Schrecken

As I don't have kids I don't mind one way or the other if they are expanding the kids' area (actually I had been thinking that if anything else they might have been getting some kind of new flat ride, but that wouldn't matter a whole lot to me anyway as I only ride certain flats anyway). The only problem I see with the teaser is it is like the old saying about crying wolf....in a year or two when they prepare to announce a new coaster (or flat ride - meaning something more adult and and enthusiast oriented) many people will just yawn and not expect much of anything, especially the GP. We all know what happens when something (whether it's an amusement park ride, the "New Coke", a movie, or whatever) doesn't live up to its hype - not much is expected from the source of that over-hype the next time something new comes along. Like a movie director who makes a movie that is hyped up and it turns out to be not what people expect (again, nothing wrong with a new Planet Snoopy, but not what most people were expecting based on the teaser), when that director comes out with a new movie there will be far less interest in it from the general public because the last one didn't live up to expectations. That said, I still really like I-305 (it's in my top 5 steelies) and Volcano and therefore I still have at least two good reasons to pay a visit to KD every year (will be gong there this October).

I might be able to have some time to draw it soon - will post here if I do draw it.

I've had some great coaster dreams and some really lousy ones, so first I'll recount the best coaster dream I ever had - I was at this indoor park and there was this huge (well, for an indoor park) coaster that basically filled a room that was the size of a huge gymnasium. The best way I could describe the coaster was that it was like a Schwarzkopf wildcat on steriods - bigger, faster and longer but a similar layout of turns, drops, and dips and no inversions. It had bright red track and supports and had made nice use of the interior space, with some scary head-choppers when the train seemed to almost graze the ceiling girders and you could just about reach out and touch the concrete walls in places. The track shot along the walls and close to the ceiling in several places almost in the same way a terrain coaster uses the features of the land. This dream was so vivid that I could draw it. The other awesome thing was that I had the sense of having the coaster all to myself - like an ERT with just me and the ride ops or a day at a park when hardly anyone is there and the coaster is a walk-on with some trains going out almost empty. As for the ride itself, it had great airtime and a blistering sense of speed (for a smaller indoor ride) as it hugged the walls and ceiling and plunged down low to the floor in other places. I also got several rides on this coaster, but the odd thing was that the dream ended when my uncle came in and started an argument with me as I was getting ready to get back on and ride again. Even stranger is this uncle has never been on a coaster in ages (maybe in his life) and he's probably the last family member I would go to a park with! I also had some dreams that were similar - an indoor coaster with a comparable layout as the aforementioned but in one of these it was more like some kind of glorified slide rather than a coaster - no wheels, no track - riders just sat on mats and went flying around a bob-sled like chute. But instead of just sliding down like a normal kid's slide, somehow this "coaster" broke the laws of physics and riders were moving very fast (maybe 30mph or more) on their mats and had enough inertia to go up and down many hills before running out of energy. Those dreams were a lot of fun, too, and my uncle didn't prevent me from riding in the end. As of late I have had several dreams about being back in my old home park - SFMM, which was my home park for almost 5 years back in the late 90's-early 00's. I can't remember anything specific other than I was at the park again and riding or waiting to ride coasters. The bad dreams all concern me being unable to ride for one reason or another. Either I'm waiting in line and I just end up waking up before I can ride - waiting for a really-awesome looking coaster that I've been dying to ride, or I go to a park, pay admission and parking, and get in line and then realize to my horror that I've forgotten my motion sickness patch. That would indeed really be a nightmare if that happened - I'm one of those unfortunate people who can't ride anything more than a train ride w/o getting deadly ill and can't ride diddly squat w/o my patch. Worse yet, in order for it to work the patch has to be applied at least 4 hours before riding so I would seriously be screwed for the day if I showed up at a park and got in line with out it! I guess that kind of dream is the motion-sickness sufferer's equivalent of someone in school showing up for finals and forgetting to study for them.

I also love the sounds of TTD - on ride and off. The sound of the break fins dropping, and the clunk of the cable engaging with the train are memorable on-ride sounds, and the bass roar of the launch itself is something I love to hear when I'm walking thru the park. I like the sound of the floor dropping away on B&M floorless coasters (that's cool in and of itself, both sound and sight) too. And of course there's the chain lifts of most woodies - the classic "clink-clink-clink" of anti-rollbacks which can often be heard at a good distance. Of non-coaster sound sources, I'd say I like best the sound of S&S Screamin' Swings the best. The first time I rode one of those that rhythmic roaring of air added another dimension to my ride experience, and it sounds for all the world to me like a huge creature that's breathing heavily. Sounds ominous, especially to anyone who might be afraid of such a ride.

