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There is a way to break an OSI with a single Oyster, so long as the second station of the OSI is not connected to itself (e.g. KCSP LU, Canary Wharf LU). If you touch out of the first station as usual, touch into the second, immediately back out of the second then back into the second again, it breaks your journey into two.

I'm not sure whether this works with standalone two-way validators though - a triple touch on one of them I'd suspect might trigger something...

RJSRdg wrote:So a Z1 oyster card lasts long enough to do the Mouse, but not quite long enough to do the Bottle...

Again, it depends on the route. If you have an out-of-network run, if it is not a recognised OSI (see http://www.oyster-rail.org.uk/osi-list/), you will be charged for two journeys but they can both be up to 100 minutes.

Some tube challenge favourites like West Ruislip-Ickenham and Northwick Park-Kenton are OSIs but others like Great Portland Street-Regent's Park and Bayswater-Queensway are not.

The Orange One wrote:There is a way to break an OSI with a single Oyster, so long as the second station of the OSI is not connected to itself (e.g. KCSP LU, Canary Wharf LU). If you touch out of the first station as usual, touch into the second, immediately back out of the second then back into the second again, it breaks your journey into two.

I'm not sure whether this works with standalone two-way validators though - a triple touch on one of them I'd suspect might trigger something...

Would this be covered by the following? Quoting from http://www.oyster-rail.org.uk/same-stat ... ion-exits/

Same Station Exits
Sometimes it is necessary to touch out at a station without actually making a journey. The Oyster system reacts in one of three different ways depending on how much time has elapsed between touch in and touch out.
Between 0 and 2 minutes
This could happen if you immediately discover that there is disruption, or if the display on the gate says that you do not have enough credit to complete your intended journey and you decide to exit again to top-up. The maximum fare will remain deducted and this will not count towards the daily cap. However, if you re-enter (after topping up for instance) within 45 minutes the original maximum fare is refunded and a new journey is started. The touch out must be at a ticket gate (ie you had to touch out to open the gate). The new journey can be at the same station or at another one, but you cannot use a bus or tram to get between the stations. This is probably only useful in Central London.
If the touch out is at a validator then the maximum fare will remain.

It doesn't seem to trigger those difficulties! Perhaps because your starting station was not where you are touching out.

The Orange One wrote:It doesn't seem to trigger those difficulties! Perhaps because your starting station was not where you are touching out.

To clarify, for example, let's say you've run West Ruislip to Ickenham (which is normally an OSI) and you want to force the start of a new journey because otherwise you're likely to exceed the maximum time. If the bit I quoted applies, doing the in-out-in shuffle at Ickenham, will definitely end a journey at West Ruislip and start a new one at Ickenham.

The benefit being charged two normal fares rather than two maximum fares for exceeding the maximum time.

michael_churchill wrote:

The Orange One wrote:It doesn't seem to trigger those difficulties! Perhaps because your starting station was not where you are touching out.

To clarify, for example, let's say you've run West Ruislip to Ickenham (which is normally an OSI) and you want to force the start of a new journey because otherwise you're likely to exceed the maximum time. If the bit I quoted applies, doing the in-out-in shuffle at Ickenham, will definitely end a journey at West Ruislip and start a new one at Ickenham.

The benefit being charged two normal fares rather than two maximum fares for exceeding the maximum time.

That is correct. When challenging, you'd be likely to hit the daily fare cap anyway - but as maximum fares do not contribute to the cap, triggering them could send your challenge costs sky high.

This doesn't really help for challenging across Zones 1-6, because it would be easier just to buy a Z1-6 Travelcard as the Z1-6 cap (£11.90?) is fairly close to the Travelcard cost (£12.10). When your journeys are limited to Zones 1 and 2 though, staying within the Z1-2 cap (£6.50) is definitely to your advantage, and when doing more centrally based challenges such as the Z1, the Bottle and the Mouse it definitely comes in handy...

To clarify: I have successfully pulled this off at:

- Tottenham Hale NR to Tottenham Hale LU
- Paddington H&C to Paddington B/C/D
- New Cross to New Cross Gate
- Hammersmith D/P to Hammersmith H&C

You can also find Geoff doing it at Tottenham Hale in one of his videos.

