Schrecken

I haven't been in the back seat of a woodie (save for Lightning Racer earlier this summer) in ages because of my back. But in the past I was a dedicated back seat rider on most coasters (save for those where having the front seat visuals, like on a suspended, really enhances the ride), and I liked the back seats on most woodies. Lightning Racer wasn't bad at all in the back (I rode in the middle car, not the very back), and actually it I think it may have been better there than anywhere else. But if you are worried about roughness, the very front seat (or the front of the 2nd row of seats) is normally the safest bet. However, some coasters are just rough anywhere - I found my last ride on Wildcat at HP (same trip as my back seat LR rides)to be a jack-hammering mess even in the very front. I can't imagine what it would be like in the back, and on a "wheel seat".

SF has gotten to be really annoying with their over-use of certain names, especially Goliath. And also that the name Goliath IMO doesn't lend itself well (at least based on all the previous Goliaths) to a wood coaster, even one with steel track. Same thing with Medusa, not as over-used as Goliath but sounds weird for a woody. Also agree about Flight Deck and Backlot Stunt Coaster. Seems that a little more creativity could have been used in those situations.

^^^^^OK, thanks!

Anyone know what the weekends in Sept. are like at HP? I was hoping to have had a chance to go before now, but it looks like I will end up going the 2nd or 3rd weekend in Sept. I'm guessing Sunday would probably be the best of the two days, since it is often that way at many parks. I'm of course hoping to get as many rides as possible on Skyrush before the end of the season.

As for what I think might be the best for the park in question (and not personally), I'd say the Medusa re-do at SF Mexico, since that is a park that seldom gets anything and has rarely been on any coaster fan's list of parks to visit. If only more old, tired, rough woodies would get this sort of revitalization. I also think that SFMM getting more stuff for kids is also a good idea, since that park has historically lacked much to do for children. As for my own personal feelings, perhaps the only newly announced ride that I will actually get the chance to check out would be Banshee (and maybe the family coaster at Dollywood). I have a friend who lives near KI, so perhaps in a couple of years I may pay a visit to that park. I go to SF Great Adventure every couple of years or so (will be going this fall) but I'm not into drop towers so that one doesn't do anything for me.

I'd say I never thought in a thousand years that SF Great Adventure would jury-rig a drop tower onto Kingda Ka...that's about the goofiest idea I've heard in a very long time. I had heard the rumors and just chalked them up to nutty fanboy/girl fantasies. I can see SFMM doing it on Superman because of the way the structure of that coaster is - it lends itself far better to having another ride attached to it than an Intamin rocket coaster.

If more CP "fanboys/girls" piped up about that, I figured the park would have gotten rid of the shoulder part (they are easily taken off with an Allen wrench) or traded them in for soft pads like I-305. But no one wants to "complain." Done politely and constructively, it can lead to changes. I find that trying to sit up with the small of my back not slouching in the seat helps. Kinda keep the lower back away from the back rest, which sounds kinda silly... but works for me Agree with you about defensive riding on a woodie - there are a few ways that some of the roughness can be mitigated. One way is sticking to a non-wheel seat and towards or in the front seat if possible. I find that if I can stiffen my legs and brace them against where the floor and back of the seat in front of me (or just the inside of the car on the very front) that lightens the load on my back. This is sort of like when you ride a bike and you "stand" when riding - having your butt barely on the seat or just above it, and putting most of your weight on the pedals. This of course would be impossible if you get stapled, but on most woodies that isn't an issue. The only thing I can't defend against is what rough woodies do to my neck - the jittering and jack-hammering can be rather painful and I haven't found a way to shield against it. There are a couple of places on Voyage (at least there were when I rode it back in '09 or maybe '08, either way it's been at least 4 years ago) that got my neck, so for me there wasn't too much re-rideability to it. But I like the Voyage for its blistering intensity, even if I could only ride a couple of times in a row. Of course I wouldn't mind at all if they were to do something to greatly increase that re-rideability. That would be great. As for Maverick, I also agree with you. I got an absolutely brutal front seat ride a couple of years ago, and unlike even the worst Arrow looper, I was unable to do a thing to defend myself against the battering. However, a year before I rode close to the back and it was more like an Arrow looper - you could defend yourself against most of the head-banging there. And unfortunately (IMO I think people ought to state their height in these head-banging or not arguments) I'm 5'3" and right in the prime OTSR head-bashing zone on quite a few coasters. I'd rather get it on my neck than right on my ears! Ouch!

