The humble office chair can cause a little back pain after eight hours at work, but in Germany you can do a lot more damage to yourself with such furniture.

The first German Championships in Office Chair Racing have taken place in Bad Koenig-Zell, and 70 participants took the chance to bring their office chair out into the sunshine and put it through its paces.

"The idea comes out of Switzerland," organiser Rene Karg said. "One of our friends comes from Switzerland and has seen it there, they have had it there for a while, and he said we should do it in Germany. So we set it up and you can see that it is being well received, there is a lot of action here on the streets."

Far from wearing business suits, many of the participants were wearing fancy-dress and some of them had decorated their chairs too.

The only uniform rule was the obligatory crash helmet - and many people needed it.

The race down the Odenwaelder street was mainly downhill and involved starting on a steep ramp and racing over a bump. Dozens of the racers fell off their chairs, and many chairs didn't make it to the end of the 170 metre race intact.

"It is actually quite scary, it is quite steep up there on the ramp. And the ramp on the road, you have to have respect for that!" one racer, Ronny Moritz said. "But it is a great event, definitely, and it is such a one-off, it's great!"

The organisers are hoping that it won't be a one-off and are already preparing for another race next year.

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