Top Ten Roller Coasters - Number 1

[BP317]

Been almost two weeks since the last topic, so may as well go ahead and post the last one.


This is it. The top of the elite class. The best of the best. El Toro's laser cut smooth pre-fabricated wooden structure is complimented by comfortable trains that track extremely well, and the ride is packed with airtime.

Toro starts out with a cable left then an 80 degree drop which is unheard of on a wooden coaster. The train speeds over the first two camelback hills that are packed with airtime, does a fast and smooth turnaround, a speed hill, then a helix that leads into the most OMG rip your legs off your torso airtime hill i've ever experienced. Then there is a series of smooth and fast heliexes before coasting into the brakes.

Another great thing about Toro is that because it's an Intamin pre-fab we never have to worry about it getting bad like many huge once-great wooden coasters (Ghostrider, Hades, etc). El Toro is what makes GADV a better coaster park than CP in my opinion, as far as coaster collections go my #1 is SFMM, 2 SFGADV, and 3 CP.

Superman Ride of Steel - Six Flags New England

I haven't ridden it since before the re-theme, but from what i've heard and seen in POVs the bulkier trains and larger headrests has slowed the ride down a little bit so i'm going to stick with saying SROS instead of saying Bizarro. Jan and I left Darien Lake early in the day to go to SFNE that night just to get 1 night ride on SROS before visiting SFNE the next day, and it was worth it.

There's nothing fancy (at least not back then), when I rode SROS it was just straight forward kick your a** hyper coaster goodness. The rides first drop goes into a tunnel then rockets out and speeds over the first camelback hill that is filled with airtime, does a turnaround overbank then hauls it over two more airtime filled camelbacks, back to back s curves, a long helix that leads into another s curve that drops into a tunnel, comes back out and does two bunny hills, then a half helix into the brakes.

The ride is not only packed with both ejector and floater airtime, it also keeps it's speed up the whole time as sustains positive g's. If I never went back to SFNE after 2005 it probably wouldn't be my #1, but on my second visit to the park (in 08) the coaster seemed to be running in god mode. It was going much faster than my first visit and the intense positive g's caught me off guard. The only other hyper's i've ridden that sustain heavy positive g's that I can think of are Intimidator 305 and Goliath at SFMM, but neither of those have nearly as much airtime as SROS and much shorter durations.

[FParker185]

My #1 would be The Voyage at Holiday World, although that is contingent on how it's running this year, last year it was getting pretty bad. With all the work they're doing on it, it should be back up to snuff, no problem. Otherwise it'd flip flop with ElToro. I've sure all of us have ridden the Voyage and know what it's all about, so I won't go into detail.



Now my #1 Steel, which may actually break my top 10 overall would have to be Expedetion GeForce at Holiday Park in Haßloch, Germany. It's kind of a hard ride to explain but it's pretty similar to SROS at SFNE(before the redo) except quite a bit shorter, but also much more intense. It's got spectacular airtime in spades, a totally free form layout that keeps you guessing, awesome transitions, an amazing setting, and a pretty decent first drop that just about any coaster enthusiast would recognize.

[w00dland]

My top 10 coaster list has changed a lot in the past 10 years of me being a coaster dork. The more you add the more you know and the more you appreciate the ones you like the best. This one hasn't moved since the day I first rode it when I was 14. Back then it was riddled with downtime and I found myself lucky to get a ride on it at all, but it completely blew my mind. X (or X2) at Magic Mountain is a ride that just never gets boring.



The ride is an absolute monster. Brad already mentioned that the onboard audio does a lot for the ride, but the ride itself kicks so much ass that it doesn't even need it. I'll never forget the first time I rode this coaster, creeping up the lift hill backwards with no clue what was going to happen when we reached the top of the 200 foot vertical drop. Once you hit the crest before the dip your seat feels like its going to tip you backwards (which would be pretty sick) but instead right at the last second you flip forward so you're looking straight down as the train drops 90 degrees. It's the best first drop out there.



After the first drop its just go, go, go, turn, flip, i-think-I'm-upside-down-but-I'm-not-sure, go, turn, fire, brakes. Or something like that. I'm still not really sure. Once last summer I actually counted to myself how many inversions there were on the ride, and it was less than I had anticipated. The moral of the story is, once you hit the brakes you're just not really sure where you are or what just happened, you know know it was awesome.

As said, it's got horrible capacity because Six Flags refuses to use both the unload and load stations and the queue line is atrocious, but its always worth the wait. If you're ever in LA and have a spare 3-4 hours, drive your butt up to Valencia and ride this thing.

[BLADE]

X2 is my #1 steel also. One of the very few rides I'm willing to overlook smoothness on.
El Toro is my #1 wood. Unbelievably smooth and ridiculous airtime.

FP, that is a neat picture of Voyage with the fog. I'm really hoping the timberliners get on it this year and see how it compares to Toro.

My favorite lineups are MM, CP, and SFGADV in that order on coasters, but I would rank these 3 parks as CP, SFGADV, and then MM on experience. SFGADV gets penalized for having too many clones. when I travel I like to ride coasters that I cannot ride back at home.

I haven't gotten to ride SROS/Bizzaro at SFNE yet. This would have been a good ride to clone at least a few of. I'm guessing it never did because Premier was out of control adding hypers everywhere at once.