PURE

Smoker. But every time I light one up I wish I'd never had ventured to know the taste. I usually only smoke when I have nothing to do, like when I'm on lunch breaks at work, between classes at school, at home after work, when I'm having a beer, smoking a bowl, etc. Its really a disgusting habit. 2 things that detour me from chicks: Tattoos and Smokers.

So that's 12.5 pounds in 10 days. Ahead of schedule (perhaps to accomodate for Thanksgiving Dinner?), you're doing really good! I've never dieted so out of pure curiosity I wanna ask you Robb, which part is harder, the first half of the diet commitment, or the second half? And I've been reading your updates but was wondering overall, whats 1 main thing you've done to change your habits to help you lose weight like this? Maybe its as simple as avoiding soda or committing to staying active every day, i'm just interested and I think it'd help others trying to get an idea of how to lose weight. Because I have NO clue! I'm one of those lucky ones with the high metabolism. Keep it up Robb!

I thought Knotts admission would be at least $50 bucks by now seeing as how admission at other SoCal parks are over $60. Although they're all are overpriced IMO, I usually have discount coupons or whatnot and (thank God) rarely have to pay full price.

Really? I watched the POV and thought, "This ride is a mess. You can tell it's rough as heck, and it just opened." As for the original post, seriously, how can you proclaim the ride's greatness while describing how it's rougher than all get out the previous paragraph? Makes no sense. From the video I couldn't tell its rough. When the video was posted Elissa specifically mentioned on the thread that Robb's video made the ride look much smoother than it really is. Because from the video, I couldn't tell till I heard everyone complaining about how rough it was. Its become obvious to me that its difficult for any group of people to agree that a ride (specifically a woodie) is "rough" or "smooth" or "the same way it was when it opened." People that haven't ridden it make claims that are opposite of people that were just on it not too long ago. Basically every ride is different for every person that gets on it whether its Boardwalk Bullet or X. There's dozens of reasons a ride could go bad or ride rough, and not only one of them will be the answer.

I'd blame location. How can you expect to put a wood coaster next to water with all its moisture and climate changes and expect the thing to last without constant maintenance? When I saw the POV (which was awesome and really made this ride look like fun) with the ride next to the water, that was the first thing that popped into my head which would be a long term problem.

^Better get down there soon if you plan to get a ride on the old trains. I've heard the earliest they may be closing X for the refurbishment is December 2nd. Can anyone else confirm this?

I don't think Deja Vu's capacity is due to the electric restraints. However, mostly everything else (horrible train and station design, orange seatbelt before locking the restraints, seatbelt on the over the shoulder harnesses) is. I think all coasters have some wheels that do that, sometimes even new ones. More common are ones that have been riding for a couple years. Some of it has to do will wheel wear and tear, but I think its most of its due to the wheel assembly's wearing down and having slop. Although some wheel assembly's like X's have adjustments, they eventually wear down with the rest of the train; they can only do so much. Since the rails of X are pretty stationary, I think a new assembly will keep the wheels from having that gap until the rides worn and begins to have the same problem. I definitely think the new trains will have an improved ride-similar to when it was new, and hopefully because they're lighter, they'll last longer. I was thinking it'd be sweet if they could adjust the flip motions of the X rails for the rehab to create a new Xperience. I wonder if it could be done.

Extremely far from it. Until it's ridden, who really knows? Why be disappointed with something you haven't ridden? Why not be disappointed with Silver Bullet and the lack of forces on it? Or Ghostrider? The lack of maintenance has turned a world class woodie, to the next candidate for the fire pit. What about Xcellerator? Six seconds of bliss, followed by sixteen seconds of wandering back to the station. What a waste when it could have been so much more. Other simple examples: Black Mamba - Looks like it should be not only an incredible ride, but very visually appealing. Unfortunately, it's only visually appealing. It has less forces than SB. Balder - Looks like a boring twister. Far from it. Incredibly awesome ride. Thunder Dolphin - Looks like it should be really awesome, nice first drop and then boring as hell. Steel Dragon 2000 - Looks like it should be great, with massive amounts of airtime. Far from it, and some floater air on the return run at best. Furious Baco - Another simple figure 8, but because it's Intamin and it's new "wing walker" trains, it should be awesome. Yet, it's a painful POS! Both of the Vekoma "Booster Bike" coasters that I've been on (Booster Bike at Toverland and Velocity at Flamingoland), look pretty tame, but they're a hell of a lot of fun. Not really high on thrills, but really fun rides. If you're disappointed now, then I feel sorry for you. Because you've set your standard so high, that nothing but a record breaking ride will satisfy you. And, with a pretty much majority consensus from people I know here and on Mitch's polls, bigger and faster is NEVER better. Good luck to you. JJ Funny you want to call me ignorant, then you sit there and tell me "nothing but a record breaking ride will satisfy you." What satisfies me is when they take more than 5 minutes to decide the ride is going to be a figure 8 that's not even 1500 feet long. You're telling me a single helix wouldn't make this ride better? Taking advantage of terrain and those awesome open style "horse" cars would help. You can stay positive all you want and make any ride fun if you try hard enough, I just think Knott's has missed another opportunity to take advantage of a having such a unique ride in their park.

