N'at Man

Strangely enough I rode Hayabusa with gregleg the same day of the accident. I think it was still running when we left just after lunch but the accident occured within a few hours of us leaving the park. Greg got an e-mail that night from rollermonkey mentioning the accident. Then the next day we saw footage on Japanese TV. Apparently a support wire snapped and hit a rider. Hardly catastrophic by US standards but in Japan it's enough to close a ride forever. Maybe the ride could be sold. It looked to be in great shape and its a fun ride.

I can help you with two big ones. Oktoberfest in Munich will be September 22 - October 7 in 2007. The Stuttgart Fair (Cannstatter Volksfest) begins one week after Oktoberfest begins. Olympia Looping, Eurostar and Star World can be expected in Munich. Alpina Bahn can typically be expected in Stuttgart.

I'll give my 2 cents and see if it makes sense to all regardless of how much you like the CI Cyclone. The first time I rode the CI Cyclone I thought it was good but I was expecting more. But every time I ride it again I get it more because I see what it is really about and what is unique about it. First, everyone talks about the back seat and the first drop airtime. Balder, El Toro and Colossos all have more of an extreme up and over floater airtime where Cyclone type coasters have more of a set up, ejector type airtime. They're very different animals. As far as Cyclone drops go, I do believe that the GA Cyclone has much more intense airtime than the CI version. Viper at SFGAm probably closer to the CI in the amount of airtime though they're slightly different and have different lapbars. As for the CI back seat, it is old school rough but the next to last seat is surpsingly smooth. It's nice and padded more than the clones. The key to the CI Cyclone is that it's drops are very deep which is an old school feature. A bigger key is the curves. The curves create some severe laterals and with no seat dividers you feel it. In general while GA Cyclone and Viper are great on the drops, the CI Cyclone is good (and steep) on the drops but it tosses you all around throughout the ride with those four bench cars. I think these are the keys to the CI Cylone.

Considering the park only has one train each on it's woodies it's not like they'd be looking at a B&M "hanging coaster" but most likely something much less expensive which is probably not good. They talk about wanting more rides the family can ride so is a hanging coaster the right choice? Maybe if it is a family hanging coaster like a Vekoma (although those are now rough with the new restraints). How about a Wild Mouse? The waterpark caused a boom at that park so keeping that going is probably important for them. As far as the ride park goes I'd rather see an additional train on Tremors and possibly Timber Terror. Then expand the walkways and work on infrastructure to handle the larger crowds on weekends. They need to handle the existing crowds better before trying to expand too much.

Silver Dollar City is probably my favorite food park. The barbeque is top notch for a park and the various types of skillets are outstanding. This park must be on the show. They have everything Dollywood has and more plus it is all just a bit better at SDC. Del Grosso's is known for Potato Salad and Pizza (they have their own sauce business). Kennywood is known for Potato Patch fries but the Belgian waffles are amazing too (huge!). Knoebels is a known for so many foods. Pizza, tri-taters, pierogies, cheese-on-a-stick, rib-b-q, potato cakes. Plus the International Food Court has a ton of unique foods. Kings Island has Skyline Chili. It's a chain but it's unique to Cincinnati and it makes for great park food. Coney Island is home to Nathan's, probably the best park related hot dogs you can find. Busch Gardens Williamsburg has the Festhaus Sampler with authentic German food. It's easily the best Festhaus at an American park with the food, beer and entertainment.

I'll stop one step short of calling SF liars with them saying the rides are being renovated. Seems pretty obvious that they are going to dump this park ASAP and they don't want to sink another penny into certain rides that are expensive to maintain. But I think in the long run the short term pain will lead to a new buyer who would run a park that suits Western NY. And I think such an owner would be smart enough to renovate the Predator.

I visited IB last week. I didn't ride Splash Battle as I didn't want to get soaked. The ride looked a bit lame and the guns on the subs were rather ineffective. Most of the soaking took place courtesy of the quarter drop guns outside the ride. For one quarter you'd get 1 minute of water spray where you could hit two sections of track. The spray was pretty intense. You could hit people right in the face and most people ended up just covering up to protect themselves. The kicker is that it was a one sided battle as the quarter guns could shoot farther and more powerfully than the weaker, hand crank guns on the subs. Often times riders would exit and come over to the quarter guns to have some real fun.

