Tube Olympics 2010 - Event 5 - R15 (Round 4) - 27FEB

[Soup Dragon]

Incidentally, when I was on the train down, they announced they were selling travelcards on the train, so I decided to buy one then to save some time. Bought a zones 1-4 travelcard and it cost £6.30. (This seems expensive. Should that be the price? It says Off-peak and says between London Terminals and London zones 1-4.)

That is the correct price for Z1-4. You could gamble and purchase for just Z1-2 at £5.60, but this would limit you should you wish to head outside of Z2.

[Sam]

Incidentally, when I was on the train down, they announced they were selling travelcards on the train, so I decided to buy one then to save some time. Bought a zones 1-4 travelcard and it cost £6.30. (This seems expensive. Should that be the price? It says Off-peak and says between London Terminals and London zones 1-4.)

Yes, that is the correct price, quite why you bought 1-4 and not 1-2 (at 5.60) though!! It's not really that expensive for all tube and train travel from the time you bought it until 4.30am plus unlimited bus travel....

[JoeGJ1984]

Incidentally, when I was on the train down, they announced they were selling travelcards on the train, so I decided to buy one then to save some time. Bought a zones 1-4 travelcard and it cost £6.30. (This seems expensive. Should that be the price? It says Off-peak and says between London Terminals and London zones 1-4.)

That is the correct price for Z1-4. You could gamble and purchase for just Z1-2 at £5.60, but this would limit you should you wish to head outside of Z2.

That was the reason I went for zones 1-4 rather than zones 1-2 (I didn't want to think about having to purchase another ticket or timeouts with an Oyster card). I read on a previous R15 about somebody taking a National Rail train to Richmond, so I wanted to have that option.

[Soup Dragon]

With a total of 18 competitors yesterday I believe that this is the biggest turnout for an alternative challenge.
Only the annual Z1 day and Tube Relief have seen a larger number of competitors.

[Steeevooo]

Very much enjoyed my first alternative challenge, even happier with a 2nd place finish! Kev and I originally had one plan (which turned out to be nearly identical to Al's winning plan), but then changed tack whilst coming Southbound on the Piccadilly line from Holloway Road, deciding to take the "extra stations but fewer interchanges" approach, a decision largely based on the large quantities of people being forced to use the few Central London lines that were actually running. We had some very sexy changes, as Kev has said above, a 3 minute wait at Hammersmith H&C/Circ was probably our longest wait. Congratulations once again to Al for breaking the 2 hour barrier - we thought we may have been close to breaking it, but ultimately you were on the Wimbledon train ahead of ours anyway! Also managed to pick up a fair few darts points in the evening - I have double 2 running in my blood as Ryan and Jamie know

[Soup Dragon]

Just checking the stats for the R15 and amazingly Kevin & Steevoo's time exactly matched the previous record.

[palkanetoijala31]

Well the day went as this for the team of me and sara.We began by heading westbound to London bridge where following Kevin i tripped up the stairs and went sprawling but still managed to get the train and get Sara on it.Must have been the most easiest challenge ever as we ticked off 5 station to Kentish Town decided to double back to KCSP and ran up the corridor to Piccadilly line never done that change before so was most interested in it.

We got out at Earls court and decided to head towards Ravenscourt Park with some other teams the wimbleware train was 5 mins wait i had originally decided to go there but changed on the hoof wrong idea.Heading into Ravenscourt Park i got the jump on most teams by being down the stairs before most had got on the platform had a quick look for a district double back but we knew we had just missed 1.So Starkey & Soup Dragon went running off and we got the lasy boy option of a bus 27 (giving us a Starkey quote of the day why are there no buses going our way hmm thats because its a 1 way street)4 teams were all together at Hammersmith where we waited long and cost us a place and a Wimbleware just departed as we got Edgeware road good Interchange station my arse.

The darts went reasonably well cant remember most of it as the pints of stout were consumed at an alarming rate but i think i won a final.?

[Steeevooo]

Just checking the stats for the R15 and amazingly Kevin & Steevoo's time exactly matched the previous record.

That's quite remarkable really!

[Soup Dragon]

The darts went reasonably well cant remember most of it as the pints of stout were consumed at an alarming rate but i think i won a final.?

The stout obviously clouded your memory. You made one final with Laxmeesh which you lost to Ryan & Steeevooo.

[Edgemaster]

Yesterday was surprisingly good, after heading to bed at 4am that morning, and the alarm waking me at 11, I just managed to drag myself to Canada Water for 1.

I was with the leading pack that opted to do the northern line sections first (Bank, Moorgate, King's Cross, Camden Town), the nice High Barnet connection proving useful for Kentish Town, where I decided it'd be fun to run/try and get a bus all the way to Holloway Road. This proved to be quite a mistake; seeing as Jamie was on the southbound train when I arrived at Caledonian Road... A 5 minute wait for the next northbound put me at least 5 trains behind once I started southbound from Holloway Road.

I continued all the way through Piccadilly Circus to Green Park, where I decided to shake things up a little (knowing I'd have little chance if I followed the rest south, as they were likely to avoid the H&C until later), I changed to the Jubilee northbound to Baker Street, then Bakerloo to Edgware Road, running to Edgware Road (SSL), a 2 min wait for the H&C train to leave, and Paddington (H&C), Royal Oak were ticked off. Also saw tangy heading northbound at Shepherd's Bush Market.

