I'd go to Cedar Point and pick Mean Streak.

Can I hear an Amen?

Not you, homestar!

Maybe they could make the Streak mean again. I find it to be a big, boring nothing of a coaster with nothing Mean about it. It's okay but I should think the "Roller Coaster Capital of the World[emoji769]" would have something better.

And yes, I Mean it.

The Roller Coaster Capital of the world is in West Miflin, Pennsylvania.

Maple Grove claims to be "America's Roller Coast."

At Luminosity, they still claim to be the Best Amusement Park in the World.

And Racer claimed to be the tallest wooden coaster before it was built. It wasn't. Not even close.

I've heard one person say they thought Cedar Point was in Iowa. Either they're confusing the four-letter states of Iowa and Ohio, which almost sound similar, I guess, or they think "Cedar Rapids" is the name of an amusement park. Or they sneezed too hard and their brain came out and a Canada goose swooped down and caught the brain and flew off into the sunset with it, leaving a blissfully void-of-understanding person to believe happily that Cedar Point is in Iowa. We all know the truth. There is only one world's greatest amusement park. Kings Island, Iowa. D'Oh!

In other news, Arnold's Park in Iowa just celebrated its 125th.

True that.

^Yes.

 

Tb. Answering. The same guy believed that the US could solve the 'trash problem' by shooting all of the world's garbage into space... on the Space Shuttle. Now you understand where my sense of humor comes from, partly.

Well, there is a Cedar Point, Illinois. I sometimes get directed there on Google Maps instead of the Sandusky park. 

It has been a while since I have posted here. Both coasters are too important and iconic to alter or change, but I have been giving it some thought and made a choice. I honestly don't want either coaster to be Iron Horsed, but if I were to choose which coaster should get the Iron Horse conversion, I would choose The Beast.

The ride is still fun, however, over the years, instead of being like a creature prowling through the woods, picking up speed as it goes along, the coaster has been tamed. There are trim brakes on the first drop, second drop, and around one of the corners, in order to decrease maintenance costs, due to the heavy trains going around corners at high speeds3. It also has a great layout for one.

The Racer, on the other hand, played, at least in my mind, a bigger role in Kings Island's history as well as roller coaster history. Being the coaster that kickstarted the "second golden age" of roller coasters, most coasters, including The Beast, wouldn't be here had The Racer not been built. The layout of the ride isn't something that would make for an interesting Iron Horse coaster in my mind, as they tend to have twistier layouts, rather than out and back. The lead based paint on the structure is also a ruling factor as to why it shouldn't be converted. But the biggest reason why I feel that The Racer is too sacred to alter is because of what Coney Mall is supposed to resemble and represent. Coney Mall is meant to be a tribute to Cincinnati's beloved Coney Island, and The Racer pays tribute to The Shooting Star coaster, an icon to many Coney patrons. That isn't to say I wouldn't be okay with Topper Track in some areas, just not a full blown Iron Horse re-profile.

Those are just my thoughts, however I sincerely hope Cedar Fair doesn't do business with Rocky Mountain Construction.

I would hope Cedar Fair DOES do business with RMC. I just hope that said business is in the form of entirely new construction from the ground up rather than retrofitting/modifying existing coasters. IIRC, RMC has done some scratch construction in the past (or am I mis-remembering things again? ).

I completely forgot about their ground up coasters. Thanks for reminding me. I would like to see an Outlaw Run style coaster at a Cedar Fair park, however I think the new woodies in the Cedar Fair chain, at least for now, will be from GCI, like Gold Striker.

After riding Raven, The Legend, and The Vovage on Saturday at Holiday World, it is time that KI get a descant sized woddie installed. It does not have to be fancy and have inversions like Outlaw Run, just be a great paced, non trimmed woddie. 

It has been a while since I have posted here. Both coasters are too important and iconic to alter or change, but I have been giving it some thought and made a choice. I honestly don't want either coaster to be Iron Horsed, but if I were to choose which coaster should get the Iron Horse conversion, I would choose The Beast.

The ride is still fun, however, over the years, instead of being like a creature prowling through the woods, picking up speed as it goes along, the coaster has been tamed. There are trim brakes on the first drop, second drop, and around one of the corners, in order to decrease maintenance costs, due to the heavy trains going around corners at high speeds3. It also has a great layout for one.

