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Note: As of the 15th of May 2010 Geoff is no longer a member of this forum. He is also no longer organising this year's Zone 1 challenge. I will ask Geoff if he can supply me a list of those who have already entered, and I can then pass that on to whoever takes up the mantle as organiser. If he has not kept a list of people then I'm afraid you'll either have to do it again or just turn up. The new organiser will have to decide on that. Tubeguru.

THE RULES! (Updated for 2010)

1) The goal of the competition is to visit all 64 Zone 1 London Underground stations in the shortest time possible - the record currently stands at 2 hours, 42 minutes and 22 seconds.

2) Visiting a station is defined as arriving at or departing from or passing through the station on a LU trainn. You are allowed to leave the Underground system and move between stations on foot or by bus.

3) Paricipants are trusted to provide basic evidence of their time and start/finish points.

4) Participants can compete individually, or preferably in teams of 2-4 people. Give your team a name - there will be a prize for the best one.

5) A random start station out of the 64 will be drawn on the day before the start. Stations that we have started from in previous years are: Vauxhall (2004), St. James's Park (2005), Sloane Square (2006), Westminster (2007), King's Cross (2008) and Angel (2009) and will not be in the hat for stations used. As Blackfriars is also currently closed (a 'pass through' in terms of the challenge) that will not be the start either.

7) You must start on the first train in your chosen direction after 1pm GMT. You cannot wait for a second train to the same destination to come along and take that instead.

Send me an email [see note above] to register. Nearer the time, I'll let everyone know where the meeting point is, which will be at midday on the Friday. We'll then pick a starting station and go there to start for 1pm.

USUAL COMMENTS APPLY:

- Paddington (Hammersmith & City / Circle) is one station, Paddington (District / Circle / Bakerloo) is another. Edgware Road (Bakerloo) is a seperate station to Edgware Road (Circle/District/Hammersmith & City) which makes a total of 64 Zone 1 stations.

- Your overall time is measured from the moment the first train finally closes its door for departure until the doors open at (or close for departure) at the last station visit. Each team must measure their own time down to seconds. This means you CAN visit your last zone 1 station by departing from a station, and the time is the moment that the doors close and the train pulls away.

- Should multiple teams start and finish on the same trains (at the same station) they are ranked equal, regardless of the exact measured time.

- Train numbers and witness statements (that would be expected on a full network challenge) are not required. This isn't a world record, it's just a bit of fun. Exact log of each intermediate times is not required either, but we know that some of you liked to do that anyway ...

- When the start station has been drawn all participants will go there and regroup as soon as possible.

- The interpretation for a Baker Street Start is that a team wishing to go east along the Circle, must try to catch the first train, either a Met train or a Circle/H&C train, even though these depart from different platforms.

- The interpretation for a High Street Kensington start is that a team wishing to go to Earl´s Court, must try to catch the first train regardless of whether this is a Kensington (Olympia) train or a Wimbledon train, even though these depart from different platforms.

- This also means e.g. at a Moorgate start, a team may decide to wait (say) for an eastbound Hammersmith & City train (for Aldgate East), a clockwise Circle for travel beyond Aldgate or any SSL train for Liverpool Street.

- However a team MUST NOT wait for the correct sequence (like H&C-Met-Circle and expect to make the Aldgate run to catch that Circle train!)

- Care should be taken when overtaking people in passageways. Doors should also NOT be held for any extensive time period

- In the event of any dispute the organisers ruling (that's me - Geoff! - is final)

- By participating in the challenge, you agree to these rules!

- I'll be taking part myself, but probably not trying too hard to win, i'll be more worried about the video of it all that I'll be making again on the day.

TO REGISTER!

email me - geoff@geofftech.co.uk and tell me who you are and who's in your team. i'll then email you all in the week leading up to the Friday where the meeting point is. I would go back to Cafe Fred on Argyle Street at Oxford Circus, but it's currently close and being renovated ...

Let the squabbling & questions (below) commence!

You could have been a bit more thorough in your explanations there ...

i actually TRUNCATED them (from last year!) - they're a rehash of Andi's rules, which were a re-hash of Hakan's.

somebody will find fault somewhere and ask a question, just you watch . . .

geofftech wrote:the record currently stands at 2 hours, 43 minutes and 50 seconds.

- Your overall time is measured from the moment the first train finally closes its door for departure until the doors open at (or close for departure) at the last station visit. Each team must measure their own time down to seconds. This means you CAN visit your last zone 1 station by departing from a station, and the time is the moment that the doors close and the train pulls away.

Two comments: As on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternativ ... Challenges the record is actually 2:42'22", achieved by Jamie Brown and me.

This idea of being able to visit the final station by departing from there is different from every other challenge I've been on, including the full networks. I've always felt that the rules should be as consistent as possible. (Besides, Jamie and I had to complete a different Zone 1 challenge by running to Earls Court and taking any train one stop - hence we were the only team officially to finish in zone 2 - at West Kensington.)

