Subway Challenge

The Subway Challenge is a challenge in which participants must navigate the entire New York City Subway system in the shortest time possible. This ride is also known as the Rapid Transit Challenge and the "Ultimate Ride". Although the challenge requires competitors to stop at all 472 stations, no person holds that record. One competitor holds the record for 469 stations, as he had competed before the January 2017 opening of the Second Avenue Subway. All the other competitors hold the record for 468 stations, as they had all competed prior to both the September 2015 opening of the 7 Subway Extension and the opening of the Second Avenue Subway.

There are three primary variations of this challenge:

The three classes of rides (A, B and C) are defined by the Amateur New York Subway Riding Committee (ANYSRC), created by Peter Samson in 1966. In Class A, "the contestants making the run must traverse completely at least once each segment of right-of-way of the Transit Authority system. Each segment may be traversed either in one continuous transit or in any number of partial transits between stations on the segment." Guinness World Records recognizes what is essentially the Class B rules as the official world record. The only difference between the rides defined by Guinness and the ANYSRC is that per the ANYSRC, rides must be completed on a single fare, while the Guinness rules allow for "transfers between subway lines must be made by scheduled public transport or on foot. The use of private motor vehicles, taxis or any other form of privately arranged transport (bicycles, skateboards, etc.) is not allowed." The complete Guinness rules can be found on the Rapid Transit Challenge website and are similar to the rules for the London Underground's Tube Challenge.

On May 30, 1940, two days before the IRT, BMT, and IND were unified in 1940, Herman Rinke, an electric-railroad buff, became the first person to tour the entire system on a single 5-cent fare, doing it purely as a "sentimental gesture". Rinke rode the system for some 25 hours. Since then, more than 70 others – supposedly recorded in an unofficial file in the MTA Public Relations Department – rode the entire system. Kevin Foster held the Guinness World Record for the full-system ride for over 17 years. He set the mark of 26 hours, 21 minutes on October 25, 1989. Searching for a diversion while training to become the first person to bicycle the entire length of The Great Wall in China, Kevin Foster opened up the Guinness Book of World Records to find another challenge. He decided that to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the New York subway system he would spend 85 consecutive hours on the subway, during which time he broke the record for stopping at every station.

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Wikipedia