within the grounds of the Centre, there was a hedgerow maze, and teams had to get to the middle of it and dib.

From here there was another fast cycle section, including one dib at a CP, before arriving at The Oval cricket stadium for an abseil. It's about time a proper sport took place there! The route them took teams back to the event HQ at Tower Bridge, where bikes were dropped and an obstacle on foot complete, before hopping back on the bikes again. The obstacle was an inflatable, bouncy, course that one person had to carry a cup of water across without spilling. Being used to faultless serving of drinks at home, domestic goddess that she is!, Andrea completed the task with no spillages!

The second section on bikes took teams east of Tower Bridge to Canary Wharf Pier and the Isle Of Dogs, where there was a lengthy foot orienteering section that also included kayaking at the Dockland National Watersports Centre. After this, it was back on the bikes for the penultimate CP and task of completing 30 second circuits at an Adizone. All three team members had to complete three different exercises, with one team member then having to traverse a climbing wall. Steve proved that climbing is easy with a solid grip!

Pedalling as fast as possible, the Joes arrived back to drop their bikes and take on the final obstacle before dibbing out for the race. In the middle of the event village is the finish line, but to reach it all three team members and their kit had to make it up a greased, watered steep wall. And by this stage the weather was abysmal and the wall even more slippery! However the team have perfected this technique, with Ivan standing with his back to the wall, Steve climbing up him by putting one foot on Ivan's knees, then his other foot on Ivan's shoulders, then grabbing the top to haul himself up. Andrea then did the same, with Steve's help from above, which left Ivan to make a jump to grab the hands above and be hauled up. Admittedly, Steve did most of the hauling!

The team finished at about 250pm, having completed the entire course in an impressive 5 hours 50 minutes and dropping no points out of the maximum 1000.

Unsure how much this would move them up the rankings, the team hit the pub for beer and chips! Later they found out that their excellent 9 to 5 and resulted in them being 5^th Mixed Team, behind the elite UK teams such as Team Accelerate and Team Adventure Sports Magazine, and 12^th team overall out of 139 Weekender teams.

Rat Races can be entered as Pairs, Teams (three), Mixed, Male or Female.

However, Andrea and Taryn are petitioning for a "Mixed Female" category next year!

Ding Dong!

Andrea