OK. My first post here... been lurking for some time reading much of the posts here and I think this would be an ideal starter challenge, so am now making necessary plans and arrangements to travel down to London especially for this.

The rules are implicitly clear to me!

Starkey7 wrote:

geofftech wrote:Your overall time is measured from the moment the first train finally closes its door for departure until the doors open at (or close for departure) at the last station visit. Each team must measure their own time down to seconds. This means you CAN visit your last zone 1 station by departing from a station, and the time is the moment that the doors close and the train pulls away.

This idea of being able to visit the final station by departing from there is different from every other challenge I've been on, including the full networks. I've always felt that the rules should be as consistent as possible. (Besides, Jamie and I had to complete a different Zone 1 challenge by running to Earls Court and taking any train one stop - hence we were the only team officially to finish in zone 2 - at West Kensington.)

I agree with John, we have never had the rule before that allows the watch to be stopped on a departing train. I think this breaks with tradition and would nulify any times set using this method for being used in Z1 top times table.

Ok, time updated! : 2 hours, 22 minutes, 42 seconds.

John - the fastest I remembered was when you won Z1 2007, and you went back out later on and beat your own time, yes? But this one you did in 2008?? There used to be a posting somewhere on this forum with a list of all the times, but I can't find it - anyone?

Re: departing last station/closing doors and THAT being the time.

we have never had the rule before that allows the watch to be stopped on a departing train

This idea of being able to visit the final station by departing from there is different from every other challenge I've been on, including the full networks

Have you ever done a full network challenge where this might have been the case? It's consistent in that I once had a route planned for FNC/275 (only on paper, I never actually tried it) where you started on the first Chesham train that went round the curve into Watford and onto the rest of the network .. and you 'missed out' Amersham. Then : at the end of the day you caught a Chiltern train out of Marylebone up to Amersham and caught the last departing Met train of the day out of Amersham. That's when I realised that Guinness had no rule to cover that and I thought it through logically --why should you have to have the timing point be the time that you arrive at Chalfont & Latimer, because you'd already done it early (on the Chesham train). And you've made the effort (by getting the Chiltern to Amersham) to get to Amersham - so you just need a timing point for it, and thus logically it's when you leave on a valid train. (sidenote: it's a shame the Turbo's don't use the same platfrom/tracks at the Met trains otherwise you could just claim the time that you arrive AT Amersham as your finish time, rather than having to catch a Met train at all)

So that's why I've always gone with a 'close door' moment as a valid time. It's only got incorporated in the rules (AFAIK) in 2008 when Hakan wrote it up, there was no consistency for the 2004-2007 Z1 days.

Jamie and I had to complete a different Zone 1 challenge by running to Earls Court and taking any train one stop - hence we were the only team officially to finish in zone 2 - at West Kensington.)

Where had you started for this Z1 challenge? and i'll see if i can apply my devasting logic to it ...

this isn't going to be an issue anyway unless it actually occurs to someone on the day. and then i'm sure we can all work it out like adults. right?

There will be adults there?

Work it out "like adults"!

There are adults on this forum?

Why do you not reveal the meeting point here? It seems simpler just to say meet at (say) the Horse & Groom. Also it means anybody can come along. With the R15s (yes, you get people to add themselves to the list) you could just turn up at the start station (and I think it would be OK even if there were one or two unexpected people). It seems an unnecessary complication.

I know this is not related to Z1, but relevant to the Amersham debate. You say that northbound Chilterns do not use the same tracks/platform at Amersham as A stocks. I can tell you that may be incorrect, as I have arrived (and departed) on an A stock from Platform 1, which seems to fail the debate that is not used by LU trains...

JoeGJ1984 wrote:Why do you not reveal the meeting point here? It seems simpler just to say meet at (say) the Horse & Groom. Also it means anybody can come along. With the R15s (yes, you get people to add themselves to the list) you could just turn up at the start station (and I think it would be OK even if there were one or two unexpected people). It seems an unnecessary complication.

I think it's so that we have a rough idea of how many people are likely to be attending so things like function rooms etc can be planned in advance. There's usually far more people at the Annual Z1 than at an R15

I really cannot remember, Geoff, when it was that Jamie and I set the 2:42'22" record; obviously it was after my 2:43'50" record - by quite some way if I remember rightly.

tangy wrote:I know this is not related to Z1, but relevant to the Amersham debate. You say that northbound Chilterns do not use the same tracks/platform at Amersham as A stocks. I can tell you that may be incorrect, as I have arrived (and departed) on an A stock from Platform 1, which seems to fail the debate that is not used by LU trains...

Furthermore, London Overground and District line trains don't use the same tracks at Richmond, and yet that's never been an issue!

Just out of curiosity seeing as u work for the BBC any possibility of a celebrity puller of the station name.?