I think it's good that SFA is adding a flat ride (and a decent one at that), since they have always been rather poor in that aspect. Not sure what happened to the starflyer.....especially since they have requested and gotten a variance to build over 200ft. That might have made me want to pay a visit to SFA next year...but, oh well, I guess I'll just have to continue to plan on hitting KD (which I consider to be my home park for the foreseeable future), HP, BGE and SF Great Adventure for my local jaunts in 2014. Guess this is just going to be an ongoing work in progress that will take ages, rather like restoring an old building, so I'm not holding my breath for a quick "finish" date. So when/if the restoration shows signs of completion a few years from now, I will probably want to come back and check out the site.

Some names that I like are: Alpengeist Drachen Fire & most of the other Busch Gardens names Leviathan (not as crazy about its counterpart Behemoth, since the word behemoth makes me think of a hippopotamus - actually I think that in the Bible the word is said to refer to a hippo, which would make that a better name for a massive water ride or slide IMO - speaking of the Bible and Leviathan, there leviathan refers to a crocodile, so not too much of a stretch for a serpent of some sort.) Raging Bull El Toro (an angry bull is a great metaphor for a coaster, especially anything with good airtime) Goliath (would have been much better if not so over-used, also like this name because one of my dogs is named Goliath - but his previous owner named him that so no, I don't go naming my pets after rides. I also have a cat named Maverick, again, named by his previous owner long before Maverick the coaster was ever built!) Deja Vu - fit the type of ride it was really well. Furious Baco also sounds cool - but I was also one of those who had no idea what it meant - I thought it was some kind of reference to some cartoon character I had never heard of (which wouldn't be uncommon, since I don't have kids and quite a lot of cartoons have come out since I was a child). I was picturing some kind of Tasmanian Devil-like nasty little animated critter that the coaster was themed to! Millennium Force is also a good name - it will be forever dated to a specific time in history. Others I like: The Beast Grizzly Thunderhead Skyrush (didn't care for that one at all initially, but it has grown on me - actually the only coaster name at HP I still don't care for is Great Bear - would IMO be much better for some kind of flat ride. Fahrenheit fits well because it can be so darned hot standing in that line!) One thing I wonder about with coaster names is why there aren't more coasters with the word "cheetah" in the name (yes, there is Cheetah Hunt, which isn't particularly fast at all), since that is the fastest land animal and the name evokes extreme speed. Sort of like with cars - you have Jaguars and Impalas, but no cheetahs.... Also, speaking of speed, you'd think there would be many coasters with the name "falcon" (rather than hawk, which aren't even the fastest birds of prey, but that seems to be mostly a CF thing) since the peregrine falcon is the fastest animal period.

I live about a half hour northwest of Baltimore right now, but I did live in Southern California for almost 5 years back in the late 90's and early 00's. IMO both were/are decent locations for coaster fans, but I still think that where I live now is the better of the two. The main upsides of living in So Cal were all season park operations (SFMM was my home park and there were plenty of times in the "off season" that most all of the coasters were walk-ons) and almost guaranteed good weather year-round. The downsides included traffic that could be utterly horrendous - I remember leaving DL one Sunday night when the park closed at 10, and not getting home until just after 1am! This because of mega traffic jams, as the actual distance I had to drive was only about an hour and a half away or less. Luckily I had the following Monday off of work! Getting to KBF was also a crapshoot - not far on a map but it could take far longer than it should have due to the ever present traffic jams. Even going around DC to get to KD is nothing compared to what I would often experience in So Cal. The upsides of my present location are even more parks to choose from - two of my top 4 best coasters ever are less than 3 hours each way from me - El Toro and Skyrush. From Baltimore of course there are several parks that can be day-tripped, and even more that can be done with a 2 night trip. The downside is the weather/climate - parks are of course closed in winter, and even in the summer you can get rain and bad weather at any time. Then there's the humidity...that's one thing I didn't miss when I lived out west. So overall I'm happy with living in this general area.