I've ridden both and for me I-305 is a reminder of what Maverick could be if they put the same type of restraint on it as I-305 has. Sadly I had to place Maverick on my "do not ride" list (hate to do that with ANY ride, especially a coaster) when I rode it this past July at Coastermania. I know how to ride coasters defensively, and can ride most any Arrow or Vekoma coaster and manage to avoid most if not all the head banging, but even though I had a front seat ride on Maverick in the daylight, I was unable to prevent my head and ears from being bashed repeatedly into the hard rubber restraints. This was one ride where I wished I could have stopped right in the middle of it and got off (seldom do I run into a coaster that I want to get off of before it ends). IMO it should be re-named "Muhammed Ali the Ride" if and until they swap out the restraints for I-305 style ones as for some people it can sure deliver a near knock out punch to the ears, sides of the head and neck. Which is sad because it is a beautiful coaster with lots of elements that could be really fun if it wasn't so painful to ride. I-305 also has some abrupt transitions but the restraints make a world of difference.

Given that I have a heavily wooded lot, it would be most practical for me to have a terrain coaster, but for most people having a coaster in their backyards wouldn't at all be practical (depending on the type of ride it was, imagine your neighbors' lights flickering every time you fired it up! That, and the noise of some coasters and rides....). But if I had an unlimited space (and of course money) I'd probably have Millennium Force (or even go for a good B&M hyper like Apollo's Chariot or Nitro instead) and an S&S screamin swing. Both of those I could ride over and over again!

Looks like a really awesome ride in the making, even though IMO the name is lame (for a coaster, that is - anything in a park named "Gatekeeper" screams "darkride!" to me, or perhaps some kind of Gothic-themed simulator like Darkcastle at BGE). The other thing is this will certainly trap crowds at the front of the park, at least for opening year, so early lines for any of the coasters further back in the park should be much shorter.

I think a huge part of whether or not a ride like Maverick is painful has to do with one's height. Same with Arrow loopers. I'm guessing that many, if not most people, who like the ride are relatively tall. I am able to ride most Arrow loopers defensively enough that I can avoid most, if not all, the head-banging, but it takes a lot of effort and for me it really isn't worth it for multiple rides. However, this past July I rode Maverick in the front seat and sadly it was one ride that I was truly wishing for it to be over - my ears were on fire when I got off. I'm 5'3" so that puts my ears right at the level of the OTSRs, and the transitions were just too quick and too hard for me to avoid being bashed (says something for the slow corkscrew transitions on Arrow loopers, at least you have time to prepare!). That said, if it had restraints like I-305 I think it would be a lot of fun. Otherwise, it's on my "do not ride" list for now, and probably forever if they don't fix the OTSRs.

Ninja at SFMM comes to mind - not that the layout per-se is weird, it's just that it has that chain lift at the very end - people who have never ridden think there's going to be another drop or something and it's just back into the station.

I had a real scare on TTD last summer but in my case (this is a problem that would likely only happen to women due to the body shapes that many of us tend to have) it has a lot more to do with my shape rather than my weight. I'm short but have broad shoulders and wide hips (but have a flat belly, so no problems with coasters that have little room for the belly), and that day I happened to have on shorts with zippered side pockets, one of which I had my car keys and some other stuff stored in. The bulge in my pocket combined with my girth below the waist meant that I just barely was able to get the seat belt closed. The ride ops were helpful in getting it snapped closed and they didn't struggle, but still it scared the crap out of me that I might one day be denied a ride on one of my favorite coasters. But this summer I went on a diet 6 weeks before I went to CP, lost 12 lbs and the problem was solved - I had almost a couple of inches to spare on the belt on TTD and perhaps a bit more on MF. If ever there was a reason to watch one's weight, those two coasters are it! Otherwise, I've never had any trouble on any coaster, even on what few kiddie coasters I've ridden. It does help to be short when it comes to leg room on coasters, however, lack of height can backfire when it puts your head and ears right in the prime head-bashing on certain coasters with OTSRs. My friend from Ohio who I go to CP with most years is very short - about 4'11, and while she's never had any kind of walk of shame, she has a terrible time trying to get into the seats on Intamin impulse coasters like Wicked Twister and Volcano. This past summer she literally climbed up onto the seats like a monkey, turned around while crouching in the middle of the seats, and then sat herself down. As for seeing others do the walk of shame, I've never had it happen to anyone I've been to a park with, but I did see a man with a big belly being stapled half to death by two ride ops at one time on El Toro. The two ride ops were both pushing their full body weight down trying to get the restraint to close on this guy's belly. That must not have felt very good at all! But at least he made it onto the ride and didn't have a WOS - though I imagine his ride may not have been very comfortable.