I can't see a park bigger than Kennywood. I can't see enough people from Pittsburgh going there. It's not like many people from Pittsburgh or Cleveland are currently going to Geauga Lake, a park with 10 coasters. Cedar Point is the draw in Cleveland and Kings Island is the draw in Columbus. The rumor I heard was a year round indoor park and I'd rather see something like that to compliment the existing parks.

I was hoping they'd take all Latrobe references off the bottles. That's an insult. Change it to "the swamplands of New Jersey" and see how that works for marketing. But I guess if this had to happen AB is the place for RR as it always gave me a headache just like any Busch beer.

Looking at Oakwood's website I see that they mention a school holiday timeframe of July 10-21 this year. Does that apply for all of the UK as well and does anyone know what the school holiday season will be in 2007? I know those two weeks should be avoided in trip planning.

Horseshoe Curve (famous train track) is in the area. I've only ridden through it but there is a viewing area and visitors center. State College is the closest city to Altoona. Just head north I-99/Rt. 220. It is home to Penn State University so that's a good place to wander around and check things out along with the town itself. Sticky buns and the Creamery Ice Cream are famous up there. DelGrosso's and Lakemont can certainly be done in one day. They're only about 15 miles apart.

I just got back from a long weekend at Wisconsin Dells with my friend from Nashville. I had a chance to try some local beers. I'll start with the Moosejaw Brewpub. I wasn't sure how this visit would go but we were happy with the service and our food was good. I had a Dells Chief Amber Ale and a Dunkel Lager. Both were good but I liked the Dunkel Lager better. We walked by the Essen Haus but skipped it this time. The Spaten Optimator on tap was calling my name though. I didn't drink anything at Mt. Olympus but at Timber Falls while taking an Avalanche break I had a Leinenkugel's Honey Weiss. I was surprised how cheap this stuff was. Blah! We had a high class dinner at the Del Bar and I had a New Glarus Fat Squirrel (nut brown ale). I enjoyed it (how's that for a novice review). I was stuck at a hotel in Madison yesterday waiting for my flight back so I had dinner at Chili's. I had some kind of nut brown ale but I can't remember what it was. I made a good guess because I liked it.

Being from Pittsburgh we're mostly stuck with whatever flights US Airways still has left. Many more connections than before. Unfortunately I still stick with them as they match prices of Southwest and now Jet Blue and I can at least get flyer miles out of them (I wouldn't be able to fly Southwest enough to get anything out of their rewards program). I also get to do some code shares with United. I do try to fly on Northwest or Continental for my other flyer miles account. Continental is probably my fave. I have some flights coming up on Delta and I usually end up on Delta coming home from ATL after something goes wrong with my US Airways route. I am not a fan of Air Tran and I won't fly them anymore. They played too many games when they arrived in Pittsburgh (cut half the flights consistently).

Good to meet you too. I ran into Ted and Catrina as they stopped by for a quick visit. The Flying Scooters were open Saturday and they were getting ready for the reopening of the train on Sunday. Bug was looking good but I don't know if it will be open for the holiday on Tuesday. It looked like one of the waterslides was open. Good to see the Round Up going and the Toboggan, even with one car (I think everyone is afraid of that thing as it still had no line). Apparently the Scrambler will be placed where the Yo-Yo used to be. That will help fill the midway in a bit more. The park is getting close to having all rides open for the first time in a long time. I also had a chance to ride the Witch's Stew for the first time since it reopened. That thing is powerful. It also can make you sick if you're not careful too. I thought a couple kids next to me were going to lose their lunch.

Here's my top ten. I didn't get on Pyrenees either. 1. BMRX 2. Aska 3. Dodonpa 4. Orochi 5. Fujiyama 6. Thunder Dolphin 7. Surf Coaster 8. Bandit 9. Regina 10. Big Thunder Mountain Venus probably would be much better without the horsecollars. I was very impressed with Big Thunder Mountain at TDL. Even with its lame portions Thunder Dolphin was better than I expected.

The Yomiuriland one is in service but I agree that it's probably not a "real bug". The two in the states are from the old Traver company and I doubt the one in Japan has any origin from Traver. Obviously the cars are totally different and the ride's construction looks slightly different. The Dragon is surely inspired by the Tumble Bug but it looks more modern. However it is not a carnival style powered dragon coaster.