For me it would depend on how rough (and by that I mean actual roughness - jackhammering, bumpiness, etc) it really was as to whether I would ride. Looking at the pics and layout, it seems as though it must have had some heavy-duty laterals (especially with stories of people cracking ribs), perhaps like the Legend on steroids, but no idea on roughness otherwise. The first person account seemed to be focused on people getting nauseous/sick (which obviously happens all the time on modern coasters) and a great sensation of out of control speed, rather than the ride being painfully rough in ways I mentioned above. If I was to ride it, I'd ride the front seat for sure, just to be safe (or safer!). I've been on SOB when it had the loop, and also on some other pretty horrid woodies (or at least ones with some awful parts), and I've been on coasters with heavy-duty laterals (the Legend, Skyrush, I-305, to name a few), so I think I could handle those aspects of the ride. I think it would be cool for Intamin to re-build this coaster (I know people also mention RMC; I haven't sampled anything by them, but also we have to remember that the longevity of their coasters has yet to be proven, while El Toro is still running smoothly). GCI would be more of a crapshoot - some of their coasters are great years later, while some are awful. I don't think they'd have any problem doing the job, but the coaster might into something worse than the Wildcat at HP. Same for Gravity Group - no problem for them to build it either (having a metal structure might help, or maybe not), but how would it stand up to the test of time?

I remember liking Thunderhead a lot but I also like Lightning Racer (both sides, I guess if I had a preference I'd prefer the lightning side) and rode it this year, but I can't recall which I would like best of those two, because it's been a few years since I rode Thunderhead. So I ended up voting for LR red side. I used to like Wildcat but it has gotten so rough and I don't care much for it anymore and I won't ride it because of my back (maybe in the very front seat on a good day, but only if I'm with someone who really wants to ride and wants me to ride with them).

Probably the Wild One at SFA, at least based on its overall age (since it was re-located and partially rebuilt in the 80's). Otherwise it would probably be the Jack Rabbit at Kennywood.

Here's my 200th: Wild Thing at Valleyfair a couple of weeks ago (I'm on the right, we were trying to make hand signs for "200" but as you can see the camera cut my hand off ).

As far as going back in time to ride stuff, I'd want to ride Colossus and Revolution at SFMM when they were both new, ride the Beast when it was new, and I'd also go back to 1979 and re-do my trips to KD and BGA (back when KD was still just known as KD and BGA was Busch Gardens - The Dark Continent). The reason for the re-do was because when I was at both parks (was sometime in the late 70's, not sure of the exact year) I was terrified of the looping coasters that both parks had at the time. Even if I had met the height requirement (I guess I was of average height for an 8 or 9 year old) I would have been way too scared to ride and I remember looking at both coasters (King Kobra at KD, and Python at BGA) and thinking of how terrifying they looked and not wanting to go anywhere near either of them. I'd also stop over to the old Circus World and do both coasters (the old woodie and the Arrow looper) that were there at the time, as I had the same reaction to them when I was there in the late 70's. I'd also like to go back and do the Bat at KI, since it seems to have been so legendary. Also Shockwave at SFMM - would be interesting to see what an Intamin standup was like, especially since I had known people who had ridden it when I lived out there. Finally, it would be cool to be able to go back to the 1920's and visit some parks of that era, since that was the first "golden age" of rollercoasters, and also some of the interesting flats they had back in those days. The other thing I would try to do if I could go back in time would be to find my pre-teen self and try to convince her to overcome her coasterphobia way back then so I wouldn't have ended up squandering 20 years of my life avoiding coasters. All I know is my coaster count would be a heck of a lot higher by now! As for re-builds, I agree with those who have mentioned the Crystal Beach Cyclone and its counterparts of that age. It would be cool to see it rebuilt using modern technology so it would be re-rideable and safe, but still really wild (funny thing that not long ago someone on another forum felt that Skyrush is the modern day incarnation of the CBC - I disagree, but I suppose that might be an interesting debate as to which modern coaster might be the closest thing to it, if there is one). I have wondered why no park has attempted that so far, but then I realize that parks must market first to the GP and not to enthusiasts, so it would be a poor marketing tool to advertise a new coaster as a reincarnation of the CBC since the GP would have no idea what it was. But even then, you'd think that some ride designer might be inspired to re-create at least parts of it.

