Steely Dan

Oh, for sure. Over the course of the 80s, Arrow kept pushing higher and higher with each successive big multi-looper. Breaking the 200' barrier was only a matter of time, but what a revelation it was to have the first 200+ footer obliterate the firmly entrenched multi-looper paradigm. Magnum could have happened anywhere, but it actually did happen at CP. Reason #4,568 for why CP is special. You're thinking of Togo's Bandit, which allegedly was a big inspiration for magnum. Here's the story, according to wikipedia: source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnum_XL-200 So I guess we can thank CNN for the existence of Magnum? I mean, how would things have turned out if Dick had never seen that CNN segment?

hell, even well into the '80s, any coaster that stood 100' or taller was considered a "really big coaster". it seems a quaint notion today. magnum changed a lot of things.

if magnum ever degrades to the point where it's continually sending out half empty trains, i honestly think it would be a thousand times more likely that CP would reinvest in a full-blown hulk-style retracking of the ride along with brand new trains for magnum rather than move it to michigan's adventure (or anywhere else for that matter). it's probably the most important coaster in the history of the park. i'm pretty sure CP management is aware of that. magnum ain't going nowhere. unless it happens to sink, of course.

Yes, but it does mean that you're borderline psychotic. Phew! Only a boderline psychotic. I've been accused of being worse Seriously though, there is something about Hades 360 that just works for me. The drop out of the station and pre-lift run through the woods is great, what a fun way to start a ride. The first drop is totally solid. The tunnels are pure insanity. The barrel roll and overbank in the turnaround are both taken with amazing speed. The big drop through the superstructure after the 2nd tunnel is surprisingly long and steep and is loaded with head-choppers. I totally get that's its extremely rough, and that the one train operation is fairly aggravating, but the ride is really intense, and in my opinion, a crapload of fun.

Am I allowed to admit that I actually kinda really like Hades 360? Sure, it's rough as hell, and Mt. Olympus does almost nothing right, but my god is it ever intense. and those tunnels. holy coastering insanity batman!

Viper is great. It's never given me a bad ride. Pure roller coaster fun! Demon is great. It's never given me a bad ride. Pure roller coaster fun! American Eagle is good, but it used to be so much better back in the 80s when it ran wild and free before it was trimmed to hell and back. however, it ran so wild and free that the word on the street was that it was ripping itself apart, so I guess they had to do something.

that outward banked drop is looking like straight-up 100% grade A insanity. if things continue like this, this might just be the craziest roller coaster ever built.

I'm glad that I've never allowed hype to set my expectation bar unreasonably high. How sad would it be to ride a roller coaster as amazing and fun as MF only to be disappointed because it wasn't quite as spectacular as making love to God. Whether it's your favorite coaster in the whole wide world, or your #23 steel, MF is a fun as hell ride no matter how you slice it. Not believing the hype is the secret to happiness. Never be disappointed again!

I'd say at least 20 ft, perhaps even more, though it's always difficult to say for sure, what with perspective distortion and what not. It just hit me, there's a chance that this RMC'ed mean streak might be the best. roller coaster. ever.

^ True, but with the "six flagsization" came Super Bizzaro Man, so at least there's that.

I don't really know if Magnum in under or over-rated, in general. All I know is that it's my absolute favorite coaster in the world!

That was gold, pure gold. Thank you for the laugh, prozach. Regardless of whatever name CP eventually ends up slapping on the new ride, I think I'll now forever privately refer to it as "The Pride of Sandusky".

and what a dream it is! oh how i miss tidal wave. or any schwarzkopf shuttle loop, for that matter. i guess i need to find a reason to head out to california and hit up knott's. (or my real dream to head down to mexico city and experience La Feria Chapultepec Magico)

Given that having a "collection" means having more than one, these would be the global parks that have a minimum of two operational wooden coasters: I bolded the parks that seemed to be getting the most mentions in this thread. Blackpool: 5 SF Great America: 4 Kings Island: 3 + 1 U/C Mt. Olympus: 4 SF St. Louis: 3 Holiday World: 3 Kennywood: 3 Knoebels: 3 Hersheypark: 3 Michigan's Adventure: 3 Kings Dominion: 3 Canada's Wonderland: 3 Adventureland: 3 Indiana Beach: 3 Camden: 3 Dollywood: 2 Lake Compounce: 2 California's Great America: 2 SF over Georgia: 2 SF America: 2 Silverwood: 2 Worlds of Fun: 2 Valleyfair: 2 Waldameer: 2 Lakemont: 2 PortAventura: 2 Carowinds: 2 Conneaut Lake: 2 Playland: 2 Stricker's Grove: 2 source: RCDB Please correct any mistakes or omissions I may have made. My vote goes to Holiday World, though Kings Island may soon outdo it with Mystic Timbers. Of the major contenders here, i still have never been to Knoebels or Hersheypark (or Blackpool for that matter). I'll have to work on that.

i'd be a bit sad to see V2 leave, but it's never been the same ride since they stopped using the holding brake. it's cool that SFGAm has an impulse, but it's also not cool because it has the lamest version.

