texcoaster

No, it's not. "Redundant" is two instances of the same thing. Since the prefix "pre" and the suffix "ed" are clearly NOT the same meaning, it's not redundant. "The Department of Redundancy Department" is redundant. Lap bars and seatbelts are redundant safety devices.

It seems to me that what some people call "rough" and what others call "rough" are different things entirely. To me, "rough" is when the train has nasty, rapid bumps that jar the riders. Texas Giant is a good example. Even on the parts that really aren't doing anything, you get beat up. Son of Beast is perhaps the worst case of "rough" I've ever experienced. I *HATE* rough coasters. SOB is my least fave woodie of all time. Yes, even below Grizzly at SFGA! Voyage is rough in a few spots, but mostly it's just aggressive, as the previous post said. "Aggressive" can sometimes feel rough, but it's due to the layout having quick directional changes, lateral Gs, violent airtime, and high-speed cornering. Boardwalk Bullet is certainly all of that! I hear some riders complain that it's "rough" when what they are describing is "aggressive". It throws you around (a lot!) and tosses you into the sides of the train, into your riding partner, into the lap bar, etc etc etc. I *LOVE* aggressive rides. Voyage and Bullet are my #1 and #2 woodies.

Signs in Bullet station: "Please secure hats, glasses, cell phones, iPods, and pagers before riding." I thought it was sorta funny that iPods were mentioned by name. I didn't think it was funny when the girl in front of me pointed to the sign and said "what's a 'pager'?" I feel old.

It's not real wood, it's a self-adhesive sticker. They look a bit tacky up close, actually. The front panels look really good, though.

While I can't even begin to be called an expert on coaster track guaging or engineering, I can say that there is quite a lot of shimmy and side-to-side action on the bay turn after the first drop. It navigates the zig-zag beautifully, then crests that ungodly airtime hump, and then all hell breaks loose. The train bounces from rail to rail all the way around that turn and if you're in the back seat, it's pretty scary to watch the folks in the front half of the train (esp rows 1-4) get their heads and necks jerked from side to side. I can bet that a good deal of the potential speed of this ride is lost in that turn. The turn just below it (the near-90deg banked one) does really well in the first half, but there are some pumping issues in the second half of the turn, as if it were more of an octogon segment rather than a curve. Just after that, there is a speed hill heading toward the parking lot that has a NASTY "pop" in it. It takes everyone by surprise, and it's one of my favorite parts of the ride. I seriously doubt it was intentional, though. The turn immediately following the pop is also octogon-shaped. The drop under the station is a mess of compound curves that is beautifully executed. Smooth, fast, and flawless... unfortunately, a lot of speed was already sucked up by the time it gets here. The days when it rained, this part was pretty intense! Finally, the last turn before the brake run is getting rougher by the day. I think that if the trains would take it a good deal faster, the problem would solve itself. It sounds like I'm being critical of the ride, but I'm not. I freaking LOVE this ride, even with its flaws. However, I have been lucky enough to get about 5-6 "rain rides" and about 30 rides right after the tracks were graphited. Those rides pushed the limit of wooden coaster intensity, and were actually SMOOTHER than the slower rides. With a few tweaks here and there, I think this coaster will make the top spot on a lot of folks' lists. It's my #2 (of 121 woodies) already!

Nice pics! I like the one with the caption "precise moment where I lost my hat". Notice the total absence of shiny stripe on the rails where the road wheels make contact. Especially on the left rail, the stripe disappears for a couple of feet, then there's a foot or so of stripe, then another gap. One word: AIRTIME. The road wheels have never touched that part of the rail. When you come into the brake run, the section of track with "the pop" is right next to you. The left rail on that piece has a stripe gap of almost THREE FEET. I'll bet the upstop rail is really shiny there, though!

