Above: I seemed to start off slowly, but the speed

certainly picked up.

record considering that people have been

riding it for nearly 130 years. I say people, but

what I actually mean is men. Women were

banned from riding the Cresta Run when the

club members took a vote on it in 1929, deciding

that it was too dangerous for the fair sex, and

the members have never lifted the ban. Over

the years, more than half a million descents

of the run have been made and there have

been 28,000 crashes. You’ll know what I was

thinking – ‘Twenty-eight thousand and one,

coming up!’ We were told that we should ‘rake’,

meaning dig our spikes in, for the first part of

our run, otherwise we would reach Shuttlecock

going far too fast and that would be where our

run would end!

Filing out to the run, we had to collect a bucket

and wait for our names to be called. The

222    world’s fastest sled

bucket is a fairly heavy piece of kit, weighing

around 50 kilograms (about 110 pounds). It

has a padded seat on top which slides back and

forwards a bit to help you transfer your weight,

but apart from that it’s a simple steel frame

supporting two runners – nothing fancy, but it

is the thing that everyone learning how to ride

the Cresta Run starts out on. As we all stood at

the side of the run there was another briefing

when we were shown how to rake and steer,

with the instructor or ‘guru’ going through

the first run in detail and warning us all that

we would have to rake almost all the way. If

we didn’t rake, we would crash. We were all

left in no doubt that if we didn’t do as we were

told we wouldn’t be allowed to finish all three

of the runs we were scheduled to do. I guess

that’s why they have such a good safety record.

If you don’t stick to the rules, you’re out. When

my name was called, I hauled my bucket up to

the start point, stepped down into the run and

heaved the toboggan in after me. I don’t think

that I was feeling nervous, just anxious to get