Well, I have a few choices also for a home park (there are at least three I can get to in a day trip, in about 2.5 hrs each way or less), and the closest of those is SFA, and it is far from my favorite park. I like HP and KD, but they aren't my faves either (technically, I usually consider KD to be my actual home park). I used to live in California, and then I had SFMM as a home park (was only about 30 mins away), but it wasn't my favorite either, at that time or now. I guess I'd say that CP is currently my favorite park, but it's hard for me to pic a fave.

I know I voted in this poll a while back and probably commented (pretty sure I voted for Intamin, but I had to think about it first), but over time I've been realizing a few things that has made me support my old choice even more strongly. Whenever I would rank a top 5 or top 10 coaster list (especially when I had wood and steel mixed in the same list), I began to notice that my top five was exclusively populated by Intamin coasters. This isn't really anything I had thought much about in the past, and I have always ranked coasters not by the maker (bias towards or against) but just by how much I liked it and how it impressed me. Now if I do a top ten (all steel), the 6-10 spots have almost all B&M coasters. Though to be fair, sometimes I call my #5 spot a tie between a B&M and another manufacturer's coaster, or between the other one and an Intamin. So occasionally a B&M gets to share my #5 spot. I can see why a park that can afford it would want a B&M coaster from a purely financial point of view, so in that regard B&M is probably the best deal all around for a park's bottom line. At least with them, you know that when you travel a long distance to get to a park, you can pretty well be sure their B&M coaster(s) will be up and running. It may not be a spectacular ride (but it should be a good one at least), but it will be operating and you won't have to worry about a ride throwing your back out (which is great for me since I have a bad back - every B&M I've been on has been harmless to my back) or whip-lashing your neck, or (for the most part) bashing your head in with horrid OTSRs. Those, IMO, are B&Ms main advantages. However, from an enthusiast point of view, there is one problem I have with B&M that I haven't had with Intamin: I've never ever ridden a B&M coaster that blew my mind (OK, there is one other coaster manufacturer that built a coaster that blew my mind, but it was a woodie company so that is irrelevant here). Also, I've never ridden any coaster (other than when I was a child and when I was suffering from coasterphobia) that scared me other than Millennium Force and TTD. And while I wasn't afraid of Skyrush in the sense I was of the other two, I did have to take all day to work up to riding it because I was afraid of what I had heard about it - I haven't been so nervous about riding a coaster in a long time. I've ridden plenty of B&Ms where I get off and think to my self "wow, that was a lot of fun - I'm going to go get back in line and ride again and again" - and I do. But I've never ridden a B&M where I get off and think "holy smokes! that's just unbelievable" while my hands are shaking like a leaf and my heart pounding. I guess I'm a bit jaded (even though my coaster count is a measly 200, measly compared to some people who have racked up two to three times that or more), and I figure that most coasters I will ride for the first time won't blow my mind, and if I'm lucky I'll end up with a ride I want to ride again. But the fact that any coaster can blow my mind like that and impress me in that way is going to cast the manufacturer of those coasters in a different light for me. So for me I have to choose Intamin over B&M at least for now, as I don't expect that I will ever have my mind blown by a B&M creation (at least not based upon their historical track record). If there was never another Intamin built here in the US (or anywhere else, for that matter), the coaster world would be a much poorer place IMO. In that case, I would have to hope that one of the "bit player" manufacturers would step up to the plate and hit a grand slam, like Premier, Mack or one of the other smaller coaster builders. Otherwise I'd never expect a newly encountered coaster to blow me away. But to be fair, Intamin has struck out more than a few times in addition to hitting some grand slams, and B&M pretty much always has base hits and once in a while knocks one out of the park, but for me has never hit a grand slam.

