The Great Knaresborough Bed Race

This weekend is The Great Knaresborough Bed Race. This is an event that has been held in Knaresborough since 1966. The Bed Race is one of those events that until you see it, you can't really comprehend how bonkers it is.

This explanation for those not in the know, is taken from the official Bed Race website:

“The Great Knaresborough Bed Race is something different: it is part fancy dress pageant and part gruelling time trial over a 2.4-mile course, ending with a swim through the icy waters of the River Nidd.

It is great fun, an amazing spectacle and, being held in Yorkshire, a truly serious competitive effort, pitting teams against their fiercest rivals, their erstwhile friends or even against themselves.

Each year Bed Race features 90 teams of six runners and a passenger – that's 630 people sweating around the course. In addition, scores of local handymen and dress-makers get drafted in to decorate the beds and adorn the runners. Hundreds of people parade with the teams and in marching bands and dance groups. And hundreds more turn out as volunteers to marshal the event on the day.

The teams gather at Knaresborough Castle on the morning of bed race day to be judged for the 'Best Dressed Team' accolade. So good have the designs become that in addition to first, second and third positions, others win special commendations for their endeavours.

From 1 pm, led by the winning decorated team, the teams parade in all their finery through the medieval streets of Knaresborough to Conyngham Hall. At Conyngham Hall Field the decorations are stripped, and the teams prepare for the race itself.

The course is wonderful and, apart from one stretch down an almost vertical drop now deemed too dangerous, follows exactly the same course as that in 1966. The course is challenging and hard.

It takes the teams up a steep grassy bank and through parkland, along the scenic Waterside. Then they pass through the dramatic Nidd Gorge, up the steep Castle Ings, around the cobbled stones of the Marketplace, down the High Street and Bond End, and across High Bridge. The last stretch is on the rough ground of McIntosh Park before the notorious 20-yard swim across the fast-flowing Nidd.

There is no doubt that the real hero of Bed Race is the dramatic topography of Knaresborough itself.

The fastest teams do the course in around 14-minutes, sometimes quicker, and the slowest come in well under 30 minutes. Runners have to fit, fanatical and frankly a bit mad, while the passengers have to be light, be good swimmers and be able to shout loudly!”

As a resident of Knaresborough, I have always enjoyed the Bed Race. It's quite a family event for us - as a child I competed in the Bed Race as a passenger, as part of 1st Castle Scouts. I was even on an episode of Blue Peter, when two of the presenters came and ran the race and interviewed me as part of the scout team. As an adult I ran it a couple of times along with my mum for my old primary school. My Dad, Geoff, has been involved in the Bed Race since I was part of the scout team in 1996, and in 1997 he helped the scouts to decorate their bed. The theme was Disney and we did 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. He helped build The Nautilus and even created a wearable giant squid for a scout to parade down the High Street in. It won us the Best Decorated Bed prize, and we also won the Fastest Junior Team that year.

We weren’t involved in the Bed Race again until 2006, when my Mum, Sue, decided to join the Bed Race team for my old primary school, which my younger brother still attended. My Dad helped with the decorating then too and well and truly caught the decorating bug. He helped decorate the beds for years after that, while me and Mum ran the race with other slightly-mad mothers. You have to be slightly mad to agree to run the Bed Race, especially once you have done it once. The first time you do it, you can be forgiven for being ignorant, but after that, you voluntarily sign up for the madness, full in the knowledge of what it entails.

Once me and Mum’s running days were over however, Dad was still involved, now for another scout troop – 1st Scriven Scouts. I always made sure that I booked Bed Race weekend off work, whilst I lived in Sheffield, and made sure to make it back to see the spectacle that is the parade. I also helped my Dad where I could, with painting or construction, or even creating a bust of Gru from Despicable Me from a rugby ball and some felt. I have only missed one Bed Race since 1996, and that was 2016 when I lived in New Zealand.

I know for some residents of Knaresborough, they just avoid the town on Bed Race Day. It can be so crowded and busy, and for some, its just all too much. However, for me and my family, Bed Race Day is just one of those days where you just go with it.

As a business owner in Knaresborough, the Bed Race is either one of your busiest days of the year, or it can completely kill your business. Many businesses like hairdressers, barbers, nail technicians etc, actually close on Bed Race Day because their clients cannot get in, for all the people and road closures. There is an average of 25,000 extra people in Knaresborough town centre on Bed Race Day.

Since owning Number Thirteen, Bed Race Day has taken on a different meaning. As a coffee shop I can easily say that Bed Race Day is one of our busiest days of the year. We make operational changes especially for the day – we only use disposable cups and plates, we change our menu to suit a grab and go style service, and we close just before the race begins. We also stop service during the parade, so the staff on shift can enjoy the parade, as it goes right past our shop on its way out of the Castle Grounds. No one is coming in to buy a coffee anyway, as everyone is watching the parade, but we want to make sure that everyone can enjoy themselves.

The day in the shop is intense. It’s fast, its go go go, action stations for 3 hours straight, a slight pause for the parade, and then go go go again until the race starts at 3pm. The run up to the parade is our busiest time. We get runners, team supporters, band members, spectators and marshalls all needing their morning fix. It’s personally my favourite time when the shop is so bustling and busy – especially when you get runners and supporters coming in all dressed up in fancy dress. Last year when the theme was Inventions, we had cavemen, scientists, train drivers and astronauts walking through the doors all morning.

It’s not just the day itself that’s intense, but the week running up to it. We must make sure that we have extras of everything, be it coffee beans, milk, cake or cups and plates. Every year we think we have enough, and then we have a day busier than the last. This week I have been making extra tray-bakes and placing orders ahead of time, making sure that we will not run out. This year we’ve had an added complication, in that my oven decided that this week would be the perfect time to break, so I have been using my neighbour’s oven while they are on holiday – for which I am eternally grateful!

With three days to go until the big day, we have now done most of the prep work. I’ll be up at the shop on Friday evening, to make sure that everything is stocked up and ready to go, then I’ll be up there first thing on Saturday morning, ready to greet the milkman and the bakery delivery man. I’ll then fuel up with my first coffee of the day, get the team set up, then off we go!