I included my home park in the list. So sue me. 1972: Dexter Frebish's Electric Roller Ride (later renamed Excalibur) - Astroworld 1976: Texas Cyclone - Astroworld 1978: Greezed Lightnin' - Astroworld 1980: Judge Roy Scream - SFOT 1984: XLR-8 - SFAW 1987: Avalanche Bobsled (renamed La Vibora) - SFOT 1989: Viper - SFAW Flashback - SFOT 1990: Ultra Twister - SFAW Texas Giant - SFOT Thunder Run - Kentucky Kingdom Vampire - Kentucky Kingdom 1991: Mean Streak - Cedar Point Wildcat - Frontier City 1992: Batman - SFGAm Rattler - Fiesta Texas Rollschuhcoaster - Fiesta Texas 1993: Batman The Escape - SFAW ThuNderaTion - Silver Dollar City 1994: Raptor - Cedar Point Roller Skater - SFKK 1995: Cannonball Run - Waterville USA Mayan Mindbender - SFAW Hangman - Opryland 1996: Flight of Fear - Kings Dominion Runaway Mtn - SFOT 1997: Alpengeist - BGEurope Great White - Sea World TX Roadrunner Express - SFFT 1998: Mamba - Worlds of Fun Mr Freeze - SFStL Mr Freeze - SFOT Shivering Timbers - MA 1999: Anaconda - Gold Reef City Batman - SFOT Boomerang - SFFT Poltergeist - SFFT Serial Thriller - SFAW Steel Eel - Sea World TX 2000: Arkansas Twister - Magic Springs Diamond Mine Run - Magic Springs Legend - Holiday World Millennium Force - CP Road Runner Express - SFKK Superman Krypton Coaster - SFFT Mega Zeph - Jazzland Muskrat Scrambler - Jazzland Rex's Rail Runner - Jazzland Zydeco Scream - Jazzland 2001: Taz's Texas Tornado - SFAW Thunder Eagle (first public ride!) - Race World Titan - SFOT Wildfire - Silver Dollar City Wile E Coyote's Canyon Blaster - SFOT 2002: Goliath - Six Flags Holland Joker's Revenge - SFFT Silver Star - Europa Park 2004: Jozi Express - Gold Reef City 2005: Batman - SFNO 2006: Expedition Everest - DAK 2007: Boardwalk Bullet - Kemah Boardwalk Firehawk - Kings Island iT'Z Express - iT'Z Fun Center Tony Hawk's Big Spin - SFFT Geez, I feel old now.

(waving hand wildly) OOO! OOO! PICK ME! PICK ME! Kidding. If I hadn't been there and been introduced to them, I wouldn't have been able to pick them out of the crowd. I'm not very good at spotting "celebrities".

Thanks! I'm crossing my fingers that some tasty POV footage will fall from cyberspace and land in my hard drive so I can do this coaster justice. It's just SOOOOOOO hard to shoot any meaningful off-ride footage after the first drop. Everything else is just a split second of blurry train as it peeks out from the structure. Odd: notice how we still call it "footage" even when it's digital?

Boardwalk Bullet

Then flip over and face DOWN. The restraints go across your chest. Sheesh.

OK, updated video here: http://homepage.mac.com/jimwinslett/FileSharing3.html Click the download arrow next to file "bullet.mov"

It was so nice to meet you on the coaster tonight! I generally don't stick around once the line gets more than 20min long, so I can't tell you if it's ever been longer than that. I'm spoiled with my drop-by-after-work ride sessions. I show up around 7pm or so and ride till 10. Can usually manage about 30 rides, or 10 rides/hour.

It was so nice to meet you on the coaster tonight! I generally don't stick around once the line gets more than 20min long, so I can't tell you if it's ever been longer than that. I'm spoiled with my drop-by-after-work ride sessions. I show up around 7pm or so and ride till 10. Can usually manage about 30 rides, or 10 rides/hour.

Got in a few more rides today... was a bit crowded. Usually had to wait about 3 trains or so between rides. Up to 152 now. I think Guru hit 200 tonight. Bullet was running pretty well, hitting the same times as Saturday when several ACErs dropped by. Not as well as Thursday, though. Those rides pushed Bullet into my #2 wood spot. This was still a top-10 ride tonight, though.