The Orange One wrote:That is correct. When challenging, you'd be likely to hit the daily fare cap anyway - but as maximum fares do not contribute to the cap, triggering them could send your challenge costs sky high.

I used my Oyster card in the FNC for the Olympics and have done so for several challenges, including my WR. Often you inadvertently get a maximum fare applied due to OSI or timeouts but I find TfL very sympathetic. You just phone the Oyster helpline and tell them you hit the daily cap, so could the maximum fares be refunded please. They always refund them, no questions asked. I did get one operator ask what I'd been doing with so many journeys but when I explained, she just laughed and asked "are there many people who do that sort of thing?."

tufnellpark wrote:

The Orange One wrote:That is correct. When challenging, you'd be likely to hit the daily fare cap anyway - but as maximum fares do not contribute to the cap, triggering them could send your challenge costs sky high.

I used my Oyster card in the FNC for the Olympics and have done so for several challenges, including my WR. Often you inadvertently get a maximum fare applied due to OSI or timeouts but I find TfL very sympathetic. You just phone the Oyster helpline and tell them you hit the daily cap, so could the maximum fares be refunded please. They always refund them, no questions asked. I did get one operator ask what I'd been doing with so many journeys but when I explained, she just laughed and asked "are there many people who do that sort of thing?."

Sounds like the Oyster helpline is more helpful than the ticket office staff used to be!

The BERC here with the official, ratified results from round 1 of the 2016/17 Random 15 Championship.

This was a twist round and as is tradition for the opening round of the season it was chosen by last season's champion. Therefore the twist was to generate 15 LU stations in zones 1 and 2 and visit those stations in relation to the number of words in their name.

The generator gave us the following stations (in list order):
--Temple (meet up)
--Monument
--Canada Water
--Bromley-by-Bow
--Warwick Avenue
--Blackfriars (LU)
--Warren Street
--Pimlico
--Waterloo (LU)
--Southwark
--Highbury & Islington
--Whitechapel
--Mile End
--Caledonian Road
--Mansion House.

The challenge was effectively split into three mini sections:
--Visit all the one word stations first (in any order): Temple, Momument, Blackfriars, Pimlico, Waterloo, Southwark and Whitechapel.
--Then visit all stations with two word names (again in any order): Canada Water, Warwick Avenue, Warren Street, Mile end Caledonian Road and Mansion House.
--Followed by those stations with three word names (any order): Bromley-by-Bow, Highbury & Islington.

Challengers needed to visit all the one word stations before moving onto the two word stations. Challengers could not count Mansion House as visited in travelling between Blackfriars and Monument. It had to be visited again in the correct two word station section. Challengers needed to think where to finish one mini section to be in a good position for the next.

There were 12 challengers split into 9 teams:

9th: Michael Churchill: 03:52:21 finishing at Bromley-by-Bow
8th: Sam Inman: 03:23:57 finishing at Bromley-by-Bow
7th: Tangy: 03:13:57 finishing at King's Cross St. Pancras
6th: Nick Gardner: 03:13:52 finishing at Bromley-by-Bow
=4th: The Orange One and Josh Nichols-Ageros: 03:05:46 finishing at Finsbury Park
=4th: Andrew Chilcraft and James Ross: 03:05:46 finishing at Finsbury Park
3rd: Kevin Brown and Andrew Baker: 03:04:59 finishing at Bromley-by-Bow
=1st: Peter Smyth: 02:50:00 finishing at Bromley-by-Bow
=1st: David Edwards: 02:50:00 finishing at Bromley-by-Bow

The new leaderboard looks like this:

=1st: David Edwards (12 overall points) [1 round attended]
=1st: Peter Smyth (12) [1]
=3rd: Kevin Brown (8) [1]
=3rd: Andrew Baker (8) [1]
=5th: Andrew Chilcraft (7) [1]
=5th: James Ross (7) [1]
=5th: The Orange One (7) [1]
=5th: Josh Nichols-Ageros (7) [1]
9th: Nick Gardner (5) [1]
10th: Tangy (4) [1]
11th: Sam Inman (3) [1]
12th Michael Churchill (2) [1]

Thankyou to everyone for attending and especially to Kevin Brown for choosing the twist for this challenge. We meet again for round 2 on Saturday 19th November 2016. It will be a normal round but with a live draw- i.e. you will pick the stations out of a bucket.

Tangy
the BERC.