For me, probably their hypers, and then after that, the dive machine (I've only been on Griffon at BGE). Floorless after that, and then standard inverts. Flying style is OK but I've only been on two of the Superman flyers at SF parks. Standups I like the least (though I did enjoy Riddler's Revenge when it was new and stand-ups were the "in thing" back in the late 90's) now. Never been on a wing coaster but I hope to be able to get to CP next year and do Gatekeeper, or perhaps the one at Dollywood, or if another park closer to me builds one.

Pretty hard to say since the only kind of drop towers I will usually ride are the kind that bounce - those that shoot up, drop down, and repeat. The one at Valleyfair was pretty good (I only rode the launched side, since I don't care for the kind that just take you up and drop you - IMO they are almost pointless) but it could have had more bouncing - it was too short a cycle. It was my first S&S tower so I don't know if they are all like that or not. I also liked the one at HW, but I missed the one at IB since it was closed when I was there - supposedly that is a good one but I didn't get to do it unfortunately.

Mine was Space Mountain at WDW, about a year after it had opened. It scared me half to death, and I was sure at the time that it went upside down, and unfortunately that experience kept me off of most coasters for 20 years.

I also found that the clientele that tends to patronize Mt. Olympus is indeed extraordinarily ghetto and even more tacky than all but the worst Wal-Mart customers I've ever seen. However, the park itself was clean, had lots of shade, especially around the ride line areas, and wasn't at all low-brow at all in that regard. Many of the ride ops and staff were rather lackadaisical, but I don't know if I'd call them ghetto or not. This ghetto park clientele also spills out into area hotels (so obviously not all were locals) and actually into the whole touristy area. SFA did used to be really ghetto at points in its past, but it has made quite a bit of improvement since those bad times.

Mine was the old hang and bang over at SFA (it was Adventure World back in those days, and the Mind Eraser was brand new, and not quite as rough as most of these coasters have become as they have aged), sad to say. If the Python (Arrow shuttle loop) had been running that day in June of 1996, that would have been my first, as I would have been dragged onto that one first by that family friend I was with. But the Python did turn out to be my 2nd coaster with inversions. So at least the Mind Eraser served its purpose back then - it got me into coasters and over my severe coaster phobia.

Mine was Alpengeist at BGE, back when it was brand new.

I had a really terrible coaster dream a couple of days ago - I dreamed I was at HP with a group of people (no one I know in real life or online or anything) and we had just gotten to the park and were heading over to Skyrush. Well, at some point someone in our group did or said something (I didn't see this in the dream, I just knew it had happened) that caused all of us to be thrown out of the park. I tried to convince the park security that I had nothing to do with whatever it was that happened but they just figured I was part of that group (guilt by association, I suppose) and I was banned out of the park for the rest of the calendar year, and knew I would have to go all winter without getting any more rides on Skyrush . No idea what would have prompted a dream like that, since I have never even so much as ever seen anyone be thrown out a park, much less it be anyone that I might go to a park with. All I can figure is it's because I'm planning on one last trip to HP before the year's out and I'm trying to figure out how to work a day in to go there, which is kind of tough with my job schedule, that and I just got back from a one week coaster trip. I guess I'm afraid something might crop up to prevent me from getting my last rides of the season.

My first Arrow was the now defunct Python shuttle loop at SFA. It would have been my first inverting coaster, period, but it was closed that day I went to the park and so I got dragged onto Mind Eraser instead.