First 270 attempts?

[hwolge]

I and Lars travelled to London last Sunday (Oct 12) to prepare for our latest assault on the, then, provisional world record.

We did a first attempt Monday morning which was thwarted after a couple of hours due to severe delays on the District Line. We also had very early problems before that.

However, on Tuesday (Oct 14) we had a much better go at it. We went on for some 11 hours, covering substantially more than half the stations (including Wood Lane).. We were forced to abort due to a severe misunderstanding between us, so we got separated at a change and departed on different trains. Needless to say, this was in the central area where no immediate communication was available... At the time we were forced to give up we were roughly 15 minutes behind GWR, but with several good options of clawing back time ahead of us. Earlier that day, most things had worked out roughly to plan, except for one single bad bus connection where most the 15 minutes were lost.

We would have loved to set ANY time for the 270 configuration, even though I expect Guinness to rule it, quite rightly, to be the same as the 269. But it was not to be this time.

Bottom line is that we don't, in any way, feel the current GWR is unbeatable. Next attempt is tentatively planned to take place in conjunction with Z1CC 2009. I have promised Lars to improve my running from around 8 min/km to around 6 min/km. This should statistically save us another 15 minutes for the whole attempt.

Having said that, we also acknowledge that the present record is very good indeed. We believe it's roughly 20 minutes better than our old GWR (I estimate that ELL + Shoreditch replacemment bus cost roughly 50-55 minutes).

[Soup Dragon]

Sneaky Swedes, almost as sneaky at The Herreys in 1984 when they sneakily won the ESC with "diggi loo diggi ley".... nobody saw them winning. If I had known you were in town I'd have bought you a pint or two.

Bad luck on the service issues and the unfortunate seperation. I know the network was bad on Monday, as my colleague waited ages at Stamford Brook for the district line, he was really late to work.

Better luck next time.... so it look like the next 270 attempts will be on CiN day (14NOV) unless any other sneaky attempts are planned.

[palkanetoijala31]

I had a tenner on u hakan making the first sneaky 270 attempt.Some questions for u i would like answered.

1. Are you and Lars the first tube challengers to visit Wood Lane.
2. If u were only 15 mins behind GWR why not continue till the end are u certain that Guinness would not change the record.
3. I believe as u do and i think i proved with nozza and tangy that everybody has a chance and that 17h 12m is not unbeatable
4. Was ur finish station the planned usual favourite.

[hwolge]

I had a tenner on u hakan making the first sneaky 270 attempt.Some questions for u i would like answered.

1. Are you and Lars the first tube challengers to visit Wood Lane.
2. If u were only 15 mins behind GWR why not continue till the end are u certain that Guinness would not change the record.
3. I believe as u do and i think i proved with nozza and tangy that everybody has a chance and that 17h 12m is not unbeatable
4. Was ur finish station the planned usual favourite.

1. I suppose that could be the case. We were there recceing on Sunday and I believe that was the very first day it was properly open.
2. Somehow, we lost the spirit at that point. As things played out it would had cost us quite some time to resync. But, in retrospect, maybe we should have continued...
4. No comments on the route, sorry...

[palkanetoijala31]

ooh a bit of secrecy there with number 4 hmm wonders if they were going to use the finnish strategem. possibly a morden finish.

[hwolge]

Secrecy yes. As it should be!

I think this way - tell the forum about an attempt AFTER it - is much better. And even better when no route details are shared. I think the whole thing is damaged by too much openness...

I of course agree about the secrecy. However, I don't mind the live updates and pre-announcements - I find that quite exciting, but the progress reports could be limited to how the team is doing compared to plan or GWR and an estimated chance of success. There is no need to reveal any details on the route.

I know I've given away a bit too much in the past, and it's interesting to see my "findings" being used over and over. But it won't happen again! Any new findings I may have done over the past couple of years will stay secret...

[joy54]

Just out of interest in the current debate about support teams, were there many circumstances where you felt a support team would have either got you a faster time or you could of really utilised one?

[hwolge]

I can only refer to my previous, statistical analysis, of support teams. I think a complete coverage of every change, with sufficient communications, would statistically give some 30 minutes overall. I still think that's fairly true - provided you could position support to hold doors for up to 30 seconds at every change... Personally I can't even imagine myself holding doors for 30 seconds in front of angry passengers!

I still think that holding doors is against the spririt of the GWR, but I also acknowledge that Guinness has not been explicit enough in their rules to infer that it's not allowed - unfortunately.

[Root]

I too would not be able to hold doors for that long. I do not have any real problems with preventing them from closing once, but if they try to close a second time before my team-mates (or the team I am supporting) have arrived I usually just step off the train.

So if up to 30 seconds of holding per connection gives up to 30 minutes of time saved overall, would up to 10 seconds of holding give up to 10 minutes of time saved overall?

[hwolge]

So if up to 30 seconds of holding per connection gives up to 30 minutes of time saved overall, would up to 10 seconds of holding give up to 10 minutes of time saved overall?

In theory, statistically speaking - yes. In reality the standard deviation goes up a lot - so it's a lot more a game of chance. Instead of (as I usually phrase it) gaining 5-6 minutes at 5-6 occasions on the average, it would perhaps be 5-6 minutes at 1-3 occassions. (For the mathematically inclined - I've viewed the actual door holding incidence as a Poisson process...)