Doubled back from Hammersmith to Ravenscourt Park where I once again saw Jamie and Ryan, who'd got off the same train as me, we'd just missed the return connection, so a 5ish minute wait before heading back. They ditched at Hammersmith (I assume), I continued on to Earl's Court, where I hit the largest crowd I'd ever seen at a tube station. A mass of Chelsea supporters were flooding down the stairs onto the e/b platforms, making it impossible to get up. I headed for the spiral stairs to the Piccadilly line, since they were empty. A quick run up the escalator there, before pushing through a crowd waiting for the down escalator to get across to the w/b platform. Came up the standard set of interchange stairs, to find a really helpful Wimbledon-bound train to take me to Fulham Broadway and East Putney.

(I then skipped on the pub, since I needed to change into clothes suitable for walking, and head southwards to compete in a Night Hike, which I also came 3rd in... I've now only had 1 hour of sleep since 11am on Saturday morning...)

[Soup Dragon]

Ryan was the man in form yesterday winning 10 and losing just 3 legs, also scoring well with 100, 105 & 140.
I had a chance to take the highest ever checkout of 124, having scored two treble 20's with my first two darts I somewhat bottled the 3rd dart not wanting to bust my score. Overall some good performances and high quality darts on display. The top ten individual scores for the evening:

1. 6.02 Ryan Brown
2. 5.61 Kevin Brown
3. 4.53 Antony Brown
4. 3.40 Peter Smyth
5. 2.94 Andi James
6. 2.54 Steve Wilson
7. 2.46 Laxmeesh Rao
8. 1.90 John Stark
9. 1.50 Al Brown
10 1.14 Sara Wearn

[Going Underground]

Just checking the stats for the R15 and amazingly Kevin & Steevoo's time exactly matched the previous record.

That's quite remarkable really!

Echo that and also we had the R15 that Peter won by 1 second finishing down in Clapham area and we were up at Manor House

[al]

A day of lovely changes for me, hence achieving the first sub-2 hour time on the R15.

I was with the pack through to Green Park, where I then doubled back to Piccadilly Circus. It seems to be this manoeuvre that won it for me. There was a train within 1 min at GP, and one on the platform at PC.

Edgware Road (Bak) was where it nearly all went wrong. I was first to the lift and it was arriving when I got there so thought excellent. Saw everyone get off the other side, and wondered why the doors our side were taking so long to open. The lift then promptly departs upwards, much to my dismay, and that of an old lady stood next to me, who said "didn't you press the button?" Er, no it never occurred to me

So a nice 125 steps to run up before going to Edgware Road (H&C), where there is a train in but no driver. a 3 or 4 min wait and then off to Hammersmith, crossing the road to the other station for a 2 min wait to get to Ravenscourt Park. A sexy change here, as a train was arriving on the other platform as I arrived, so off to Earls Court for a 2 min wait and a busy-ish train to East Putney. I knew things were looking good with the time I had, so elected to continue to Wimbledon so as not to give anything away by being on a Northbound train.

[tangy]

My account of events:

I started at 1140, to walk up to the top of my road to catch the 1144 GOBLIN towards BKG, or so I thought. Walked onto the platform and noted the next train screen showing a 1201 to BKG. I was baffled by this as I have always known off peak trains to BKG depart WMW at 14 and 44 past each hour! Then I glanced at the timetable poster and noted that on this new timetable trains have been retimed by 15 minutes to depart at 01 and 31 past and take 5 minutes longer to get to thier destination! Who thought of that idea?!

Anyway, did the transfer between the two Leytonstone stations and alighted at SRA onto the Jubilee line to reach the start station of Canada Water.

The start came and like the rest of the competitors decided to head west on the Jubilee to LBG and change to the northbound Northern line via Bank, Moorgate, KX and Camden, it was a bonus that the train was a High Barnet one, so stayed on until Kentish Town. Having seen the rest of the participants rush off at Kentish Town i didn't and carried on until Tuffnell Park.

I was hoping that a route 4 bus would turn up to take me down to Holloway Nags Head but no bus in sight, so went a bit hardcore and ran all the way down to Holloway Road. Upon getting to the platform I just missed an Uxbridge bound train, so 2 minutes for a Heathrow T5 behind. Stayed on through Picc. Circus and and Green Park to Barons Court where I spied a westbound District just pulling in, so transferred over to the D stock to visit Ravenscourt Park.

It was on this train that I met up with some of the other competitors and stayed with them until the end at East Putney to finish in a 02:23:17 time, though my stopwatch for some reason showed I had completed the challenge 6 minutes faster than the others?!?

[Starkey7]

...changed at London Bridge onto the Northern Line, then went through Moorgate and Bank to Kings Cross St Pancras. I was on an Edgware train, so decided not to stay on as I would have to change for Kentish Town...

The stations that were drawn gave it an obvious start, at least until Kings Cross and (I didn't see) but assumed everybody was on the same train up until this point. I saw a couple of others leaving the train with me at London Bridge, but not after that.

Actually, no. A lot of people made the train before yours at London Bridge, which was going directly to High Barnet.