Kendal based outdoors brand The North Face is celebrating proving its extreme sporting credentials after its Sales and Marketing Manager led a team to victory in an urban sporting adventure.

Keith Byrne’s The North Face team, comprising Tom Gibbs and Maryann Howe, joined 450 competitors racing over two days in the first of the Rat Race Urban Adventure Series 2006 in Bristol (17/18 June). Teams raced the clock to navigate around a secret route across the city on foot and mountain bikes before undertaking challenges at each point. These were as diverse as abseiling down the side of Bristol Industrial Museum, climbing a 12 foot sloping grease wall, paddling canoes across rivers and climbing around the outside of the Pride of Bristol Naval Craft to complete each checkpoint.

The North Face team finished the first evening’s racing six minutes behind the leaders in third place but on the Sunday put in an amazing performance to gain ten minutes and actually finish four minutes ahead of its rivals.

Keith Byrne said: “We’re really pleased to have won the first Rat Race of the year as the competition was as high as ever. The pressure is on to perform well when we’re representing The North Face as people naturally expect us to perform as well as our products do. We can’t wait for the next race.”

Keith has been taking part in the rapidly growing sport of adventure racing for over five years and has competed all over the world from the Scottish Highlands to the Namibian desert. He will be leading The North Face team in the next two of the Rat Race Urban Adventure Series in Edinburgh on July 15/16th and Manchester on August 5/6th where he will be hoping to continue their winning streak.