Alphabet Challenge Record Time

[Going Underground]

I was looking at the tubechallenge.com home page and only 2 times are mentioned so I assume the target to break the record is 5hrs 20mins and 25secs set by the splendid Steven and Sam team...

However Geoff's site tells a different story as per the link below....

http://www.*****.co.uk/tubechallenge/alt_alphabet/

A time of 5hrs 0mins and 44secs Evan and Dave from the good old U.S. of A.

Now there are some interesting quotes here; "I am sure it helped we are both in our early 20's and this motivated us to walk very briskly or even run through transfers or reverses"

Now as far as I can see there are no long runs involved so age and fitness are not a major factor here.. They didn't run all the interchanges so perhaps as they also quote "We had a VERY excellent tube service and rarely had to wait more than 2 or 3 minutes for any train."
The service may well have been perfect with plenty of "sexy"changes..

David Scard comments on his time of 5hrs 56mins
"I think I could do it again in about 5h 15m to 5h 30m ish. I doubt anybody could really beat a time of about five and a quarter unless they seriously worked very hard! This challenge involves a lot of 'going back on yourself' and thus a lot of travelling distance has to be covered!".

Is a time of around 5hrs then realistic and do we consider this the "Top" Alphabet Challenge time or is Steven and Sam's time the target

[Soup Dragon]

Personally I think that the 5h 00m 44s has a hint of W******* about it.
When you consider that very experienced tube challengers such as David Scard, Steven Karahan & Zeibura have come nowhere near 5 hours.
It takes a giant leap of faith to believe that two chaps not familar with the Underground system could get lucky and plan a route that could beat such experienced challengers?

It raises an interesting question in my mind of what proof should we ask for if someone wants to claim a record for an alternative challenge. I think there is a great deal of trust amongst members of this forum and don't think that anyone here would try and claim any false times.

[tpfkar]

Yes, I think that without trust, all alternative challenges break down. Guinness can't go on trust, so they put lots of evidence requirements in, but as a community we should be able to do that. I think that where there have been one or two, er, irregularities in the past, they have come to light pretty quickly.

When I recorded my excellent Z1 time, I was nothing more than a username on a forum to anyone else, but was still believed with what I claimed. In fact knowing that I was trusted so quickly probably motivated me to stay on this forum instead of drifting away.

In terms of what is a good time on the Alphabet challenge, even the 'experienced' have stinkers - but if David says that 5h 15 is the target, I think he'd have decent judgement on that kind of thing. Perhaps you could email the people who've claimed the 5hr time and ask for a few details of how they did it?

[Soup Dragon]

Yes, I think that without trust, all alternative challenges break down. Guinness can't go on trust, so they put lots of evidence requirements in, but as a community we should be able to do that. I think that where there have been one or two, er, irregularities in the past, they have come to light pretty quickly.

When I recorded my excellent Z1 time, I was nothing more than a username on a forum to anyone else, but was still believed with what I claimed. In fact knowing that I was trusted so quickly probably motivated me to stay on this forum instead of drifting away.

In terms of what is a good time on the Alphabet challenge, even the 'experienced' have stinkers - but if David says that 5h 15 is the target, I think he'd have decent judgement on that kind of thing. Perhaps you could email the people who've claimed the 5hr time and ask for a few details of how they did it?

The details on Geoff's site mention they started at Angel and finished at Westminster and apparently they did send the rest of their route to Geoff.

[petermiller36]

I still dont believe a word that tpkfar says. None of his records are true and as for Z1 last year! well!!!

[Going Underground]

OK I admit I want a record badly and yesterday was going to be the day

We had a decent route, all the carriage positions and interchanges were researched, it was good service on all lines, I had my best running shoes on

Starting at Aldgate we had quite magnificent changes....
The first few letters are fairly leisurely, up to Dollis Hill and a great return to Farringdon. We double back here and an Uxbridge train pulls in immediately
Out to Ickenham, so I decide to have a "spot of luncheon" get my sandwiches out of the rucksack and a met line pulls in...

We get back to Central London for the fast and furious "L to T" segment....
All the changes go superbly, no nore than 1 -2 minutes maximum, with the exception of the Double back at Queensway... A 7 minute wait.....

After that again superb connections through R, S & T, we catch an Upminster train as the doors are closing, double back at Upton park as a Westbound district arrives on the platform.....
The last couple of connections are done without any delay and as we are between St James Park and Westminster the clock goes past 5hrs 00mins and 44secs....
We finished 38 secs outside the time on 5hrs 1min and 22secs....

We gave it "the beans" on every change and we were more exhausted
than on our previous 275 attempts....

Now I do not believe with the exception of Queensway that it would have been possible to have had more "Sexy changes"

I have our times at all "A to W" stations and I find it very hard to believe that a couple of American Tourists, probably without interchange or door position knowledge and in many cases "walking briskly" could have got the round in the time stated.......

[Soup Dragon]

Queensway Station was closed from 8th May 2005 and did not re-open until 2006. So taking into account that our American cousins did the challenge on 27th July 2005, they would have had to visit Queensbury or more likely Queens Park which would have made the attempt quite difficult?

[gasman]

I'd say a pass-through of Queensway would have been acceptable... we'd consider that to be a visit on any other type of challenge. (Although I suppose there is the argument that you can complete an alphabet challenge without visiting Queensway, whereas you can't complete a zone 1 without visiting it, so the pass-through rule only needs to be there for the zone1 / bottle / 275 etc. But then that argument falls down if Ickenham ever closes...)