How about the Matterhorn? I think it was technically the first steel coaster ever built (meaning the first of the kind that use tubular steel track). Then of course you have all the "fads" in coasters - standups, floorless, flyers, etc.

Unfortunately SFA is like the neglected stepchild of the SF chain (though not by far the only one!) and that's sad. Technically SFA is my home park, though I haven't been there since maybe '08 or perhaps before that time. I haven't been there (obviously) since Apocalypse was built, so can't comment on any improvements (or lack of) since then. However, it is very disappointing to have your home park not get a coaster for over a decade and when they do get one it's an ancient left over from another park that is getting a brand new attraction in its place. Funny thing when I went to SFOG (I liked it better than SFA but it isn't my favorite park) I bought my tickets on the SF site, and not long after I got home I got a big e-mail survey about my opinions on SFA. The survey had a lot of questions about which parks I went to, and how often, and most importantly why I would choose to go to KD, HP, BGE and other nearby parks instead. I lamented most strongly about them not getting a new coaster in over a decade, so I do think in some sense they are hearing people, but they still have a long way to go. Know I know not all parks get a new coaster (or other big ride) every couple of years as that is expensive, but usually parks that don't get coasters that frequently are small, family-type parks like Waldameer and HW. I think the problem is that with SFA being park of the SF chain there's some expectation that they could do better with regards to getting new attractions (doesn't even have to be a coaster, even a nice flat ride like Max Air at CP would do the trick) on a more frequent basis. I just wish they would put a little bit more money into getting a new coaster (or other attraction) at least every 4 or 5 years at least. It gives one little reason to go back very often when other nearby parks are building tons of new stuff every couple of years or so.

I'd have to say that I found Flight Deck at CGA (rode it way back in 99' when it was still Top Gun), Afterburn and Raptor to be very intense, as well as Batman at SFMM (ridden a couple of other B&M Batman clones, most recently the one at SF Great Adventure, but I just found that one to very rough rather than intense, it gave me a headache), but of the three I'd say Raptor takes it for the inverts. That's one coaster that I have always had trouble re-riding, until this past summer where I found that if I sit in one of the center seats in the very front or the 2nd row I am able to re-ride for at least a few times in a row. That is also one suspended coaster where you really feel like every drop of blood in your body is trapped in the lower parts of your legs, as the effect seems to be amplified by the fact that your legs are hanging loose. For non-inverts, I found Nitro's helix to be very intense (reminded me a lot of Goliath at SFMM), but I haven't been on many B&M hypers to compare it with, only Raging Bull, Intimidator at Carowinds and Apollo's Chariot.

That doesn't surprise me one bit - SOB is tied (actually now that I think about it, it may have actually been a good deal worse since it was a much longer coaster) with Drachen Fire in my all time list of roughest, most painful coasters I've ever ridden. Speaking of a car accident, I was in one that totaled my car several years ago (where I t-boned a stop-sign runner going about 20-25 miles an hour, so you know it was more than just a fender-bender) and if I had to chose between riding SOB again and going thru the accident again, I'd choose the accident!