I got 32 rides in about 3 hours last night. While I can say that it is by no means a smooth ride (my sore neck and shoulder muscles will attest to that!), it's not brutal like TxGiant or even Voyage. Yes, there is some shimmy and shuffle on a few spots, but most of the roughness comes from taking zig-zag turns with bunny hops in the middle at high speeds. There's just no way for any train to navigate that layout at those speeds without tossing the riders around. Will it get rougher? Probably. The middle of the train is getting pretty intense, especially on the even rows. On opening weekend, my favorite seats were in the middle (5R and 10L). Last night, 5R was brutal. I found 10R to be my favorite, although it was brutal as well. Oddly enough, however, the front and back car were both running much smoother than they ever have before. This is exactly opposite of opening weekend. I think that as the coaster ages, the park will do what it must in order to make it a good riding experience. Let's face it: this is not a major theme park where folks buy a single ticket and ride a ton of rides... where if the wood coaster is unridable due to roughness, there are lots of other rides and coasters you can do... No, this is a VERY small park, and nearly every other ride here is geared for kids. They will make their bread and butter on folks buying a single ride ticket for the coaster, then loving it so much that they run around and buy another one (or two, or three). That's exactly what I saw happening last night, when the coaster was running amazingly well. Folks would tell me that it was their first time on the coaster and that they were just "going to ride once before we eat." Some of those folks came back for multiple rides, and some even came back after dinner with an all-day wristband! If the park wants to continue to sell tickets like that, the ride will HAVE to be in a condition that makes people want to ride it again and again. I think they know this, and I think that they will keep it in good shape. They're already doing the unthinkable -- closing the ride for an hour or so to put graphite on the tracks when they see that it's running sluggishly. Can you imagine a major themer CLOSING a coaster for an hour because it wasn't going fast enough for them? It seems that the Boardwalk wants their customers to LOVE their new coaster. After 129 rides, I can say that they're doing a good job. Every time I ride it, I like it more than before.

OK, I was looking at the pics of the model of Midnight Rider and I am confused. It's a mine train, OK, but from the looks of it, it is either a dueling mine train or it has a second lift or launch inside the building? WTF? I'm hoping for the second lift/launch idea myself... if those are two separate tracks, they're REALLY short.

jmccalip, if you don't mind, I'd like to try tweaking your track to make it more like the actual ride. I don't have AHG (I'm on a Mac), so it will be a bit tricky, but I'd still like to try. There are some really good things happening in your track, but there are lots of little elements that make the real ride such an intense maelstrom and they are missing here (the non-straight first drop, heavier banking on several turns, stuff buried inside a mass of structure, "the pop" before the lower east turn, etc etc etc). I'm no NL expert, though. Maybe I could add in the missing elements, then someone else could come in and fix it further.

I was a little bit leery of putting Bullet at my #3 woodie spot (ahead of Shivering Timbers) before, but I did it based on the best rides that the Bullet gave me vs the best rides that Timbers gave me. When the Bullet runs slowly, however, it can be ho-hum. Tonight, I not only felt confident enough to keep it ahead of Timbers, but I also moved it ahead of MegaZeph into the #2 spot (right behind Voyage). Bullet was FLYING tonight. Graphite, oil, Vaseline, whatever... I don't know what they did, but tonight was the most fun I've had on a coaster in a long time. The crowds were light and I got 32 rides in... 129 total so far. It seems that the faster Bullet goes, the smoother it is. Empty train rides were rougher than full train rides. Luckily, the train was often full. Seat 2R, once a favorite, was lackluster. Seat 5R, my fave on opening day, was brutal. Seat 10R was my favorite tonight, by far. Going back to the topic of "everyone has their own opinion", Guru rode 10R a time or two and didn't like it much. He wasn't getting nearly the action out of that seat that I was.... and believe me, I WAS! Even well after my 100th total ride, that seat was as good or better than any I've had. It was almost as good as the rain rides that first night. I clocked the ride (station to first brake) at 1:51 for most of Labor Day. Some rides were as sluggish as 1:55 with an empty train. Tonight, every ride was 1:44 or faster. Eleven seconds faster on such a short ride time is phenomenal. The Boardwalk really seems to be making sure that when it starts getting sluggish, the graphite comes out. If they keep that up, this little coaster could be the surprise hit of the year.

