Let's talk about specific coasters for a few columns.

All right, I know that this isn't a conversation. It's not talking. It's just me blathering on about roller coasters. I can't help it. I DO blather on about roller coasters. They get me all hot and sweaty, even when I'm sitting at my keyboard blathering on about them. My pulse increases when my mind remembers prior moments of g-forces and laterals. I get a mild erection when I think about upstop wheels and chain lifts. I breathe heavy over stats like "height of lift hill" and "maximum speed".

Sorry. Need to go clean up. Be right back.

...

Okay. Sorry about that. Got a little too much "in the moment" there.

All right. Specific coasters. I'm going to talk a bit about one that I haven't ridden yet. It's been running for one season, and is currently closed due to winter weather. It's in a tiny town in Southern Indiana, at a park called Holiday World. The coaster has the somewhat unusual name of The Voyage.

Okay, many coasters have very coasterish names like Cyclone, or Wildcat, or Cobra or some such thing. Holiday World doesn't go that route. They follow themes. In fact, Holiday World is distinct in that it has four holiday themed areas. The original was Christmas, as the park was originally called "Santa Claus Land". At some point they added on, changed the name to Holiday World, and started exploring other themes. Apart from Christmas, they have Halloween, 4th of July, and Thanksgiving. Of their three wooden coasters, two are in the Halloween section and are named Raven and The Legend. (The second is named for "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.")

Voyage is in the brand new Thanksgiving section, and refers to the voyage of the Mayflower. The coaster is aptly named, as it's super long for a coaster. 6442 feet long, which makes it the eighth longest coaster in the world, and the third longest wooden coaster. (The only longer wooden coasters are Beast and Son Of Beast. Both are located at Paramount's Kings Island, over in Kings Mills, Ohio.) The Voyage runs for over a mile after passing over a single lift hill.

Coaster nerds are almost unanimously orgasmic over this thing. It's long, it's ferocious, it has multiple tunnels, it has two sideways sections of track, and it NEVER FUCKING LETS UP.

Let me repeat that. It never fucking lets up. After a mile, it still feels like it's trying to scare the pee out of you.

The first third of the coaster is big dramatic airtime hills. The tall steep kind, all in a line. Your stomach floats over the tops, and slams into your shoes at the bottoms.

The second third is directional shifts and weirdness. A couple of tunnels with twists, and a big turnaround that's completely disorienting. This is the section that also has two sections of sideways track. Yep, the trains travel around a couple of curves at a ninety degree tilt. A bit of a mindfuck, don't you think?

The last third is a furious run for home. Oddly enough, the geeks have been noting that the last third feels like the fastest part of the ride. That's because of tight turns, small hills, and a fair amount of energy still present. That's fantastic coaster design, courtesy of The Gravity Group, the company that designed and built this gem. And just when you think you've made it to the end, it rounds a corner and keeps going. And going. And going.

The weird thing is that this coaster makes all the coaster geeks rave, and it also attracts the general public like crazy. That's rare, and that's a huge success. Especially when you compare tiny little Holiday World against the big amusement park juggernauts like Six Flags and Cedar Fair. For such a small family-owned park, The Voyage was a big risk. And it paid off big time.

I can't say enough nice things about Holiday World. It's my favorite park in the entire world. It's beautiful. It's cared for with a lot of love, and it's full of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. It has free parking, and free pop. Yes, FREE POP. Throughout the park are drink stations. Walk in, grab a cup, and pour yourself a Pepsi product. Drink as much as you want.

Compare that to the four dollar bottles of water at the Six Flags parks. Six Flags can eat a dick. I'll take my money to Holiday World.

Keith is very enthusiastic about both pop and dicks.

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The typical coaster is sitting on relatively flat ground, or on the side of a hill. It's outdoors. It's open to the sky. It's in an amusement park or on fairgrounds. So what about those atypical coasters in atypical places?

