Bath, a home for bob sleighing? Yes, it sounds really strange but it’s true. Built in 2000 and modelled to the exact specifications of the one built for the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, the University of Bath is home to the training grounds of the British Bob Sleigh team. It opens twice a month to give ordinary people like you and me to give the sport a good go. We booked our experience via a 2 for 1 offer on Lastminute.com and based on all the pink folders everyone brought around, looked like a common channel for the twenty or so other people as well.

I was a little bit sceptical about the entire thing, thinking that you’d get a couple of runs and it’d be over in half an hour. Pleasantly surprised, I think each group of four got at least eight or ten different runs including a few warm up ones. You practice as a team, first getting into the bob sleigh without actually running and slowly building up to full out running and jumping in. Most people seemed to have no problems running and getting in, although one team seemed to have a little timing problem that left the last person out. The sleigh is definitely cosy and you end up getting to know you’re team mates very intimately as you squish in to try to go as fast as possible.

We shared our sleigh with a couple from Essex and ended up actually having a very good afternoon with them, even winning the mini challenge at the end of the day. I can’t say it’s not a tiring experience as you do end up sprinting but was quite a lot of fun.