On the main forum you'll notice my Photo TR for the Maritime parks in Canada. Aside from that I took more of a real vacation in Massachusetts. The highlights were checking out Rockport and going to Fenway Park for a Red Sox game. Another view with the Green Monster in the background. The view from my seats. Somehow it wouldn't be right if there wasn't a pole in the way. Inside my wooden seat didn't have a back, just a post. At least I was in front of it. Think of it as classic charm. Here I am with my dad. Classic Fenway Park in Boston, home of the Red Sox. Apparently Rockport is also famous for Top Dog. The hot dogs were very good. Rockport is famous for Motif #1.

Here are the rest of the photos from the trip. Here's the Crystal Bullet circling the park. But the Crystal Bullet is the main attraction. The Wave Swinger is the centerpiece. Over in New Brunswick is the indoor Crystal Palace. Sandspit is also home to a Rok-N-Rol. Sandspit is a nice looking small park. Wacky! The Cyclone. Notice the canopy on the car. Luckily Sandspit was up the road in Cavendish. Well, I suppose that may be a problem. First stop was a little FEC called Burlington Amusement Park. Time to cross the Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island. This is the kiddie coaster. I don't know if they normally operate it. They weren't sure. Technically Atlantic Playland was open but was it really? I think not.

Last week was my mixed family vacation in Massachusetts and a somewhat crazy trip to the Canadian Maritime provinces to check out all of the little parks in that area of the world. Along the way I rode El Toro at Coaster Celebration and had a quick vistit to Canobie Lake Park. On the way home I made a rest stop at Funtown USA. But this report focuses on the new to me attractions in Canada. It's a very long drive to get to Nova Scotia so I took the CAT ferry from Bar Harbor, Maine to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia to save 10 hours of driving on Thursday. Ideally the weekend ferry from Portland would have been even better but Upper Clements Park doesn't open on weekends until July. I did bring my car with me as I had some stops along the way to get to this point. That meant a long drive home after the trip but I didn't have a choice really. The ferry is high speed and not a big, clunky boat as you may expect. Being faster meant more up and down motion and I found myself a bit seasick. I should have just sat down and adjusted first before running around the boat checking things out. The crossing took three hours. Friday morning I made the hour and a half drive to Upper Clements Park. The park was open during the week for school days. It opened at 9 AM but when I arrived at 10 AM not much of anything was open and the park was virtually empty. Nervous about the weather, I went straight to the Tree Topper for the credit. I rode it four times on my own. The ride has a Cyclops type layout but it is a bit bigger and less intense for certain. Lots of curving drops and S-curves. It also has a Camden Big Dipper/William's Grove Cyclone feel to it with some tracking which has evolved with some odd angles. Like J2, the mistakes give it some airtime. It was a very interesting ride so that was good as I was expecting a family snoozer. It had some shuffle and bounce but it wasn't really rough. I enjoyed it enough. I took nine rides during the day with the light school crowd. I figured I'd be bored with the park after an hour but I ended up staying there four hours. The park doesn't have many mechanical rides but it is a rustic park that is perfect for exploration. It felt like a UK park and it reminded me of Oakwood and Lightwater Valley. It has a big lake in the middle between the hills and trees of the park. It has a flume, bumper boats (and some bumper boat style bumper cars), train, rock-o-plane, carousel, antique cars and the unique pedal car track. Aside from that there were numerous little eateries, craft stores and other interesting buildings. With the weather still uncertain, I headed towards Halifax to find Atlantic Playland. The park has a kiddie coaster, tilt house and some Lusse sport skooters. The only problem is that virtually nothing was running. This is the type of little park which has a few ride ops which operate a few rides depending on when people show up. I asked if the coaster was running but they said it wasn't and that they didn't know when it would run. The park was to be open 3 more hours but with no guarantees or much interest from the employees I decided not to stay. The tilt house was deserted (required a tour) as were the bumper cars. What a waste of time this park was. Since I was nearby I took a ride through Halifax just to see it. If I had it to do over again I'd have stayed downtown to check it out a bit more. It reminded me of Seattle a bit. But I had to head north to Amherst for the night. The forecast looked even worse for Saturday but I followed my schedule and it somewhat worked out for me, weather wise at least. I was heading to Prince Edward Island. I'd been to PEI before the bridge was built back in the 80s. It's a beautiful island and I enjoy being there so it was worth the return toll of $40.50 CAD on the 8 mile bridge. It beats the price and time of the old ferry. My first stop was little Burlington Amusement Park. I could see the kiddie coaster in the distance but it looked odd. Once I pulled up I could see just a lift hill and station track, nothing else. The other pieces of track where in a pile. Not a good sign. I had no idea it was going to be partly disassembled. Since I was out of luck I didn't bother investigating the future status of the ride. Next stop on PEI was Sandspit Cavendish Beach. I visited this park before the coaster was built but now there is a Wildcat called the Cyclone. The odd thing about this coaster is that it has a canopy over the cars. It looks bizarre. I don't know if it is for rain or to keep hands in but you ride totally enclosed. After some lunch on the island, I headed to Moncton, New Brunswick to visit Crystal Palace. This is a mall style amusement park but rather than being in a mall its across from a mall. It's a big circular building which has the Zierer Crystal Bullet family coaster circling the building. It's a fun ride with a surprise helix with a pirate themed tunnel. They gave you three circuits per ride. The building itself was dark despite a big glass center featuring a Wave Swinger in the middle. Other family and kiddie rides surrounded. I'll spare you the long ride home over the next two days. But despite the couple kiddie coaster disappointments it was a very interesting trip. I was happy to finally get on the Tree Topper. I think it is about as obscure a woodie credit as I have with the possible exception of Jupiter in Japan. Scenic shot of the fifith drop. Fifth drop. Fourth drop. Second drop. The first drop. You'll notice plenty of trees which make it hard to see the layout. This way to an obscure wood credit! These pedal cars were cool Upper Clements is a rustic park with a nice lake in the middle Here we are at Upper Clements Park Inside the CAT ferry The CAT ferry departs Bar Harbor, Maine for Yarmouth, Nova Scotia

