tubechallenge.com

On Friday the 23rd of feb we will be doing a Z1 challenge starting at high street kensington . Going Underground Dr Who and Soup Dragon will all be there it will be a 6:45 meet and a 7:00 start if you would like to join us please post here

23rd of Jan? Not really fair if you get a month's head start on everyone else...

So you're still doing it now then?

You're not going to get a very good time are you?

New record Z1, 1 month 3hrs and 14 mins

Neil, you might want to move this to alternative challenge section...

HSK is an interesting place to start a Z1. I can’t wait!

gasman wrote:23rd of Jan? Not really fair if you get a month's head start on everyone else...

Going Underground needs a months head start to stand any chance of winning.

I agree with Dr Who that HSK makes an interesting start point. Sub 3 hours will be tough to beat.

Soup Dragon wrote: I agree with Dr Who that HSK makes an interesting start point. Sub 3 hours will be tough to beat.

Sub 3 hours is tough to beat from any starting station...

I am currently 0 from 7 on this

I might well be able to make this - all depends on whether I can get away from work early enough to make it down.

I think I've got quite a neat little route, which contains at least one run I've never done before....

I wondered when you would post to say you might be coming along Ric!
(This is my 100th Post)

Back now. Good to see friends again, and I realised how quickly I had forgotten the big city culture after 4 months away.

Wasn't the easiest night for tube-challenging, as there were several delays and even a suspension of the Jubilee which was only lifted halfway through.

Was tight in the end, all teams were within 10 mins....I'll post more about my route sometime when I'm more awake.

Pictures for the Challenge can be found here http://pic6.piczo.com/brownstubenetwork/?g=32738245

That has to be one of the best Zone 1's I have ever done. Great starting station Ping Pon

Thanks for organising ping pon, a very enjoyable night although getting stuffed by the jubilee signal failure lost my team at least 15 mins....

I didn't rate the starting station much myself - although it gave me the chance to try an 'unconventional' route. I decided to finish at Queensway and worked everything else back from that. Awful connections - and lack of fitness early on, and I thought I would be easily beaten. However the second half went smoothly - including a first attempt at the Temple to Chancery Lane run - and as I headed down to Vauxhall, I realised I had an outside shot at beating 3 hours.

BR to Waterloo, good.
Bakerloo to Elephant, good.
Northern to London Bridge, good.
Jubilee to Bond St, good. (great connection, even though trains were at roughly 10 minute intervals owing to earlier delays.

Last change at Bond St, a perfect connection would just have got 3 hours:
the train was leaving the platform as I arrived, leaving me with an 8 minute wait sadly. But 3 hours 8 minutes was - just - enough to win on the night. I beat Going Underground to Earls Court McDonalds by about 30 seconds, although he had finished there so I had a few minutes on him in the end.

Thanks to the organisers.

Well I thought I had a pretty decent route planned for this, even with the tricky starting station and the fact I had included the BR link Waterloo - Vauxhall.....

2 teams waited at HSK for Ric to arrive, Dr Who teamed up with Soup Dragon and I made a team of 3 up with Ping Pon and Chief Keith (not a forum member)..
Although keen to start we waited a while for Ric, but with notices everywhere saying the Jubilee service was suspended due signal failure I wasn't too concerned as my route took me onto the Jubilee at London Bridge around 1hour in......

My team and Ric headed Northbound and Dr Who and soupie decided to go South...

We left Ric at Bayswater with Chief Keith on his first ever challenge and into an early run to Queensway...
Arriving at Queensway no lift in sight so decide we will run down the circular stairs, through the ticket barriers and a blast of wind from the platform below blows my cap back the other side of the barriers
Luckily someone passes this back to me and it doesn't cause us to miss a train as one arrives as we get to the platform....

Then followed 3 or 4 of the best changes I have ever had and we find ourselves at a crowded London Bridge station....
The Jubilee problems are only just sorting themselves out and we need to get to Southwark.... A quick look at route changing leaves Southwark looking like an "Island" we would somehow have to get back to later... so we decide to bite the bullet and are waiting for just over 15 mins.......

At Waterloo it is the painful trek up from the Jubille line with the last set of escalators not working, my legs suddenly turn to lead and it is like trying to run in a diving suit... as we reach the main Waterloo terminus I was amazed to discover that the exact same thing had happened to my teamates at excatly the same time

A superb connection here on BR and then again at Vauxhall and again at the Sloane Square double back gets our spirits up again

The good old H & C strikes again and having got some time back we lost another 12 or so minutes trying to get into Paddington......

The last couple of connections go pretty well and we get to our finishing station of Earls Court (pretty handy as that was the post-challenge meeting point)

Ric arrives all too shortly after us and as we knew that as he was finishing at Queensway we guessed his time was better....
The other team were finishing at Lambeth North and they turned up about 20 mins later, so we knew the times would be close....

1st Ric 3hrs 8mins 3secs
2nd Antony & Jamie 3hrs 14mins 35secs
3rd Kevin, Phillip & Keith 3hrs 17mins 52secs...

Robbed of 1st place again by the H & C and more so by starting too early and hitting the Jubilee before the signal failure had been sorted

Anyway thanks to all that took part......

Sadly I am not looking like challenging for the Z1 crown on 18th May as this was 9th failure to break 3 hours

Going Underground wrote:
Sadly I am not looking like challenging for the Z1 crown on 18th May as this was 9th failure to break 3 hours

If at first you dont suceed....
I managed to break 3 hours on my 2nd attempt