The Tube Challenge is a relatively new sport made public in the 20th century by the great Robert Robinson and, more recently, by the dedicated Geoff and Neil (see www.tubechallenge.com and www.geofftech.co.uk for more info). The premise of the sport is to complete a particular Challenge by visiting all of a declared set of London Underground stations (usually all stations, all in Zone 1, all within the Circle line, etc.). To "visit" a station, you must arrive and/or depart from it on a LU train. You may use public transport and you may run overground between stations, but you may not use bicycles, roller skates, taxis or any other kind of transport! Therein lies the challenge.

A lot of skill lies in planning a speedy route, and many Tube challengers are reluctant to reveal their routes!

I shall be participating in the 2005 Zone 1 Challenge Day on May 20th, and I have been planning and testing my route already.

Update: I finished 4th on the day, participating with fellow tube nutter Adham Fisher. It was great fun and a splendid time was had by all.

The Zone 1 Challenge
As well as being the objective of the Zone 1 Challenge Days, this challenge is a fully-fledged challenge in its own right. It does not, however, have a Guinness record associated with it like the full Tube Challenge. Any records broken here are purely unofficial and just a bit of fun. That doesn't mean it's not competitive though.

The average Zone 1 run will take just over 3 hours, and depending on how hard you're trying, can be as low as 2h 45m.

As you can see, there are quite a few stations in Zone 1. In fact, there are about 64. The Edgware Roads and Paddingtons count as being separate stations (because they are) which adds spice to the challenge (as if it was boring in the first place!). As yo can see, I have removed redundant bits of Tube lines, and added the British Rail link between Waterloo and Vauxhall, because realistically it is the only BR route worth taking in this challenge. Some may argue that it is not worth taking even in this case because it goes every 15 minutes - and when there are only 3 hours to play with here, that's a long wait.

My Zone 1 Challenge Attempts

Attempt 1: Wednesday, February 23, 2005, starting 12:20 pm

I tested my Zone 1 Challenge route today, alone. I found it was not as lonely as it could have been! The route was a theoretical 2hrs 57mins.

The current "record", held by Steve Paull, stands at 2hrs 55mins 50sec.

My route took....
Drumroll please.........

Three hours, no minutes, and forty-one seconds. That's 3:00:41. How close is that?! Answer: Close, but not close enough. Close enough to put me in 4th place last year, had I run last year.

I was impressed (may I say so) with my route planning, in that I was never more than 5 or 6 minutes ahead of or behind schedule. I'm going to draw a graph.

Jumping out of a train at Paddington, I slipped on the floor at the bottom of a staircase and nearly fell over - but I stayed up. I did, however, drop my pen. Someone shouted, "You've dropped your pen!" but I didn't quite hear them, and it didn't matter since I had a spare one. The ensuing run along the station concourse was one of my favourite parts of the journey.

I was delayed at Aldgate. The Metropolitan line was completely broken and not going anywhere, so I had to wait a good while for a Circle line train. Thanks Aldgate..... Thaldgate.
I was delayed at Bayswater. Nobody told me the southbound platform was closed!!!! More careful observation of "changes to your journey" is required, methinks. I had to doubleback at Paddington.

Other than that, changes were relatively good. I decided not to wait for a lift at one station, and was half-knackered reaching the top of the steps out of the station.
I had to wait for a lift at another station, which added about 3 minutes.
I foolishly used a lift at another station, when I could have used the stairs.

My Aldgate-Aldgate East run was not good. I used the underpass at the roundabout when I could have avoided that.

And to rub the nail on the head, so to speak, the announcer kindly announced that the next station was my finishing station RIGHT ON THE 3-HOUR MARK, to the second.

However, I was 5 to 6 minutes ahead of schedule during the first 40 minutes of the journey thanks to some reasonable changes (thanks, changes.... thanges). Therefore, I am confident that with another try, I can beat the current record.

I wore a dust mask which had only 2 days use, and after the challenge it had got noticeably more grey. I look forward to starting a brand new one on May 20th. In addition, I wore a white lab coat, making me look a bit like a ghost, I suppose.

My cheap trainers are holding up very well. Thanks, Decathlon.
Thecathlon.

I'll pencil in next Weds for a re-run, with amendments.

Could anyone enlighten me what proof Tubeguru wants, in order to have a "new record" time for the Zone 1 challenge put on the Tubechallenge site?
I wrote down some of the numbers on the fronts of the trains, but in some cases I had to write the carriage number (96840 or whatever). I also wrote the time at which each station was arrived at and departed from. I didn't get any pictures with datestamp - I'm not sure how to do that on my camera. I could figure it out for next time.

Attempt 2: Wednesday, March 2nd, 2005, starting 12:30 pm

OK everyone, I just did Zone 1 again.