Too bad you didn't get a shot of the 40oz cooler. It's impressive. We ate up at the "Top of the O" bar. It's a little nicer and calmer up there. We bought the food downstairs, brought it up and bought beer upstairs. Anyway, the owners want to get out of the business but they won't let a potential buyer call the place "The Original." If someone does buy it I suppose they could try to keep it the same, buying all of the equipment. But there is no guarantee that will happen. The property could be used for something else. I'm not sure when it is scheduled to close. I haven't heard anything recently so hopefully it will be open for a while longer.

NAD trains are three benchers so they aren't as good on the curves. The closest modern wood coaster train I can think of to an NAD train is a Vekoma train. They are three benchers, not so great on the curves and are very effective on the drops. Strangely the highlight of the KW Thunderbolt is the spaghetti bowl but they obviously had the gauge and radius figured out on that one when it was built. From what I understand at Conneaut Lake, the NAD trains are just too heavy to run at this time based on the structure. While the Vettel train is much more rerideable, the NAD trains seat 8 more riders per dispatch. Along with the longer train and three bench seating the airtime is improved on the drops.

Balder has the most airtime with about 9 airtime hills after the first drop, all extreme. Shivering Timbers is probably second although the airtime is what I would call extended floater airtime and it's quite different than Balder. I know the Voyage claims to have the most airtime in total seconds but it just has hints on most hills. It works well but it's not an "airtime coaster" in the way that Balder or Timbers are. When I think of the Voyage, airtime isn't the first thing that comes to mind although it certainly has it. On the steel side, SROS at SFNE is the best although Goliath at SFOG has airtime on every single hill. Expedition Ge Force is right up there too.

I'm not sure the Blue Streak is any smoother. If it is it would be on the turnaround. It's always going to be a bit hard on the spine in the back seat but in general I thought the track was in pretty nice shape. The Ultimate Trip is no more and the Scrambler ride used in it is expected to be replaced with a replacement soon (and run outdoors I would assume). A Chance Rok-N-Roll could also arrive soon although the rumored whip from Le Sourdsville is apparently just a rumor. No definitive word on the Bug although I keep hearing around July 4 for the train.

The whip has been rumored on rec.roller-coaster and the CLP junction site. I didn't walk through kiddieland but is it true they are repainting the Little Dipper? I saw it mentioned on the blog but it looked like it had been stripped for painting from the Blue Streak lift hill.

Since it was raining and I had just bought some glassware at Conneaut Lake Park, I headed over to BACT headquarters and poured a drink. The Victory 10 Years Alt was courtesy of FlyerACE1 and SuperEllen. It was excellent. Victory 10 Years Alt during a rainstorm after visiting Conneaut Lake Park.