I definitely had higher expectations for Disney. The plastic makes them look like "Koala Bear Cares" diaper changing stations.

^I'd have to agree with you on Superman. If anything, paint it that steel color again. Why they would think of painting it red blue and yellow all around the tower just seems strange to me. I mean, its a bunch of I beams bolted together, let it look that way! However I believe Viper was painted a couple years ago in sections for a movie that was coming out. Space Cowboys or something? I think it just happened to occur around the same time X was being built. Not 100%. I can name off a ton of rides that should be painted. I used to cross my fingers for a Ninja paint job and that finally happened. Anyone wanna root for Colossus? Maybe they'll close it, retrack it, and get new trains. Call it Colossus Squared. Bringing wood coasters to the 2nd dimension. ... Bad Idea.

^Wow thanks for the link! I wonder if that's an extra car they made just for a display? Second, I'm wondering if thats what color X's new paint is going to look like? Last, looks like the restraints are now all electronic! Should speed things up quite a bit! ^^I remember way back when I was first riding roller coasters, before Riddlers, Viper would run 3 trains with no stacking. A train would be in and out in 30-45 seconds no joke. Oh the good 'ol days when MM ride ops actually had some sort of passion for their job.

^CF Fanboy? Wow Cedar Fair. Way to take potential for a coaster and blast it into pieces. I had hope. Honest I did. Why even waste the money or space or time on this thing? There's so many possibilities and this is ALL they could come up with? You can't even convince me that some 10 year old would look at this thing and get excited, especially when Xcelerator or SB are sitting in sight only walking distance away. Sorry for the negativity, but I feel nothing but disappointed. Not even originality! This has gotta be a joke. Good bye Knotts Berry Farm!

What? No backstage pictures? No sneaking around the park finding open gates? What a horribly boring TR! Haha, just kidding. You've got some awesome pictures, this is one the more exciting parks I've seen lately, what with the new coaster additions and all. Dunno when I'd ever be in that area, but I'd love to stop by this park to get on a couple of those rides. Thanks for the TR!

King_Sora? I don't know if you're missing something in your coaster knowledge. However I do know that questions typically end with a question mark (?). The unique ride experience and the fact that its an old coaster which was only made once makes me want to save it. Is that not allowed? Its along the lines of the same reason I like X, Freefall and Deja Vu. You hardly see them anywhere. Besides that I know its metal scrap waiting its demise.

^What're you a stalker? Park employees can't take pictures because if they allowed pictures in some places and no pictures in others, it'd be impossible to enforce. However many backstage areas are easily visible from many areas in the park that are exposed to guests on an everyday basis. If they have no problem showing those areas to guests, why should there be a problem photographing what is shown to them? Now if the people running this site have a problem with the pictures he's showing that's a different story-its their site. But a lot of the pictures he posted are easily seen if you venture around the park in not so frequently visited areas (Batman's fastpass line, for example) its not necessary to snoop past guest boundaries to get most of those shots. But if he is where he doesn't belong enough, he'll get caught by MM and they'll deal with him from there. There's no reason to play MM Security, its odd that someone with little connection to MM would take it more personally than MM security itself.

Enron and Worldcom had no assets. Their prices were rising for no reason, nobody really knew why, mostly people just saw a stock rising and dumped their money into it like idiots. There was no substance to back up the money that was invested, and crooks were involved which is why it ended up how it did. So that's not really a good comparison as what could happen to SF stock, they have parks, assets, and substance to back up the prices of their stocks. They don't just have numbers flying through the roof for no reason. I'd have to agree with Guy, buy at below a buck, and sell once the season starts. I'm sure there's bumps in the stock around that time.