I've been reading the threads involving the Boardwalk Bullet and I've noticed something that's rather disturbing... It seems that people aren't entitled to their opinion about something unless it lines up with someone else's. Case in point: coasterdave went to ride the Boardwalk Bullet, a coaster that has been getting raves from folks such as myself and Guru and coasterphotos. Dave liked it, but not as much as we did. Rastus posted a slightly more negative review of the Bullet as well. In both cases, there were posts that said to the effect, "It's about time that someone posted an honest review" WTF? Firstly, you can't possibly judge which reviews are "honest" or not unless you have your OWN experience to compare it to. If you haven't yet been on the coaster, you have no business judging whether someone's review of it is honest or not. Secondly, even if you HAVE been on the coaster and you didn't like it (or hate it) as much as the other person, that doesn't mean that their review wasn't honest. It just didn't agree with yours. Chocolate tastes like chocolate for everyone. Some like it, some don't. It's just a matter of preference, nothing more. Those reviews of Bullet that put it in the top 10 were honest for THOSE PEOPLE and what they like in a coaster. There were at least two folks I know who put it as their #1 wood coaster. I wouldn't rank it that high, but I'm not going to tell them that their assessment of the ride is dishonest. It's what THEY like. Thirdly, you must understand that a coaster (and especially a WOOD coaster) gives a different ride every day. Sometimes, every hour. Most of the people who raved about this ride have ridden it many, many times over the course of several days. Their experiences cover lots of different conditions, from dry track to freshly-oiled track to rides in the pouring rain. Many of the reviews here are the result of an average of the different conditions... then along comes someone who rode it a few times all on one day and suddenly his is the "honest" review. Give me a freakin break. If those rides had been in the rain, his review would've been OMG, #1!!! and nobody would've believed him. Instead, they'd wait until someone else posted something less enthusiastic, and then would shower him or her with "it's about time someone posted an honest review." Let's all just take a deep breath before we post a comment about someone's ride review (either good OR bad)... and think: [1] Have I actually been on the ride myself? [2] Do I have the right to tell someone that his opinion is valid or not?

Crap. Was going to head down to the Boardwalk for some nice rain rides, but the rain turned into Tropical Storm Humberto. Oh, well.

or maybe you're a wuss. I got 50 rides on Labor Day and even though I was tired, I wasn't hurt at all. My legs were sore from walking up the dang ramp so many times, though! I'm glad I rode Bullet and Giant within a week of each other. It makes me appreciate Bullet that much more. Giant used to be my #1 coaster, but I just can't ride it more than once or twice any more.

I do think myself lucky to have been able to sample nearly 500 coasters. I don't take it for granted for one minute. It does, however, make it much more difficult to impress me, and I haven't gotten that "butterflies in the stomach" sensation on a coaster in ages. I suppose I'm a bit jaded. Since the scare factor is gone for me, that leaves thrill or fun as reasons to ride a coaster. Of the two, I prefer thrill, although a healthy dose of BOTH is required to reach my top 10. The Kentucky Rumbler had a little bit of fun, but zero thrill for me. I found it rather boring, no matter what Rastus might think. Just as you bemoan living in the UK and being a few hours from a "good" coaster, I live in a large city with only three coasters, two of which are kiddie steel coasters. The other is almost an hour south and is the Boardwalk Bullet. Yes, I'm lucky in that regard. To get to another coaster requires nearly 4 hours drive west, or 4.5 hours north, or 4 hours east. I'm having a hard time feeling sorry for you being 5 hours from Blackpool. Sure, their woodies are "out and back and old", but good God, man, Big Dipper is a classic, Grand National is my fave racing woodie, Roller Coaster runs without restraints of ANY KIND (and has a little airtime!), and Wild Mouse is insanity on rails. Add in a wicked bobsled, a hypercoaster with a bitchin first drop, a rare steeplechase coaster, and a couple of others, plus a decent drop tower, Valhalla, a haunted swing, etc etc etc... Blackpool is about as far from you as Six Flags Over Texas is to me. Titan and Freeze are good, Batman is OK, and Shock Wave is classic, but they are all steelies. The two woodies there are a mild out and back that needs some serious trackwork and the TxGiant, which is slowed down by multiple brakes all over the layout, and is STILL too rough to enjoy. After four consecutive years of nothing but bad rides on it, I finally had to admit that my former #1 coaster SUCKS now. It not only fell off my top 10, it fell off my top 25. I will trade you Blackpool for SFOT, ok?

I've been trying for several weeks now to do BB in No Limits. I'm failing miserably. I'm not that great at NL, but this is making me feel really inadequate. Has anyone else even tried it? I haven't seen any posts on the NL sites, but I just assumed that nobody was willing to share their awful renditions and be ridiculed.

Blackpool's wooden Wild Mouse. Scared the bejeezus out of me.