The Racer, on the other hand, played, at least in my mind, a bigger role in Kings Island's history as well as roller coaster history. Being the coaster that kickstarted the "second golden age" of roller coasters, most coasters, including The Beast, wouldn't be here had The Racer not been built. The layout of the ride isn't something that would make for an interesting Iron Horse coaster in my mind, as they tend to have twistier layouts, rather than out and back. The lead based paint on the structure is also a ruling factor as to why it shouldn't be converted. But the biggest reason why I feel that The Racer is too sacred to alter is because of what Coney Mall is supposed to resemble and represent. Coney Mall is meant to be a tribute to Cincinnati's beloved Coney Island, and The Racer pays tribute to The Shooting Star coaster, an icon to many Coney patrons. That isn't to say I wouldn't be okay with Topper Track in some areas, just not a full blown Iron Horse re-profile.

Those are just my thoughts, however I sincerely hope Cedar Fair doesn't do business with Rocky Mountain Construction.

The Beast is not any different than it was when it opened. Try riding at night, it seems much faster then.

And Racer claimed to be the tallest wooden coaster before it was built. It wasn't. Not even close.

And unless you were John Allen you wouldn't know the wiser.

I believe the only time Beast operated without trims was when it was first built and before it was opened to the public.

The skid trims were in the same place the magnetic trims are now. The magnetic trims slow it down to same speed the skid ones did, they just do it quicker. That's why it "feels" like it was slowed down.

Plus as we get older the way we perceive things change. The more we do something the more mundane it becomes.

When KI was a destination park with people visit 1 or 2 times per year there was a magic about the park. When you visit every day the magic is gone.

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Also the skid breaks were pretty ineffective when wet so those rides in particular were almost legendary from the accounts I've read.

I really wonder if Millennium Flyer trains could eliminate the brakes all together. I believe they are heavier if I remember, but they don't shuffle through turns like those big 3 bench PTCs.

When Beast opened, it had four bench PTC's. The station floor still has the holes from its original configuration.

When Paramount Parks installed the magnetic brakes, there was a brief period when the skids were gone and the magnetic brakes had not yet been installed--about two weeks.

Rainy rides were impressive in days of old. Rides with barely wet skids even more so.

Can I hear an Amen?

Not you, homestar!

I will happily enjoy not having you in front of me in line for the third-best woodie in Ohio.

 

The only ones I like more are the other Streak and Tornado.

What if RMC were to go a different route? What if they converted Vortex into a topper track coaster. I think that would be possibly amazing.

I don't really want any KI woodie to be converted, maybe a new one would be good, but right now I'd rather have a Giga. A ride that I think that would be a great RMC would be the Boss at SF:SL, it's fun and awesome, but I rode it 3 times and my head was pounding after each... The layout is very good and if you just added some RMC goodness to it, it would be fantastic

No. Just no.

One of the best wooden coasters in the USA.

Doing that to Boss would be no less an outrage than doing Beast.

Plenty of people think the latter is rough ...

We could have been friends, CoasterDirected. And then you had to go and post that.

I kid, of course. I get where the desire to RMC Boss comes from. I just happen to disagree. It seems to me like Boss is really temperamental--either it's really good and smooth(er), or it's all brain damage and no forces. (Coincidentally, it seems to me like Holiday World's woodies suffer from the same effect, but more predictably and less dramatically--I've had good rides one spring and very jarring rides in the heat of the following summer.) If there was a way to make it a more consistently good experience without resorting to RMC, I'd much rather see that happen. But, to each his own!

TRFTW, resident Boss fanboy.

Ah, yes. Holiday World, home of the most overrated wooden coaster in the world.

I love the ride, my 3rd favorite wooden coaster, behind the most overrated wooden coaster and Outlaw Run. I just felt I needed to take an entire bottle of Tylenol after each ride. I'll probably get better rides when I go later this year and next year. I wasn't pulling an Iron Boss or something, more like keeping the layout, adding topper track. 

Six Flags started to retrack Georgia Cyclone with Topper track. They got 60 percent done.

And stopped.

The ride is horrible now.

Pathetically slow, shuffling, painful.

There's a message in there somewhere.