Intarider

Thanks for the feedback! ^Yes, those little launchers are great indeed. One more proof that a roller coaster needn't be tall to be good and thrilling.

As the end of the season approaches, I decided to make a quick trip to Tripsdrill to check out their new Gerstlauer LSM-launched coaster, "Karacho" on October 1st. As it was a weekday after the school holidays, the park was very empty. Tripsdrill is a great little park. It is very family-orientated, but coaster fans will enjoy it nevertheless. One great thing is the total absence of OTSRs in the whole park, as well as no height restriction for any of the main attractions, which is nice as I'm quite a tall guy at nearly 6ft 7 inches (2m). I hope you enjoy the TR! The first thing you notice when entering the park is the somehow weird theming. The park was beautifully decorated for the fall season. All nice and calm in the morning... I spy something in the background! Yes, it's their new coaster. The Top Hat looks really nice from this angle. However, Karacho would not open until 12 AM due to the low crowds. So, time to look around a bit. I'm always impressed by the theming of the log flume and the Gerstlauer Bobsled in this castle. Mammut, their other large coaster. Nerd Shot for all the brake enthusiasts out there Mammut did open sooner, however, in order to dispatch a train they needed at least six riders... which was a problem! So, there was extensive "inverted queueing". It's a nice and fun coaster, but very tame compared to a GCI, for example. Feels much like the wooden equivalent of a new-school B&M - smooth and fun and very reridable, but not very intense or thrilling. G'sengte Sau, their Gerstlauer Bobsled is also very fun. You can even get decent airtime on the bunnyhops when the car is full... which was a rare sight. Another Nerd Shot These tight turns are also very nice. Yes, Karacho is open! And it's great! Unlike quite every other attraction at the park, it is clearly not aimed at families, but at thrillseekers. In my opinion, it's the best launcher in Germany. Blue Fire, while a good coaster, is a bit too tame and Desert Race and Fluch von Novgorod suffer from their OTSRs. The clamshells on Kracho are great. It really is an awesome feeling going upside down with a lapbar only. Especially as you get great hangtime in all of the inversions. And there is airtime, too! Who can spot the coaster porn? Karacho does this to you. This is what the theming will look like when it's finished next year. Seriously, if they build an Intamin Mega-Lite in the next few years, their coaster lineup will be quite perfect Time to look around a bit more. This is the Altweibermühle ("Old Womens' Mill"), which has got a carpet slide in it Random halloween decoration Inside this house there are several devices that make you feel drunk. Like this turning barrel. The bathtub log flume is one of the highlights of the park. Not only has it a decent layout and a great drop, but it is also probably the only family ride in the world to feature naked bathing women. The Top Hat towers over the park Donnerbalken, their very weird free fall tower The maypole ride A nearly full train was a rare sight. However, the OPs always allowed to stay seated until the next ride as long as no other guest wanted to ride in your seat, which was great. Some more rides on Karacho... Nerd Shot #3 The ride does have a slight rattle, especially in the outer seats, but it's not really uncomfortable. The entry to the Dive Loop is just insane, especially on the left side of the train. Random Theming One last look at the Swabian Village And me trying to do an artsy shot Thank you for reading!

That overbanked netting in the overbanked turn officially makes no sense at all

^ In my opinion, the tubular supports are visually more pleasing than the rectangular ones. Especially with the triangular track, which is already edgy enough. I think the decision which kind of supports will be used is made by the park, als the multilooper in Cinecitta uses the "new style", rectangular ones, for example.

If this is really going to be a giga - no matter if from Intamin or B&M - I would bet that it will be exactly 307 feet in height Anyway, I'm quite excited about the project. Reminds me a bit of the time in 2009 when the first rumors about an Intamin Giga at King's Dominion were coming up. And yes, even though I have only ridden EGF and Silver Star in terms of comparable coasters, I think an Intamin would be a MUCH better choice in this case (even though my stomach tells me it will be yet another cookie-cutter B&M).

The only good thing about this poll is that they finally put EGF into the top 3 (albeit with much less points than either MF or Bizarro). And the second place for Europa Park is at least a step in the right direction IMHO... Apart from that, Robb summed it up quite well earlier.

Great that Intamin has finally decided to use lapbar-only restraints on inverting and/or launched coasters. I presume they will also be much more accomodating to tall people (I'm nearly 6 feet 7 inches). The over-the-shoulder part of their Over-the-shoulder-lapbars like used on most of their recent installations (e.g. Desert Race in Heide Park) hurts my shoulders badly...

For me, it's definitely Expedition GeForce. To be precise, last row to the left. Feels like you're being thrown out every single time.

I'm very happy that Expedition GeForce once again ranks as the best Steel Coaster outside the USA- for the 11th consecutive year! Also, as an Intamin fan, it's nice to see El Toro finally in the top spot. Still wondering why so few Intamin woodies have been built. However, it seems like Skyrush and i305 are just too intense for some people... After the enthusiastic Skyrush reviews of most riders, I expected it to rank at least in the Top 20.

Looks amazing. From the looks of it, RMC have outdone themselves on the New Texas Giant and with the cliff and the barrel roll Iron Rattler has the potential to be even better in my opinion. I hope the guys also start rebuilding European coasters soon, some of them are in desperate need of a RMC treatment (Anaconda at Walygator, for instance although I seriously doubt this park spends any money to keep their coasters in good condition...)

