Wolf

It does NOT, and I repeat DOES NOT say "marked all you have ever ridden in 2010 or prior". So therefore, all my 2011 coasters, I will absolutely mark "Y" if I have ever ridden them. Per the instructions, I would be lying if I marked "N" It also is supposed to come out in January, not May. Having maintained the steel coaster list for 5 years or so, I filled out my list based on what I had ridden by the end of 2010.

That would seem inappropriate for any rides which opened in early 2011 to be on the 2010 poll. And for the steel supports question, there's a reason the Coney Cyclone isn't on the steel list and Gemini is.

I see the new owner is continuing to do his best to drive Indiana Beach into the ground...

A bunch of the duelers have a staggered 1st drop. NoLimits seems to not be able to model a dispatch offset very well. The one train has about a half-second lead on the other.

What's the expected opening date for this?

No. Most forms of radiation cannot penetrate paper. Gamma can, but gamma rays tend to be emitted only by aggressively radioactive substances, which due to their density, don't tend to travel well in air. Gamma works sort of like a lightbulb -- if you can see it, it can get to you, but it doesn't really travel as fallout. If you want to avoid additional exposure because of material traveling from Japan, skip the banana for breakfast. You're going to receive less than a Banana Equivalent Dose.

It's a tough call, especially if an entire coaster was re-tracked with that system. I think I'd want to still call it a wooden coaster just to piss off the wood coaster aficionados who will claim it's no longer a wood coaster, you know, the same people who want to make the claim that El Toro isn't a wood coaster either. These people clearly have issues! I've never understood the pre-fab wooden track claim. You can argue if you want that it's not wood, but I don't understand at all the argument that it's steel.

That shuffle is a bug, not a feature. The original Miller trailered car patent didn't shuffle.

A failure?

Have you ridden Hi-Miler?

Define hybrid. TGG builds a lot of wooden-tracked rides that have steel support structures. The Coney Cyclone has both. I think Psyclone has entirely steel-railed track now. Arrow Mine Trains (fundamentally the same trains as their hyper coasters) have wooden supports for tubular steel rails. There was that... thing in Ohio that had PVC track supported by steel rails.

I used to be quite the Raven fanboy, though I admit to preferring Legend when it was running at its best. But I've been kind of disappointed in Raven on my last two visits. And I didn't get many rides on it on my previous visit to those, given the situation.... Has Raven been running slower since the incident, or have I just hit it when it hasn't been running well? All woodies have their up and down days. Legend seems to be see-sawing on my visits. This year it was ok; on my previous visit it was great! I think Raven just suffers in comparison to Voyage. Legend as well, really. Voyage has better air and a wilder layout than Raven and better laterals than Legend, and both seem like one-trick ponies in comparison. (And for my tastes, Raven always seemed on the short side) Similarly, Gemini seemed fast until Magnum showed up until MF showed up until TTD showed up.

I'm not sure PPP is really optimal for Phoenix -- Phoenix is noticeably more sluggish during the day at PPP than it is in the height of summer.

Check the early years of the poll. Texas Giant was once a top-10 ride.

Don't see how. With that track style, it's a steel coaster.

You also have go to past a crocodile isle to get to the Wildebeest grounds.

You can go as high and fast as you can afford. Bullet Trains do 260 mph or so. You're price and acceleration limited, not height and speed.

Remember that many ride ops say that El Toro runs 5 or 6 mph FASTER than it's supposed to. Local gravity higher than expected, huh?

I didn't get it either until my last PPP. It had been slowly climbing up my rankings, but was in the 10-15 range. It's upside was that it's amazingly consistent and really never offers a bad ride, but seemed to lack the special something that kicks a ride into "amazing." Then I got an amazing ride on it. It hits just a little harder on the hills, the floater air becomes ejector air, and it gains an attitude, much like Shivering Timbers used to get in the last hour of Timbersfest, when you started dreading the final bowl and stopped trying for one-click lapbars on the 3rd hill. I think I see what people see in Phoenix. It's like pizza -- it's never bad, and on occasionally, it's really amazing. It certainly never has the doldroms El Toro has early in the day or in the season, and it's capable of just as much violence. I'm not saying it's my #1, but I understand the argument. Really? I thought the Ravage train was noticeably smoother. I'm increasingly of the opinion that Mitch's poll simply doesn't work that way. More popularly ridden coasters also have wider riding audiences, and a higher ratio of detractors. It's harder to win all your comparisons with 300 riders than with 30. (It's harder to lose them all, too -- it's the volatility that's the issue)

Ever wonder what the weather is like inside your lung? It's dark, hot, and humid. It's the same weather you'll see at Busch after dark. Dollywood might be somewhat cooler, because it's in the mountains, and likely less humid, because you're not standing in a swamp. Still, it will be warm and moist.

I can recall a couple of parks who promoted Mitch's poll. All the negative commentary (new negative commentary, anyway -- twister fans never liked it) I saw revolved around how it had gotten rough (and correspondingly slower). Having actually operated the ride, it's notoriously sensitive to wheel lube and track maintenance, and it can be downright mediocre if it's not being maintained properly. It feels like Mean Streak when it had a bad wheel bearing, for instance. That top from the top-5 to the top-25 is what happens when you stop maintaining a CCI. It's not a new story.

Mad Mouse @ Quassy. My one and only ride.

Next year should be interesting, because this year's voting pattern was an aberration in the 16-year history of the poll (Grizzly not in last, for instance). On a different note, check out the 6-year pattern of high-performing rides. There are notable exceptions, but a ride's stay in the top-10 seems to have a 6-year shelf-life.

That's not how Mitch's poll works. (I spent 5 years maintaining the steel poll, I should know) To give an example, consider the steel poll in 2008 or so. I could round up 5 people who had ridden Blue Flash. If I could convince 3 to vote it #1 against everything they had ridden, and 2 to vote it dead last, it would have been the #1 steel coaster on the planet, winning every comparison 3-2, despite having what would be a nearly median average rating. It doesn't matter how many people have a ride at #1, only how it compares to the shortlist of competitors (and some top rides have gotten the random loss from some odd competitors. I think Great Bear knocked off a top-10 steel a couple of years ago). Mitch's poll has the opposite problem of the Golden Ticket Awards -- it overvalues small sample sizes.

The problem with that rendering is that you don't see the stairs filled with people, nor any fights breaking out amongst the patrons.