There's some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that I had 7 excellent changes in a row (trains at platforms or just arriving).

The bad news is that the District, Circle and Northern lines were delayed thanks to some signalling ineptitude or something, and the Hammersmith line had a reduced service. Some of these factors prevented me from ever getting ahead of schedule (well, I was a head at 2 stations but it doesn't count) following a pair of bad changes on the District line.

Here's the time.

2:59:05

Faster than my previous attempt, but still not a new record.

Platform train waiting times, in minutes, ranged from 0 to 4 minutes, averaging around 1 and a half minutes.

There was a LONG wait of about 10 minutes in a tunnel on the way to Earl's Court. This meant that a 5-station stretch took me 20 minutes when it should have taken 10. One particular Central line stretch saw me keep to schedule to the minute, and a good change put me 5 minutes ahead of schedule (a potential 2h 52m run!) but that soon "messed up" alright.

I was blessed at Aldgate East to see a Hammersmith train pull in as I arrived: as a "reduced service" this was like the golden dust of a hen's tooth. One inter-station run was, as usual, knackering. The lifts I had to wait for during the attempt were there as I arrived. It was busier than usual owing to the terribly delayed District "service".

The weather was horrible, I was lonelier than usual and the dust mask is almost the blackest I've ever seen one following 2 weeks' use and 2 Tube Challenges (about 20 hours total).

Attempt 3: Wednesday, March 9th, 2005

OK, I'm back. I didn't complete the challenge.

I woke up this morning and checked the Tube website - no reported delays - hallelujah! But no, the Northern line then became delayed, and by the time I got to the starting station the District and Circle lines had delays as well.

"No problem," I thought, "the D&C were delayed last time and I had a good run, so I'll give it a go."

So I gave it a go, and after waiting 12 minutes for a Circle line train to get between two stations, during which time the driver passed the time by performing 4 emergency stops, I decided to restart because I would be more than 6 minutes behind schedule and it would only get worse on the later D&C parts of the journey.

So I restarted, and this time the D&C train didn't even depart from the station at which I boarded it after a 5 minute wait, so I took the train in the opposite direction and went home.

Is it part of LU's charter to be horibly delayed on a Wednesday or something? ("I thought it was part of LU's charter to be delayed everyday!" - G Force)

Attempt 4: Wednesday, March 16th, 2005

This time, the challenge went well for an hour, excepting a long wait at a green signal on a Bakerloo train at a platform. Why? I poked my head out of the train in exasperation to see what was going on, and saw the driver walk out of the little staff room with a cup of tea and saunter onto the train! He wasted a good two minutes there, not to mention the extra 2 minutes that the train sat at the red signal for.

Eventually got to Aldgate and ran to Aldgate East. May have missed a Hammersmith train by 30sec because the next train, 5 minutes later, was a Wimbledon one, which I got on thinking "I'll get a Circle from Tower Hill then". Went to Tower Hill, first 3 trains listed were District trains. Bugger. Got on first one back to Aldgate East and ran like hell across to the other platform to catch a waiting Hammersmith train! Yes! I was 11 minutes behind by then but it didn't matter.

I checked my pockets. Something was missing. Disaster. No Oyster card.
Did it fall out at Aldgate East during the vigorous run? Did someone steal it from my gaping pocket (I won't be that stupid again) or indeed, did someone pick it up from the floor and think "I'll have that!"?

Either way, it's gone. I abandoned the challenge (without tickes it's nigh on impossible), backtracked to Aldgate and Aldgate East to look for the bloody thing. I didn't find it. I asked around but they couldn't find it. I went home thanks to the guys at Aldgate East letting me onto the platforms to look for it, and I could then catch a train "for free" (despite having paid the bastards a full £67 for a month's travel just last week) and get back to Turnpike Lane, where the barriers were open.

I couldn't buy a ticket because the only items I had on my person were a bunch of keys, a dust mask, a pen, a pencil, my challenge timetable, and a Way Out tube map. I was conserving weight, see.

Now I have to pay them another £5 for a new student photocard, and I have to get a new National Express student card, since that was int he Oyster wallet with the Oyster card (I won't be that stupid again either).

Total utter disaster.

Attempt 5

This time I actually DID get the Zone 1 Record, with 2.51.00, or something, which was beaten within 3 weeks by the splendid Ric Brackenbury. Never mind!

My Full Challenge Attempts

Attempt 1 - April 2004

I attempted the full Tube Challenge, all 275 stations, with my fellow tube racer Adham Fisher. We got about 200 stations in, and 12 hours, only to find that Kensington (Olympia) was closed and we couldn't complete the challenge!!! A nattempt may be on the cards soon.