Looks great from the POVs. One of the very few remarkable coasters in Eastern Europe. But i wonder why the support structure is so massive. It reminds me of Jetline at Gröna Lund a bit, but in that case the supports were originally built for adding an enormous Alpine theming as far as I remember. However, for some reason the coaster stayed unthemed. And so, the supports are so strong that they can support Jetline and Vilda Musen at the same time Does anybody know if any kind of theming was planned for this ride? (I'm sure He would know the answer )

To me, this splash section looks very similar to the B&M splashdown areas on their Dive Machines or Diamondback. I wonder if B&M has any sort of patent for their splash sytem? In this case, such a splash would make a lot of sense as it creates a big wave without braking the boat too much.

I'm sorry to disappoint all Vekoma fans here, but according to rcdb and other sources, it is a knockoff made by Golden Horse http://rcdb.com/m/10045.htm Well, at least the Intamin LSM coaster will be made by Intamin.

Looks like they're selling out Dubailand. The "Triple Launch Coaster" sounds like the Intamin LSM coaster still rotting away in the sand in Dubai. Well, at least it might now be bought and built somewhere.

Actually, on the artwork the restraints look a lot like the system Mack uses on Blue Fire, don't they? If the restraints were basically i305-style without the OTS-part, they could indeed be painful for some riders.

Actually I could see Skrush becoming many enthusiasts' #1 coaster in the near future. It has twisties like Intimidator 305, airtime hills and turns over the water like Expedition GeForce, a First Drop that looks like someone combined i305's and EGF's drop and the winged seats could make the ride experience even better.

Wasn't the ride supposed to have a 140 degree overbanked curve? This would at least fit very well with the picture. Should be an interesting element, especially on the outside seats.

^Knowing Cedar Fair, it will most likely be 307 feet tall.

This might be the case, however you have to keep in mind that Xclererator is a launched coaster and has a much more difficult technology than Silver Bullet. The Intamin Megas/ Gigas seem to be quite reliable as long as the evil Intamin cable doesn't snap. I haven't ridden KK or i305, but I can tell what you mean from my rides on Expedition GeForce. This might depend on personal preferences, but I think a good coaster ride should have a little rattle in it to increase the sensation of speed. Most B&Ms I have ridden are so smooth that you hardly feel the speed of the train, especially on the inside seats. And I'm not sure as I haven't ridden it, but wasn't i305 described as being glass smooth? I mean, you also have to keep in mind that i305 probably has the craziest turns on a coaster ever, while MF and most B&Ms are more spread out, with wide and gentle transitions which could be the reason for the smoothness. This might indeed be a reason to go with B&M. Their capacity is really good, but I don't think it has something to do with the lift system. If Intamin can send a 32 passenger train up a 305 feet lift hill in about 20 seconds, the lift should be able to do this the other way round, and I see no way how a train could be loaded in 20 seconds However, one interesting point is that on most B&Ms, the lift seems to be a proper block while on most Intamins, it isn't... I mean, on B&Ms, the duration of the lift is usually as long as the coaster part until the block brake while on Intamins, the lift is much shorter than the ride. For example, on MF there is one train on the course (lift + track) and two in the stations. On Leviathan there will most likely be one train in the station, one on the lift and one on the track. A bit complicated, I know I have no doubt that you can feel airtime on a B&M hyper, but in my opinion it's a bit too floaty (at least at Silver Star) I'm a huge fan of ejector airtime like on EGF, Colossos of most likely on Bizarro or El Toro. And I've heard many people complain about California not having any "real" airtime what might be true judging by the coasters on the east coast. So I think an Intamin with strong ejector airtime could be an unique selling point in the area. A B&M Giga might look "just like a bigger version of Colossus" in the GPs' eyes (however, it would most likely not have the intense helices and twisty sections). (Yes, it's true, I have an intensity fetish ) QFT. After all, I might sound a bit too negative in this post. I'll be happy about a Giga no matter which company builds it. I mean, it's not even sure yet if it will be built, but I have a stong feeling that there is something in the works.

Talking about the possible giga, there are some clues that a B&M is in the works and not an Intamin as rumored before. what would translate into http://coastersandmore.de/rides/achterbahnneuheiten2012/achterbahnneuheiten2012.shtml That's very interesting news, however I'm a bit surprised that CF will go with B&M again. In my eyes, a B&M has only disadvantages for KBF: It's most likely more expensive, more spread out and most important it will probably fail at being the best coaster on the east coast. I mean, it might not even have real airtime after all. And while more Gigas always is a good thing, I just wish CF would go with Intamin... Now the big question is: Where will the third B&M Giga of the deal go?

20 km/h sounds like a cable lift, which would be a new feature on Intamin's looping coasters. I presume these small differences might very well be a result of an additional transfer track (length) or a little different terrain (height).

That's pretty much what I expected. It seems to be identical to Colossus layout-wise, however the new trains sound interesting. Probably they will have the i305-style restraints, still hoping for lapbars only, though.

So I presume the yellow bars will form the "lift hill spine" ?

Now this looks like an awesome amount of twistieness! Additionally, most of the track looks really tight and heavily banked, so this should be one intense coaster once again. However, there are not many outside-bent pieces, so either the airtime hills will be very low to the ground or the track for them is yet to be delivered.

In early 2011, there were rumors about a new Intamin coaster model called "Topside Impulse Coaster" to be opened in a park in China in late 2011 or 2012. It was supposed to have wing rider trains similar to Furius Baco, but with riders facing in each direction like on the ZacSpins. Now this perfectly looks like that rumored coaster And, this beast looks insanely huge (said to be about 200 ft tall). The airtime on the top of the spikes definately looks sick