The two nastiest coasters (with regards to roughness and pain) I've had the displeasure to ride are SOB (with the loop, not sure it was any better when they took the loop out but I never rode it w/o the loop - but I recall the 2nd half of the ride as being by far the worst part and not the first two drops and the loop) and Drachen Fire. Considering what both of them did to my neck and the pounding headache they caused, I'd say both were worse than the car accident I was in several years ago that totaled my car and turned the whole front end into an accordion. I can easily see why both ended up as SBNO and then Drachen Fire was removed. In more recent memory, I found the Hoosier Hurricane at IB to be pretty brutal, even though I (wisely - I always do this with any woodie I've not ridden before just in case) rode in the first seat of the 2nd car. It gave me a mild headache and a sore neck as well. Hurler at KD was awful the last time I rode it nearly a decade ago as well, worse than Grizzly (which is tolerable in the front seat, as is Wildcat at Hershey). Shockwave at KD is also very painful - last time I rode it I felt like I was riding an old bike with an unpadded seat really fast over a pothole filled road - I can't imagine what it must do to male riders!

This thread reminds me of an incident that took place when I was 12 years old on the Rebel Yell at KD... I was there at the park with my mom and my 13 year old cousin (way back then the RY was probably the scariest coaster in the park because Anaconda hadn't been built; I think they may have had a shuttle loop coaster there at the time, but neither of us could have ever mustered the courage to go near that thing in those days so that was a moot point) and my cousin and I somehow decided that we would be willing to ride the RY if my mom went on it with us. He was the one who really wanted to ride, but I figured I could handle with it as long as my mom was with me. Well, we asked my mom and she agreed to accompany us on the ride, and so we went to wait in line. The line wasn't very long at all as I recall, maybe a little out beyond the station, but I don't remember it taking too awful long. But we did wait long enough that my cousin and I were carrying on a conversation and before we knew it we were in a lane ready to board. Well, it was at that moment that we realized that my mom was nowhere to be seen! Apparently she had quietly crept out of the line and left us alone to face our fate. Well, I really wanted out of there but the station was thick with a throng of people and there seemed to be no escape. I don't remember there being a chicken exit but if there was I'm sure we would have both used it! We looked at each other in horror as the gates opened and a seat beckoned us to board (I suppose we could have just crossed over and left, but hey, we still had our pride!). Well, on the way up we were both gripping the lap bars with a death grip, and I'll never forget my cousin looking over at me and saying something to the effect of "I'm gonna puke on you!" as the train ascended the lift hill. Well, I couldn't for the life of me understand why he'd blame me for my mom's unexpected departure from the line, but to make a long story short we both white-knuckled it thru the ride and survived, though I do remember my hands literally aching from holding on so tight. So it wasn't the scariest coaster experience, but it sure was one of the most memorable and I think about it every time I go to KD and ride the RY. BTW, thankfully he never did fulfill his promise of tossing his cookies on me!

I am aware of the g-force meters on Alpengeist (never noticed them on Apollo, though, but I usually ride in the front or 2nd to the front, so I may have missed them) and that gives you a good idea of how many g's you pull on that ride. Never noticed any reflectors at CP but next time I'm there I'll have to look. Will also look and see if I see any at KD as I may go down there again this fall. It would seem that the parks would use g's as part of a ride's stats, like height, speed, length, etc, but I guess that they don't because I'm sure there are people out there who have no idea what g's mean, whereas, other attributes like height are easily understood by everyone. I guess these sorts of stats would be mostly meaningless to all but the serious coaster geek out there.

I had forgotten about rides like TTD, they do indeed pull a lot of g's even if not in the traditional sense that most coasters do. Speaking of g-forces, does anyone know if there is any collection of data out there regarding g-force data (I guess a lot of that would have to be either estimated or provided by the parks or ride manufacturers for which data is available) on coasters and other rides? It might be easier to rank such things if there was some hard data available out there (or even educated estimates). For instance, TTD might not be as potent as it seems due to riders being buffeted by high winds, especially in the front seat, which I'm sure adds to the effect.

I'm afraid I wouldn't shed a single tear for either the jarring pile of lumber or the clanking bucket of bolts known respectively as Hurler and Shockwave, as both are currently on my "no ride' list. However, I also doubt very seriously that either will be put out of its misery any time soon as last fall I got the chance to speak to one of the park's managers during an event and he said (much to my chagrin) that Shockwave was one of the easiest and cheapest coasters for the park to maintain. And that they had been doing a lot of off-season work in an attempt to improve (though not nearly enough for me) the Hurler. That said, being that woodies seem to be more easily improved, if some serious re-tracking was done and perhaps new trains were put on Hurler, I might at some point in the future be able to remove it from my no-ride list and give it another shot. Bad woodies can sometimes be helped, bad steel coasters not so much. I remember actually getting some really fun rides on it when it was brand-new, so the Hurler was actually a pretty good coaster at one point in its lifetime and possibly could be so again. Now Shockwave, I've never gotten a fun ride on that thing and I can't imagine what could be done to make it a fun ride, other than something drastic like new trains or re-profiling it to get rid of that pelvis-cracking helix and bunny hops at the end. The new paint job looks really nice, but for the foreseeable future I'm content to admire from a distance.

