coasters – Cubicgarden.com…

My Rollercoaster top 50

I voted in Coasterbot‘s Votecoasters. You can too!!!

Its clear to me that I haven’t written enough coasters in America, France, Netherlands or Germany.

I also know lots of people will take issue with my list but generally I love steel coaster over wooden. My first woodie is Wickerman at 25 (half way down). I also have a slight hate for those 4D wing coaster with Joker and Kimu pretty much at the bottom of the list. Intamin ZacSpin suck after a few go. Likewise those skyloop coasters are just as bad. I only gave Ukko the advantage over Abismo because of the park.

You may have also noticed a big difference between Rita, Red force and Stealth. Rita annoys me, as its not a great ride, I hate standing in line for a hour for a poor ride. Stealth is much better and has the height, while Redforce is very fast but at 100+ mph the G force is pretty heavy on arms and your face, especially in the hot Barcelona air.

The hypercoaster sit nearer the top with Steel Dragon 2000 and Shambhala at the top, beating the best coaster in the UK, the Smiler. I do love those point to points coaster like Vertical Velocity and Stunt drop. Deja Vu would be on there but it no longer exists. Just like Thunder looper. Some will be surprised about Icon being at 7 and lower than Nemesis but if Icon had more in the later part of the ride it would be higher. Nemesis is full on right to the very end, likewise for all the rides above it. Worth noting Nemesis is the best inverted rollercoaster on my list. Only Infusion comes close.

The Votecoaster system is good and theres good grounds why it works over existing systems. I did wish there was the ability to export and even import the data as XML or CSV, as I’d like to add to do more with it generally. I also wish the coasters linked to the Roller Coaster Database

Don’t like my list? Start your own…

Two coaster design that I don’t like much

This design of rollercoaster (Maurer Rides SkyLoop / XT 150) as experienced on Ukko and Abismo. Is thrilling at first but its re-ride-ability is super low. I think I managed 11 rides and that was too many.

The other one I’m also not a fan of is the intamin AG ZacSpin Ball Coaster, as discovered first on Kirnu and then Insane. I was able to manage much more rides but having to balance the car with my weight, means the car is spinning a lot more than expected.

I’m more likely to go on them more than most people but you won’t see me on them 30x times, like the hypercoasters. I guess its more thrill vs experience?

New heights?

https://twitter.com/cubicgarden/status/633736885014163456

Dave Mee sent me a link to the New York times piece on the new league of giga coasters.

Just How Tall Can Roller Coasters Get?

This is not a rhetorical question these days..

Theme parks have engaged in a dizzying quest for height in recent years that has spawned a number of roller coasters as tall as skyscrapers. Altitude rather than velocity has become such a defining characteristic that rides that take advantage of their soaring heights have been given a name befitting a mammoth frame: the giga coaster.

Enthusiasts use the term to apply to a roller coaster with a drop of 300 to 399 feet, meaning that its riders fall the length of a football field. (Anything beyond 400 feet and you’re in strata coaster terrain.) Four of the five giga coasters in the world are in North America, at theme parks all owned by the same chain, Cedar Fair Entertainment (the fifth is in Japan).

On the face of it, I was thinking wow this looks like a good ride… But then I looked into the actual facts.

Fury 325	Carowinds (USA)	March 25, 2015	325 feet (99 m)
Millennium Force	Cedar Point (USA)	May 13, 2000	310 feet (94 m)
Steel Dragon 2000	Nagashima Spa Land (Japan)	August 1, 2000	318 feet (97 m)
Intimidator 305	Kings Dominion (USA)	April 2, 2010	305 feet (93 m)
Leviathan	Canada’s Wonderland (USA)	May 6, 2012	306 feet (93 m)

Fury 325 is only a few meters taller than Millennium Force and Steel Dragon 2000 (which I had the pleasure of going on while in Japan). I trust its a great ride but hardly anything to shout about. Its also 15 years afterwards!

Loved Steel Dragon 2000 and the big one at Blackpool but for me its about doing more with less space. You only have to look at the Nemesis or the late Smiler. Heaven knows how they were able to fit 14 inversions in the space usually reserved for a duck pond in most American theme parks.