Tube Olympics: Event 2- Random 15. 8th February 2014

[greatkingrat]

Easiest set of stations ever? 10 of the 15 were on the circle line. We may see records tumbling today.

[The Orange One]

Although I came joint last I would like to claim "most improved time", with an improvement of 1 hour, 37 minutes and 17 seconds from my last time.

[hopeful traveller]

As ever, I'm not too pleased with Chelsea Football Club...

In the order of their announcements:

South Kensington
Tower Hill
Ravenscourt Park
Waterloo
Baker Street
Sloane Square
Euston Square
Farringdon
King's Cross St. Pancras
Fulham Broadway
High Street Kensington
West Kensington
London Bridge
Moorgate
Monument

Started at South Kensington, we moaned that Tangy hadn't mixed them up, and we decided to hit Sloane Square first - and to get Chelsea out of the way. But, being a Fulham fan, I'm not used to people turning up nearly an hour before kick-off. Resultantly, despite arguing with the staff at Fulham Broadway, we were shepherded down to Stamford Bridge and had to run all the way back again!

This cost us several minutes and was the start of our District Line woes. Playing this song optimistically, we were returning to Earl's Court, but we saw that there was no Richmond/Ealing Broadway train for five minutes - as the Chelsea nightmare had meant we'd missed one by 30 seconds - so gambled on the Piccadilly Line, but to no avail. So therefore a slow-ish turnaround at Ravenscourt Park - where we met Hugo, Tangy, and Nick, who were on the train behind us but got the same train back to Earl's Court (passing through West Kensington).

Our information was that, using the triangle of power, Gloucester Road would be our best option - so when we got back to Earl's Court, we were surprised to see a Wimbleware sitting in the platform for us! Things CAN only get better.... but the train sat at a red signal for FOUR minutes. Four. At High Street Kensington we concluded, owing to the number of people on the platform, that we were on the right train and wouldn't have profited by going to Gloucester Road.

Looking at our information for our next change, we worked out we'd be sitting at Edgware Road for six minutes. Attempting to circumvent the problem, Rhys had a masterstroke, which I refined - switch to the Bakerloo Line at Edgware Road (which I changed to Paddington) and try to get a train up by taking it to Baker Street - then heading on the subsurface. This worked, as we worked out that we got a train up on what we thought we would get. It sped round the bottle, whizzing through Euston Square, King's Cross St. Pancras, Farringdon, Moorgate, Liverpool Street, Tower Hill, and Monument, and, following a sexy change there, we headed to London Bridge on the Northern Line. Quickly switching to the Jubilee Line to finish at Waterloo, and with a time of 01:55:48, we'd broken the WR and OR!

Tangy will post the results.

[The Orange One]

Well, upon the station draw I joined the others heading down to the subsurface. I toyed with a Sloane Square double-back but "Circle Line 3 minutes" was too inviting, so I joined a crowd heading to HSK. Doubled back with the Circle to Gloucester Road and Piccadilly to ECT, where the Olympia I'd seen earlier was in platform. Left it, waited for the Wimbleware, boarded with loads of Chelsea fans, reversed at Fulham Broadway (I was forced outside as well) and met Nick and Tangy. We then went to Ravenscourt Park via West Ken, where we met Team Trhys, who had managed to do Sloane Square (but not HSK). Back through ECT, where Team Trhys left us, then IT began.

Held at Gloucester Road indefinitely, while our empty train became packed, I realised what I should have done was take that Piccadilly at Barons Court, or even better, the Circle at Hammersmith (which could have been really good). But too late. We struggled through Sloane Square at a snails pace to Victoria, where I chose to bail for the Victoria to Green Park. Nick attempted to follow, but went south instead - this actually turned out to be a good thing for him. 3 minutes for the Jubilee, then met Tangy once more at London Bridge. 2 minutes for a High Barnet to Bank, 5 for an Upminster at Monument. During this time I considered a bus to Tower Hill, train back to Monument and back on the Northern to Moorgate, and saw an S Stock I'm pretty sure had Team Trhys on it. On to Tower Hill, 1 minute for a Circle and our fates were sealed. Tangy considered throwing me off the train at Farringdon, so I sat down to make it harder for him. We both finished at Baker Street with 02:15:35 - a substantially better time than my previous PB of 03:52:55, but still not good enough to beat last place.

[tangy]

The results of Tube Olympics Event 2 and Round 4 of the 2013/14 Random 15 Chamionship.