I've been on so few totally enclosed coasters it's hard to really rank them, but I'd probably say Space Mountain (no idea which one would be best, as I rode the one at WDW only once in 1976 when I was a child and was terrified by it, and rode the one at DL around 2001 or so, before it was re-built - I can only imagine what my adult coaster-loving self would now think of a ride that scared me half to death as a child!). Next would be Exterminator at Kennywood (IMO this coaster is really underrated; yes it's just an indoor mouse but totally blows away similar lame crap like Dark Knight at SF Great Adventure) - the theming and effects are nice and I really like the way you can get a different ride each time based on how the cars spin. Third would be Flight of Fear - I've been on the ones at KI, KD and Carowinds, not sure which one is best but I do know that the last time I rode one of them (not sure if it was at Carowinds or KD, I visited both parks the summer before last within a couple of days of each other) it was hot as hell that day and the A/C was broke inside and the station area just seemed to be rather run-down and wore out looking. That took a lot of the enjoyment out of it for me. Might as well go ride Joker's Jinx at night!

I was sitting in the 3rd or 4th seat from the front when I got whacked; it happened on my last ride of the night so I was able to avoid it on the first 6 rides (never sat further back than about mid-way; I'm just not a back seat rider anymore these days). I was just really tired from a very long day and the last launch caught me off guard. I liked the ride better w/o the headlights, BTW, as the whole ride takes on an even more dark and spooky air at night. Many coasters are better at night and this, IMO, is one of them. The darkness is good on a coaster like this, especially the very disorienting part right after the first launch. I got my first front seat ride at night (was either the red or orange train as there was no light) and I was by myself in the front seat (was an ACE event, hence being able to get multiple re-rides & my friends didn't want to wait for the front that time), and even though there were some others further back on the same train I really had the feeling of being totally alone. That made for an utterly awesome ride experience and enhanced the whole dark,creepy themeing of the ride. Best ride I had on Verbolten that night! I also had the thought that indoor part reminded me a lot of Space Mountain (and also the notion that if I had been six years old again I would have been scared out of my mind as I was on SM at WDW when I was a child!).

I'm sorry to hear you had such a bad day at SFGAm, but the line management is actually really good. It's hard to explain, but they way where they hold the line to let FP Users through doesn't make the line move any slower. You still wait the same amount, it is just that you wait in the same spot longer, than standing - walking - standing - walking. Because as soon as they let the line go, the station is nearly empty. I wanna say pre-2008, SFGAm wouldn't hold up the line, and coaster stations were a mess. Viper's for example, has a fairly large station, and you couldn't tell what row everyone was in line for. Now, with they way they hold the line, you can clearly see what row you can wait for, with only 2 people waiting per row, rather than 10-15 people. I do understand your frustration. Different Six Flags parks have different ways of operating their Flash Pass, and I know SFGAM's can be a hassle. But I do like it because it leads to the stations not being crammed with people. I have seen other parks that keep people out of the station on some or all of the coasters (MF at CP is one I can think of off the top of my head and it does help avoid log jams inside of the station and confused people milling around trying to figure out where they are going to sit) but at least on some of the coasters at SF Great America I swear they were stopping the line way, way back from the station. It was most obvious on Viper and S:UF, where on Viper they held up the line at least a good hundred feet or so from the actual station (can't remember if they were also keeping people out of the station itself as is done on MF). Perhaps the ride ops were ill-trained or just plain lazy over on Viper but I'm sure that they were doing more over there than just holding the line back for the station to clear before letting another group come in. On S:UF they were holding the line at the bottom of the stairs, but still it seemed like an inordinately long time (given the high capacity of most B&M coasters, B&M flyers load much more quickly than Vekoma flyers ususally) if they were just allowing the station to clear out. The last time I rode MF the line was very long (about an hour or more) and they were only holding people back maybe 5 minutes at most for the station to clear. Or, maybe at SF Great America perhaps the ride ops were just extremely slow at loading rides that day and they really did need 15 or 20 mins to clear a station of people...

