tubechallenge.com

The second event for Tube Olympics 2024 is the Bottle Challenge, which is all LU stations on and within the classic Circle line.

The challenge will commence at 19:00 hours on Friday 12th July 2024 from BAYSWATER. You can start your stopwatch when the doors are firmly locked closed ready for departure (door open lights go out) on the first train in your chosen direction AFTER 19:00:00. You only have ONE attempt. Please meet beforehand on the concourse, street side of ticket barriers.

Usual Bottle rules will in be force- see http://www.explorerticket.co.uk/tubecha ... erules.htm for details if you need a refresh.

Don't forget that despite being shown outside the Circle Line on the current version of the Tube Map, the stations of Marylebone and Edgware Road (Bakerloo) are included in this challenge. Also note that Paddington (Bishop's Road) and stations to Hammersmith (H&C) fall outside of the classic Circle line and do not need to be visited.

Who has the bottle to tackle this challenge?

Thanks.
Tube Olympics Supreme Administrator.

tangy wrote: ↑07 Jul 2024, 22:24 The second event for Tube Olympics 2024 is the Bottle Challenge, which is all LU stations on and within the classic Circle line.

The challenge will commence at 19:00 hours on Friday 12th July 2024 from BAYSWATER. You can start your stopwatch when the doors are firmly locked closed ready for departure (door open lights go out) on the first train in your chosen direction AFTER 19:00:00. You only have ONE attempt. Please meet beforehand on the concourse, street side of ticket barriers.

Usual Bottle rules will in be force- see http://www.explorerticket.co.uk/tubecha ... erules.htm for details if you need a refresh.

Don't forget that despite being shown outside the Circle Line on the current version of the Tube Map, the stations of Marylebone and Edgware Road (Bakerloo) are included in this challenge. Also note that Paddington (Bishop's Road) and stations to Hammersmith (H&C) fall outside of the classic Circle line and do not need to be visited.

Who has the bottle to tackle this challenge?

Thanks.
Tube Olympics Supreme Administrator.

Why are Marylebone and Edgware Road (Bakerloo) included in the challenge? Looking at a street map, these two stations are physically located outside the Circle line.

In the old tube map they were shown inside the Circle

EastActionWoman wrote: ↑09 Jul 2024, 18:12 In the old tube map they were shown inside the Circle

Screenshot_20240709_181156_Samsung Notes.jpg

Therefore the map was wrong w.r.t. to the real world and it has been fixed.

Yes, but we have kept the challenge the same. Who is to say that the map won't become wrong again? It's not like a statement of fact (such as a Station either is or isn't part of Zone 1), it's a bit of fun that can stay consistent without any inconvenience.

We met at Bayswater station ready for the start, I had two options which would depend on the train sequences on either platform. Basically if there had been a northbound train quickly after 7 and then no circle line train southbound from Bayswater until around 7 minutes after the start I was going to go to Paddington and double back. This was not the case, so the three of us (Tangy, Andrew C and I) all got on a Circle line train at 7:03. I got off at South Kensington to change to the Piccadilly line leaving the others to their Circle line odyssey. A slowish trundle up the Picc to Kings Cross St Pancras where I changed to the Victoria Line to Warren Street and changed to the Northern line. I had considered whether to try to find my way from Russell Square to Warren Street on foot but concluded that staying on the trains would be as quick. I then had the long change at Charing Cross from the Northern line to the Bakerloo line, and headed up to Paddington, diving straight through the cross tunnel to a waiting southbound train which I took to Edgware Road. From here, it was a run to the Circle line station and onto the defining moment of my challenge, would my gamble of not staying on the Circle line pay off ? I think it just about did, as there was a 4 minute wait for an Eastbound Circle line train, which I caught for the long circuit round to Notting Hill Gate to change to the Central line and a completion at Bank in 2:12:00.

I was pretty lucky with my changes, they couldn't have gone much better with nothing worse than a 3 minute change time other than the 6 minutes from getting off at one Edgware Road and getting on at the other. Taking out the lengthening of the route to accomodate the Bayswater start, my time from a Knightsbridge start was roughly 2 hours and 1 minute.

The results of the Tube Olympics 2024 Bottle Challenge as as follows.

There were only three challengers who took part in this event thus guaranteeing a medal position. It was a very tight field with only six minutes separating the competitors.

Bronze: Tangy - 02:18:39
Silver: Andrew Chilcraft - 02:14:15.
Gold: Ian McIntryre - 02:12:00.

Current medal table (after 2 events):

1. Andrew Chilcraft: 1 gold, 1 silver, 0 bronze.
2. Ian McIntyre: 1 gold, 0 silver, 0 bronze.
3. Tangy: 0 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze.
4. Richard Standing: 0 gold, 0 silver, 1 bronze.

The next event is a Zone 1 Challenge taking place on Wednesday 17th July 2024. See separate thread for details.

Tangy.
The TOSA.

As I ended up not going to my parents' this weekend (Mum had a bad cold earlier in the week and didn't want me to catch it), I could have taken part. However I woke up on Friday morning with a stiffness in my right knee and I realised that running would be out of the question so I decided to give it a miss rather than risk picking up a worse injury. And I was struggling to think of a decent route from a Bayswater start (I even considered Circle/District to Paddington, then Elizabeth Line to Liverpool Street and then on to my normal route from Bank!). The other option involved running from Chancery Lane to Temple (or vice versa) but I didn't feel up to doing that.

My route as follows:

Bayswater to Paddington H&C
Paddington Bakerloo to Charing Cross
Charing Cross to Euston
Euston to Kings Cross (Vic)
KIngs Cross to Knightsbridge
run to Queensway
Queensway to Bank

I equalled exactly my time in 2016, the only other time I have completed the Bottle challenge.