Yeah the holding brake on the spike is a crapload of fun and definitely makes for a better ride in my opinion. It's a shame SFGAm runs V2 without it these days. It's good to hear that Dorney and Valleyfair are still running their impulses properly. With the holding brake working, I think it's a wash between double twist WT-style impulse coaster and the spike/twist versions. But without it, the double twist is way more fun. I've never ridden the odd-ball version out at SFDK. Does Anyone know if that one still uses a holding brake on the spike?

count me as a WT fan as well. now, i wouldn't travel way out of my way just for it, or wait in a 2+ hour line, but i definitely consider it one hell of a fun coaster that rates well north of "mediocre" in my book. it's a fine piece of equipment in CP's coaster arsenal and i do hope the rumor of its removal is baseless. then again, i'm a sucker for launches, so any launched coaster would have to really suck for me not to love it. hell, i still like vertical velocity at SFGAm, even without the holding brake (though it was WAY cooler with it). are any of the other spike/twist impulses still using the holding brake on the spike?

That's why RMC will come back to CP in 2019 and throw some topper track onto Gemini to turn it into a bonafide woodie.

Yeah, great america is pretty good (it's not great, but "pretty good america" probably wouldn't have satisfied the marketing department), but it's all the way up in freaking Gurnee, a million miles away from anything other than that monstrous outlet mall on the opposite side of the tollway. If riverview were still around, I could ride my bike over there whenever the mood struck. But such is the story of america. Destroy everything cool and original in our cities just to erect lamer, sanitized versions of the same out in the vast nameless sprawl. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

Magnum. Not just my favorite hyper coaster, but my favorite coaster ever. Period. Because nostalgia. Being 13 years old in '89 and staring up at the unfathomable enormity of planet earth's very first ever hyper coaster was an utterly mind-blowing experience that I will never forgot, and one that simply cannot be recreated for me without the aid of a time machine or magical age-reversing pills. It isn't exactly the ride itself; it's what it represented to me at that time at that highly impressionable age. Roller coasters eventually got taller and faster and steeper and whateverer, but for me, there will only ever be one Magnum. It's very very special.

Above Average Streak?

Riverview park in chicago has fascinated me for most of my life. I was born in '76, eight years after riverview closed, but I've heard all of the stories from my parents, grandparents, and aunts & uncles about how magical riverview was and how heartbreaking its closure and demolition was. My grandmother grew up a few blocks from riverview in the '20s/'30 and spent a big chunk of her childhood there. She loved the place dearly. Oh what I would give to have access to a time machine for just one day. I routinely drive by that stupid ugly strip mall on western avenue that replaced riverview and just shake my head in disappointment at the unfortunate stupidity of it all.

Yep, I can't think of another coaster anywhere that had such a HUGE discrepancy between the beauty of its structure and the disappointment of its ride experience as mean streak did. SO, so, so excited to see what RMC will do with that timber-laden beast of a structure.

Whizzer at SFGAm. It was the first "big" rollercoaster that I ever rode (at the age of 7 back in '83) and it's still one of my all time favorites to this day. So I try to hit it first for sentimental reasons, and because the line moves pretty damn slow once it develops any kind of queue.

The stand-up rollercoaster concept was somewhat big in the '80s/'90s, but the last new build stand-up was B&M's Georgia Scorcher @ SGOG in 1999. And with the removal of the Togo stand-ups from north american parks, the ongoing Cedar Fair floorless conversions of their B&M stand-ups, and the recent rumor of La Ronde removing their Intamin stand-up Cobra, I started wondering when this style of coaster will disappear from the coaster landscape altogether. As recently as 2000, there were a dozen stand-up coasters operating at north american parks, but if La Ronde does in fact remove Cobra, and if Carowinds' Vortex ends up meeting the same floorless conversion fate as Mantis/Rougarou @ CP & Vortex/Patroit @ CGA, then that would leave only 4 operating stand-ups left in North America, all of them at SF parks: Georgia Scorcher @ SFOG Riddler's Revenge @ SFMM Green Lantern @ SFGAdv (former Chang from KK) Apocalypse @ SFA (former Iron Wolf from SFGAm) And globally, the picture doesn't look much better because the stand-up concept never really took off very strongly outside of Japan and North America. There are still 4 older Togo stand-ups operating in Japan. And there are two stand-ups operating in Europe: Intamin's Shockwave @ Drayton Manor and Togo's Freestyle @ Cavallino Matto (former Skyrider from CW). I'm aware that the stand-up coaster concept was never fully embraced by the coaster enthusiast community, and that most of the examples were seen as gimmicky at best, or outright torture devices at worst. Still, a part of me will be sad to see this style of roller coaster disappear altogether into the dustbin of roller coaster history. I was lucky to ride 4 stand-ups (King Cobra, Iron Wolf, Mantis, and Shockwave @ KD) and I enjoyed riding each of them. Since it doesn't look like we're gonna see any new-build stand-ups anytime soon (Togo is completely out of business, Intamin is definitely out of the stand-up business, and B&M haven't built a stand-up in nearly 2 decades), how long do you think the few remaining examples will last?