The live draw presented us with 10 stations on the Circle Line and only three outside of Z1! I did say dig deep into the bucket...

We had 11 challengers split into 8 teams, therefore in reverse order:

7th=: The Orange One finishing at Baker Street in a time of 02:15:35
7th=: Tangy finishing at Baker Street in a time of 02:15:35
6th: Nick Gardner finishing at Monument in a time of 02:14:40
5th: Team Rhys and Tom Cooling finishing at Waterloo in a time of 01:55:48
4th: Andrew Chilcraft finishing at Ravenscourt Park in a time of 01:52:08
3rd: Peter Smyth finishing at Baker Street in a time of 01:47:55 (BRONZE MEDAL)
2nd: Kevin Brown finishing at Ravenscourt Park in a time of 01:45:34 (SILVER MEDAL)
1st: Andi James and Andrew Baker finishing at Baker Street in a time of 01:42:52 (GOLD MEDAL) NEW WORLD RECORD

So, it happens again, a new World Record is set for the Random 15 at the Winter Olympics! The top 5 finishing teams all had times within the old record.

The Random 15 Championship league table now looks like this:

1st: Peter Smyth: 42 points
2nd: Kevin Brown: 37 points
3rd=: Damian Cook: 27 points
3rd=: Nick Gardner: 27 points
3rd=: Andrew Baker: 27 points
6th: Andrew Chilcraft: 23 points
7th: Tangy: 20 points
8th: Rhys Benjamin: 19 points
9th: The Orange One: 18 points
10th: Rhys Jackson: 15 points
11th: Andi James: 12 points
12th: Tom Cooling: 6 points
13th: Ashley Moore: 4 points

Thanks for everyone to attending and donating to the prize fund which currently stands at £21.75. Still two rounds to go, so there is still a good chance of obtaining one of the top three prizes.

Round 5 will be twist round and will be held in late March/early April. Potential dates to be advised.

Signed: TOSA/BERC.

[palkanetoijala31]

Well its nice to get some points on the board at last although really kevin should have won by how much who knows? at least it prolongs the championship as kevin was ahead of peter and now with my partner of yesterday with an interesting 3rd place hotting up?

Team andrew decided right at the start to go to the hsk via the circle (it was the dog in the bone as i put it) where i made andrew run to earls court shocking the beauticians by running through boots thanks starkey but it wouldnt have made any differance as we were beaten just by the olympia train in platform.

so we headed via west kensington to ravenscourt park where we met with mr smyth my shadow of the last two days and then came back to find what we thought was an 8 min wait for a wimbledon train which turned into 1 min on advice from a passenger.

heading down to fulham broadway poor choice of door position meant we were scuppered getting the distrcit back into earls court but the next was a city train which enabled us to get in right door position for westminster.

at westminster my smyth chose the carriage and door position for the northern at london bridge where we got in carriage 4 door 3 for exit to the rail this inspired choice by mr baker meant we got rid of my shadow so where has peter ran to the northern we took what turned out to be the winning gambit by running over london bridge to monument me running out in front for andrew to follow me.

on arriving at monument the joy of joys a circle train approaching so all we had to do was insure that met didnt leave first at aldgate walk the whole carriage to ensure shadow wasnt there and ride all way to baker street for the new world record.

[Going Underground]

An easy decision to go East and avoid the ensuing chaos at Fulham Broadway...
Knocked out all the Circle line stations + Waterloo and London Bridge with a nifty 30 second cross platform onto a wimbelware at Edgware Rd saw me at HSK after 53 mins sending texts to say I would be at the pub within an hour and feeling very confident of grabbing the Gold!

Then sat at HSK on a red for at least 12 mins, after a 4 min double back at Fulham Broadway we were held twice outside West Brompton at least another 10 mins .... Then held for 5 mins outside Barons Court
So the last 3 stations took 52 mins

PS Tangy needs a bigger bucket

[DrainBrain]

Delayed trains, a missed-by-a-second train, slow connections, a wrong train, an unexpected NR train, a long and probably unnecessary double-back, a non-functioning stopwatch, a football crowd and a carriage that was sardine-tin-full of drunk people in fancy dress on the Waitangi Day Pub Crawl, all packed into a record time (for me) of 2 hours 14 minutes and 40 seconds.

Yep, just another vanilla R15 event.

[The Raven]

Congratulations to the two Andrew's record. I seem to have disappeared from the R15 championship though!

[tangy]

Times from this round (and Round 3) of the R15 Championship are now updated on Explorer Ticket.