I'm not sure what the total overall highest positive G-force I've experienced has been, but I'm sure the highest sustained G's must have surely been on Goliath at SFMM, and probably 2nd to that maybe Nitro at SF Great Adventure. After that perhaps a few of the Batman clones and Flight Deck at CGA. One other type of ride that produced surprisingly high positive G's (probably not as high overall as on many coasters but it sure seemed like it probably due to the rider position) are those "sky coasters" - I could really feel my body being pressed really hard into the sling at the bottom of the curve. These were only the 200 ft high ones or less, so I'd imagine the huge one in Florida could really pull some serious positives at the bottom of the arc. For woodies, the Voyage and the Beast I recall pulling some pretty strong positives as well, and the Legend probably has the most lateral action of any coaster I've ridden on, 2nded only by some of the more aggressive wild mice here and there for steel coasters. As for negatives, some that come to mind are El Toro, Phantom's Revenge, Magnum, and some of the B&M hypers (though not usually jerk you out of your seat airtime, just lots of less aggressive float time). What few drop towers I've been on have some really strong negatives as well. But for sustained negatives I'd have to give it to both S:TE at SFMM and TTD at CP for the longest uninterrupted periods of negative G's, based on what I've ridden. Also, some of the flats like Maxair and the S&S swings have some good pops and periods of negative G's. Was also in a car accident several years ago that totaled my car (I t-boned a stop sign runner and turned the whole front of my car into an accordion, was going maybe 20 mph at the time of impact) and got some pretty good whiplash there but I swear the whiplash I got on SOB and Drachenfire were worse!

The worst day I ever had at a park was at SF Great America last summer. It left an extremely bad impression on both myself and a friend who accompanied me that day. The park was incredibly crowded that day, so much so that some of the locals we spoke with were also aghast at how overloaded the park was. Walking around (in the heat, no less) was like navigating Times Square on New Year's Eve - imagine the busiest city streets in the world and that's about what it was like. And to make matters much worse was the incredibly poor way in which the park was handling those crowds. I put the lion's share of the blame of the often rotten day I had there on the park's operations. I know that parks can't control weather or how many people will show up on a given day but they surely don't have to do things that make it ten times worse. The biggest problem was the way that they were doing the fast pass thing - I've been to many SF parks and other parks (including DL & DCA) that have such systems and I swear I have never seen such a mess as I saw at Great America. What they were doing was stopping the main line (the non FP people) for 15 minutes or more while waiting for a tiny trickle of FP users to show up (and then making them wait there until the time was up before allowing them to enter the cue). All other parks that have a fast pass or something similar just let the pass holders merge into the front of the moving line when it is their time to ride (at least that is always the way it's been based on my own experiences). They don't go and hold up the main line forever just to let a dozen people cut to the front. Imagine if they stopped all the traffic on Interstate 95 for 15 minutes while a dozen cars could get off the HOV lanes and re-enter the highway! Well, very soon you'd have a back-up that would stretch for miles and miles to say the least. All that did was to grossly exacerbate an already bad situation. Imagine waiting in line for over an hour to ride Whizzer! Worse yet, we spent the whole day - open to close - and only got to ride little more than half the coasters there. I could see where SF Great America might be a nice park if not for heavy crowds and poor line management, but I swear it will likely be a cold day in hell before I ever go back there. The only tiny silver lining in that black cloud is that at least I can still do one of the coasters I missed - I live about an hour from SFA and so there's one missing credit I can get one of these days. The only other bad experiences I've had were due to weather events like storms and extreme heat, which the parks can do nothing about.

I have always thought that Great Bear at HP was a really pedestrian name for a B&M invert (even though it is one of the mildest B&M inverts out there). "Great Bear" sounds either like a flat ride or a kiddie coaster IMO. Also agree with the comic book/super hero names - they just get old really quickly + there is also the confusion - "Super Man and Bat Man" - but which coasters are they referring to? For me the snake names tend to get over used as well; as far as I know there's only one Anaconda but plenty of Vipers and Pythons out there or variants of those names. Then of course there are the other clone names - Goliath, Deja Vu (gone but not forgotten), etc, that along with the super hero stuff takes away the individuality that a coaster should have.