You'll find the occasional mall with a full-sized coaster in it. The Mall of America has two of 'em. The Ripsaw is a family coaster that floats all around the Mall's amusement park. It also circles the Timberline Twister, a spinning mouse coaster. It's not often that you find a coaster inside a building. Disney aside, enclosed coasters are just not common.

You can also find one at the West Edmonton Mall, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Funny how two malls in cold locations have fully-enclosed coasters. Okay, maybe not that funny. Especially when you consider that both malls were built by the Ghermezian family.

There's the now-defunct High Roller on top of the Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas. As far as I know, it's the only coaster ever built on top of a tower. Not much to ride, from all reports. It was so badly designed that you couldn't really see the height. It basically just circled the roof a couple of times. Thrills? Not so much. It also had a bad reputation for shedding parts. I'm not sure I want to ride a coaster that occasionally drops pieces on the windows below it.

There's the Sewer Rat at Lightwater Valley in Ripon, Yorkshire in England. It's in a sewer. Okay, not a real sewer. But an unbelievably realistic fake sewer. The entrance is a large sewer pipe leading into a hillside. Poorly lit, wet, leading to a circular staircase going down a shaft, wrapped around falling water. Insurers would freak if such a thing were built in the US. It was the only time I've been more intimidated by the entrance than by the coaster itself.

Alton Towers in Alton, Staffordshire in England has a coaster called Oblivion. The coaster dives straight down into what is essentially a mine shaft, one hundred and fifty feet deep. Few coasters penetrate that deeply into the ground. I haven't ridden it, but I did get to check out the site when they were building it. There was an astonishing amount of digging to get the underground portion completed.

There's Desperado, a large steel coaster partially embedded in a casino in Primm, Nevada. There's Speed, partially embedded in the NASCAR Cafe in Las Vegas. There's Manhattan Express, partially embedded in the New York, New York casino and hotel in Las Vegas. Nevada seems to have a thing about coasters embedded into buildings.

The Blue Flash was built in the yard of John Ivers in Indiana. Not many people can claim to have a working coaster at their home.

My favorite weirdly located coaster is the Thunder Dolphin at LaQua Amusement Park in Tokyo, Japan. It runs along the top of a building, and threads through a unique hub-less Ferris Wheel. Terrifically goofy concept, and a breathtakingly awkward name. It's in some ways typical of Japanese coasters. They seem to favor the odd, especially when they have to find ways to shoehorn them into the limited space of Tokyo.

Keith once had a toy nicknamed the Thunder Dolphin

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by Keith

Coasters are mostly about imagined danger, about perceived risk-taking rather than actual risk-taking. Of course, there are those who are more than willing to push their rides from perceived to actual. The results are sometimes fatal.

There's not a lot of money to be made from killing your guests. For all the scary height and freakish speed, coasters are specifically designed to keep you alive throughout the ride. The forces are pretty well understood. The restraint systems are built to mitigate excessive forces. The park WANTS you to survive the trip, so that you can come another day and spend more money.

Sadly, the knuckleheads of the world insist on screwing up that park/patron relationship by indulging in stupid behavior in the name of demonstrating cock size, or getting a bigger thrill, or whatever. And while some of them get away with it, some don't. And hoo boy do the papers and TV newsrooms swoop in.

A few years ago I was at Holiday World, a fine park in the southern end of Indiana, in a tiny town called Santa Claus. Holiday World has long hosted events for coaster enthusiasts, bringing them in for nighttime rides on their excellent coasters, putting on stage shows, throwing together massive picnics, taking people behind the scenes for views that most patrons don't get. They throw a great party.

The particular party I was at was called Stark Raven Mad. It was named after The Raven, their first wooden coaster. An ass-kicking little beast that a lot of coaster enthusiasts really love. Great coaster, great park, great event.

It was the second (and final) night of the event. We were all in the picnic pavilion having a chicken dinner, waiting while the park ran the regular patrons out of the park before they turned us loose on their coasters. We waited. We could hear The Legend (their second coaster) running as they kept the trains warmed up. We waited some more. And some more.

