Newbie! The Zone 1 Challenge help!

[Theman7]

Thinking about doing your zone 1 challenge on Friday 20 May (maybe for charity) just got to get enough support at work! How many in a team and what do I need to know?

[joy54]

You can have as many or few people in your team, route planning isn't that much help as know one knows the starting station until the day but knowing places to run between stations and some of the larger stations well can help.

[Yorkie]

My opinion is that any more than 2 in a team would severely discount your chance of winning. On your own is always an option.

[CrunchySaviour]

On your own you'll have the best chance. You won't have as much FUN though.

It helps to know how to do certain sections of the map. Don't forget to do both Paddingtons and Edgware Roads!

[tpfkar]

Hi Theman7.

I'm a fellow newbie, so welcome!

I'm hoping to come along on May 20th, and would be happy to team up with anyone else who wanted to. (Assuming of course that they accepted the fastest sections of my plans and improved the rest )

Seriously, as the start station is random, a lot of the planning will have to be done as you're going, so don't worry about it too much. It might be an idea to have a couple of practices to get a feel for what is quick/takes a long time, and if you're like me you might get lucky and get a great time.

Hope to meet you soon,

Ric

[lazza747]

Myself and Geoff have adopted a system we're both happy with - we wing it on the day. We know how to do just about every sub-section of Zone 1, we know the door positions at every station in Zone 1 so all we do is just turn up and see where it takes us!

Much easier than sitting down all night trying to work a route out for every possible start station I think (and more fun too).

[Theman7]

Thinking of a team of three, it all depends on work allowing us all to get time off!

[G Force]

I'll be running it on my own, as then I can make faster route decisions on the fly. It'll be very lonely waiting in the pub on my own for the rest of you lot to finish

[CrunchySaviour]

That's fighting talk!

It'll be lonely waiting in a pub 3 hours after everyone els ehas drank up and gone home.... I, of course, will be the one who's waiting for you all. Haharrr!

[geofftech]

Neil & I are just going to go straight to the pub and drink for three hours, thus guaranteeing that we'll be the first ones there, just to piss the rest of you off!

Kidding.

I <i>do</i> think though that as it's not as easy to plan a fixed route this time, and there will be lots of "on the fly" decisions made, there might be more cases of people following other people, and thus doing large parts (or all!) of the same route together ...

[CrunchySaviour]

I hope people realise that if they j8ust follow other people then they can't win, unless they do some stations on their own and do them faster than the people who they were following..... or unless the people they were following have the fastest route nd they follow them all the way around... oh, following is a bad idea!

[Yorkie]

Try staggered starts?

Then people have the humiliation in not arriving at the pub in the order they left.

[greatkingrat]

Though as everyone will be finishing at different stations the first person to reach the pub will not necessarily be the winner.

[geofftech]

KingRat... er, it's always been the case of being trustful on what your finish time is, and not who got to the pub first!

The trouble with staggered starts is that just because you get a train 2 minutes later, could mean you miss a connection at the next stop which puts you instantly more time down than if you'd got the first train 2 minutes prior.

Or.. (more likely) if we start on a line with a short interval between services, the people who get on the second train down could easily catch up with the first group of people at the very first change point!

We'll all start at the same time .. as in .. two possible starts: West/East, or North/South (depending on the starting station) as originally planned.