I kinda see it the same way. From what I remember riding, the trains were the worst part of the ride. The track itself wasn't designed to well either with the neck snapping dip before the lift hill along with the bad pacing and tight helix finale. So I would love to see the ride retrofitted and maybe it would turn out fine. Some B&M floorless trains would kick ass. However, parks aren't usually going to invest money or take risks on rides if there's not a good chance they will end up running well after dropping all that dough. Which is why in a way, I think the longer its standing still next to Hurricane Harbor, the better the chances are that it'll reopen again once some day.

^Having a flat in both the Eagles Flight and Dragon stations is a great idea. There's plenty of room, the line pathways are already there. It would be great if they got new trains for the Metro. It'd be bad ass to ride that thing around the park again.

I'll put in 20. I'm not sure but I think I've seen that site lots of times before. There's always some coaster on sale but nothing has ever really come of it. I think Flashback's been on there for 3 years. Freefall for a couple. I could be wrong.

^^You're right. If you wanna look like you know what you're doing you should always double down on 11. SF stock has been dropping since I can remember. I had confidence it would rise in 2006 when Tatsu was being added and when it seems like things were going up for the company, boy was I wrong. But mostly I didn't invest any money because, well, I don't like taking risks when it comes to my money. And that's what I'd have to say is the main problem with SF Stock; nobody has confidence in the company. Nobody ever knows what they're gonna do, when they're going to do it, or if the move is going to be bad or good. And with SF's reputation I'd fathom most people worry about this company's future. That's no way to manage stocks if you're Six Flags. To get back on track they MUST be consistent and start to make some company changes that the public agrees with and sees as an actual form of improvement. Not just announcements that hold no water in the parks themselves. Saying things are going to happen when they're never seen does NOT build confidence in buyers. But if I had a couple hundy to invest, i'd say nows the time. The prices are low, if you lose money its not much, and after such low numbers you'd think they'd have to eventually begin some kind of price rise.

There are some awesome posts being made on this topic and its really cool to hear what everyone has to say. I think the ideas that were brought up are simply that, ideas. Things to consider, directions to go, its just an overall realistic way to understand the concept that if they really wanted to change the park, there are possibilities to consider. However, I personally am not putting too much thought or confidence into the large quote from Screamscape. Basically, its just an understanding of whats up in the air for MM put down on paper for all of us to read. I can't say or fathom what Six Flags has up their sleeve for this park in the next 5-10 years, there's been so much jumping around in the company, its hard to predict. All I know is the potential is there, there's a lot of money to be made, and at this point with the direction the park has been going in and with the current condition, big changes need to be made. And these are a couple of them. Although I'm sad to see the Xtreme coaster making era of the park is leaving, i'm glad to see the company is willing to make moves that will be better for the park in the long run. Either way, I'll keep making time to take trips to the park. -James

Well I was hoping they'd get something major, new and unexpected. Just got on Sidewinder not too long ago and it was fun, but I thought with a family ride just open they'd be installing an Intamin or something larger next. Probably won't be going to Knotts for another year or so now...there's just nothing new and exciting. And its not like 2 or 3 flats would draw me in either. Hopefully this one will do the park right.

^We'll see how it goes. I'd love to have confidence in the park to pull this off, but I've been let down so many times its difficult to give them the benefit of the doubt.

^You'll find out as soon as someone sees demo guys tearing out bolts and cutting steel.

10 million dollars for three new trains might sound a little steep, but when you consider that 1 ride/upstop wheel for X costs approximately 200 dollars and that 1 train has a total 64 of JUST those wheels on the train (not including X rails or guide wheels), it kind of puts things in perspective. Not to mention during the summer dozens of wheels are busted and replaced on a regular basis. That's right, do the math. There's over $10,000 dollars worth of wheels on X for just one train. Now, add in brand new train models, new electrical and you've got yourself a pretty accurate cost of refurbishment. You're completely right. Its very easy to sway speculation to accommodate ones opinion, look at politicians and the media! If they're willing to spend 10 million at MM to update a "non-family thrill" when Shapiro has promised "not many more Goliaths", why wouldn't they keep a coaster like Deja Vu that is relatively cheaper to maintain and doesn't require a 10 million dollar revamp after 6 years of its opening? I can't wait to get on these new trains!