A good number of us were pushing out to the edges of the area, waiting for the barriers to drop. We wanted at those coasters.

A call came for us to all go back to the picnic area. In stunned silence, we heard how an enthusiast from New York had been tossed out of The Raven. She had been in the last seat with her fiance, and she had willfully undone her seat belt, tucked it into the seat cushions, and then stood up as the train went over the lift hill. She had apparently done this several times before, riding the coaster with both hands hanging on as she sought bigger better thrills.

Well, she got them. On the coaster's fifth drop, a wicked little spot known as "The Drop" among us coaster idiots, she appeared to have lost her grip and tipped out of the car. Her body pin-balled down the structure before landing. It's generally believed that she died on impact.

She was on her last ride of the night. It turned out to be the last ride she would ever take.

The event ended at that point. In fact, Stark Raven Mad is no longer held. Holiday World waited for several years before reinstating enthusiast events. When they did, they came up with different events. SRM is gone, never to return.

All in the name of a bigger thrill.

[ed note: You can see the Raven in action here]

Keith knows enough to keep his hands and arms inside the car at all times.

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If some coasters are like metal, and some are like waltzes, it stands to reason that some are like Electronica.  Enter the coasters of Bollinger and Mabillard.

B&M coasters are the hot sexy sports cars of the coaster world.  Ultra refined, smooth as glass, sensual and sinuous.  (Forceless, some say, but that's subjective.)  If you've ridden a coaster named Batman, you've probably ridden a B&M coaster.  Not all the Batman coasters are from B&M, but most are.  Check your local Six Flags.

Mr's Bollinger and Mabillard are responsible for a good many of the Inverted coasters in the world.  You can tell the Inverteds by their ski-lift style of trains.  Dangling under the track, feet swinging in the breeze, the fear of getting your ankles smashed by that beam just ahead that you can't POSSIBLY clear.  B&M coasters are also four-across seating, so they process people like mad.  That unfortunately makes the front row very desirable, because the view from the middle of the train is a little on the obstructed side.  And the view during your ride can make a huge difference.

I've never ridden on a B&M inverted, because I don't fit.  Tall folk with big torsos are just about guaranteed to have problems.  I can't even fit in their special FatBoy seats.  (There's always one in the middle of the train, with special restraints just for the gigantic.  Not special enough in my case.  Damn this genetic predisposition towards pizza and cheeseburgers.  And funnel cakes.  And blueberry pie.)

Inverteds aside, I love B&M coasters.  I've ridden Kumba at Busch Gardens Africa in Tampa, Florida.  It's a spectacular looper woven into the ground.  Loops, corkscrews, screaming tunnels, a neat element called a Cobra Roll, and some excellent head-chopper effects.  I've also ridden Hulk at Universal Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida.  A great launched coaster with the launch hill encased in a giant gun barrel.  Wicked fun, and my fiftieth coaster.  It's got a great roll-over at the top of the launch that drops you to your left and down simultaneously.  It's one of those gasping for air moments that I love.

One of the most frustrating events of my life was being denied a ride on Nemesis, a unique B&M inverter at Alton Towers in Great Britain.  Because of local restrictions, Nemesis was built half-buried in the ground.  It was the only way they could stay below the tree tops and not piss off the locals.  It was a huge pain in the ass, as it meant that the site had to be massively excavated.  And it turned into a huge benefit, because so much of the ride is spent ripping through tunnels and trenches, which really promotes the sense of speed.

And I couldn't fucking ride it.  Arrgh.

Even so, it was a treat to watch.  It's like a giant toy train set that produces screams galore.

Take a look around when you're at a park.  If you see four-across seating, you've got a B&M.  And don't forget, it was a B&M coaster that Fabio was riding on when he smacked into a bird.  How can you not love a coaster for that?