[Going Underground]

I'd say a pass-through of Queensway would have been acceptable... we'd consider that to be a visit on any other type of challenge. (Although I suppose there is the argument that you can complete an alphabet challenge without visiting Queensway, whereas you can't complete a zone 1 without visiting it, so the pass-through rule only needs to be there for the zone1 / bottle / 275 etc. But then that argument falls down if Ickenham ever closes...)

I have to disagree that a pass through is acceptable on an Alphabet Challenge where you have an alternative same letter station to visit that is open. ..
This is a completely different scenario to a Z1, Bottle, 275 etc that are all covered by boundaries... The Alphabet challenge to my mind is the only one where this rule would be the exception....

And I am not just saying this beacuse we came within 38 seconds of the time

[jonny]

Hmm
Interesting opinion.

I, for one, used Regent's Park as my 'R' station during Fridays attempt by passing through it from Baker Street to Oxford Circus. I assumed that the standard GWR rules applied to this challenge as well.

I suppose there are 'for' and 'against' arguments to this, but I think for the sake of simplicity (and so that my time stands ) we should apply the same rule to this challenge as we do to others.

[thornski]

Hi everyone,
This is Evan Thorn - Dave and I posted the 5:00:44 time on the alphabet challenge.

Sorry it's been a while since I've been back to the site. But I just checked a little while ago to check out some of the new times on a bunch of challenges.

Anyway I came across this thread and was quite surprised/disappointed to see that some have been questioning the legitimacy of our time. Anyway I just wanted to post to clarify some details regarding our attempt. Hopefully this will end any thoughts that we did not have a legitimate alphabet challenge run.

1) I provided both Geoff and Neil with our entire route. Not only that, but I also sent Neil a bunch of extra details of our route (including train numbers, exact times pulling into and out of each station, exact transfers made, etc.). Definitely wanted to be more safe than sorry just in case we set a record. Anyway Neil described it in an email he sent back to me as "the most comprehensive explanation of any tube challenge I've ever seen." Ahh the wonders of gmail to find my email from two years ago . So if any of you had any concerns I'm sure they will be very willing to back up our time.

2) I think the fact that Kevin, Phil, and Jamie were able to complete the challenge only 38 seconds slower that we did definitely shows our time is legitimate. I think we just got slightly luckier with our transfers, especially since they had to wait 7 minutes at Queensway (the longest we had to wait for any was 2 or 3...that's pretty much the difference right there).

3) The debate on whether pass through stations could count (although a very interesting puzzle) doesn't actually apply to us since we didn't use Queensway.

4) I know a bunch have said that they were skeptical because we were Americans. Now while Dave and I are far from Tube Challenge veterans like many of you on this site, we consider ourselves very familiar with the tube. Both Dave and I had studied in London for the previous year, and I was actually living in the city the summer we attempted the challenge. So I myself have probably spent close to 2 years or so total living in / visiting the city, not sure about Dave but it's also quite a bit. So while we're not native Londoners, I think it's safe to say that we're far from "American tourists." Also, it's not like we went out one day and just came up with our route out of the blue. We spent pretty much the entire night before looking at Journey Planner, average times to each station, average waiting time for trains, etc. to come up with what we thought was the optimal route.

Anyway sorry again for the very very long post, but hopefully that helps everyone out. If any of you want to message me if you have any other questions or clarifications, please do, I'll help out as much as I can without actually giving you our full route

[Going Underground]

Hi Evan

Welcome back and nice avatar by the way.............

I don't think the fact you were Americans or inexperienced tube challengers caused the scepticism or slight doubt.... It was the way the write up was worded that you didn't appear to be going "hell for leather" and possibly didn't know the optimum carriage positions to be in for the interchanges....Like Ric mentions we have to take a lot on trust with these challenges so you can see why there was cause for concern...

Anyway "hats off" for a great time, I think sub 5 hours will be very tough to beat and your "optimum" route must be most interesting if you didn't visit Queensway as the only alternatives are Queens Park or Queensbury and these would seem to be time consuming detours.....

I found this one of the most demanding and tiring challenges I have attempted, far worse than Z1 or the full network, very fast and furious and hot and bothered from letters L to T........ I won't be trying this one again as I doubt we will have better luck on the day (Queensway excepted) or get anywhere near the time we set........

So if you want to PM your route your secret is safe with me

[tpfkar]

Hi Evan,

thanks for your post - much appreciated by all on here I'm sure. And the fact that the top two times are so close sounds about right.

It's interesting just how many records are set by people who claim not to know the carriage positions - when I did my Z1 record time, it was only halfway through that it became a real attempt, rather than a carriage-finding trip!

It sounds like one of these challenges with a tangible target time - like the bottle has 2 hours to beat - of 5 hours, and I wonder who'll be the first person to get inside it?

[jbom1]

Thanks, Evan, for such a thorough posting. Looks like your record will be a tough one to beat.

[Soup Dragon]

Hi Evan, my view was similar to Kevin (Going Underground), in the way that the report was written. It made out that you guys just decided to go out and give the Alphabet Challenge a try without much research or thought going into it. Having read your account I apologise for any doubt that I might have had.

In regards to the route I would be interested in your starting & finishing stations and the "Q" station you visited with Queensway being closed.