Keith swears was nowhere near Fabio when the "bird" incident occurred.

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There are as many styles of coasters as there are styles of music. Let's discuss that a bit, shall we? SHALL WE?

I've mentioned before that I had originally thought coasters would be smooth gliding waltzes, and then discovered that they were more like Motorhead. That's fair, given my experiences then. I have since discovered that there ARE waltzes.

In Blackpool, England, there's a seaside amusement park called Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Blackpool is an old working-class resort community, a gathering place for the lower classes. The amusement park reflects that. BPB is over a hundred years old, and is blatant and loud. (Much like Blackpool.) Being limited in space, the park has grown into itself. Rides are on levels, wound into and around each other.

In this jumble of noisy machinery is a very old coaster called Roller Coaster. A simple name for a simple ride. Roller Coaster has no restraints.
Think about all the rides you've ridden, be they ferris wheels or coasters or scramblers. They all have some form of restraint, don't they? Lap bars, straps, seat belts, shoulder harnesses. Even Carousels have straps for the kiddies nowadays. Have you ever ridden a coaster without at least a lap bar?

So imagine my mild intimidation at boarding an old wooden coaster with nothing more than a grab bar on the seat back in front of me. Plush bench seats, four to a car. Old wood, painted white. And absolutely nothing preventing me from standing up or bouncing out.

I needn't have worried. The ride was a true Waltz. The hills were gentle, the drops were easy, the tracking was buttery. Truthfully, it was a bit boring. And yet fun. An old coaster, a relic from that tightly-cinched era of button shoes and covered bodies. A long glide out to a turnaround, and then another glide back, with gently undulating hills.

It's a unique ride, built in 1933, utilizing some structure from an even older coaster called The Velvet Coaster. I pointed out earlier that Roller Coaster has no restraints. That's a bit misleading. It HAD no restraints. It now has seat belts, though they're mainly for insurance purposes. The only thing they will do is point out deliberate rider misconduct.

It's about as likely to toss a rider as a backyard swing. You know, the one you jumped out of when you were six?

Keith lives in some really cold state where he sings "Rollercoaster of Love" (original version) at karoake bars on Friday nights.

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THE LIFT HILL - Stories of roller coaster love. Or, becoming gravity's bitch. Bi-monthly, by Keith Hopkins

Everyone has their thing that captures them. Some are captured by guitars. Some are captured by booze. Some by cars, some by women, some by exhibitionism.

I am captured by roller coasters.

It's not just the coasters. I'v always been drawn to carnivals and amusement parks. I get all caught up in the flashy machinery and the gaudy colors. If I'm outside in the Summer and I simultaneously smell diesel fumes and frying food, I get that goofy Labor Day feeling.

I was raised in rural South Dakota, near a small town called Winner. Every small town in the Northern Plains has a Summer festival. Ours was the Labor Day celebration. A parade, a rodeo, a demolition derby, and most importantly, a carnival. Every year, Bauman Shows would pull into our town on Saturday night, and after the bars would close, they'd set up on three blocks of Main Street. They'd get everything fired up on Sunday afternoon, and by Monday night, I'd be broke from riding every ride I could. It was all flat rides, spin-n-pukes. Scramblers and Tilt-A-Whirls. (Ever notice the evil clown on the back of the old Tilt-A-Whirl cars? Seriously evil. Pennywhistle evil.)

And then I got my first real roller coaster ride.

I'd ridden a kiddie coaster at one of the Labor Day celebrations. That was the closest I had come to a real one, until I was seventeen and my parents took us to Denver to visit an older sibling. A trip to Denver meant a trip to Elitch Gardens, home of two wooden coasters, and a wild mouse. My first ever ride on a full-sized coaster was on Mr. Twister.

Holy mother of God on a fucking pogo stick.

I'd always had this image of coasters being this smooth, gliding, soaring experience, kind of like a Waltz. The reality was a jarring, scary, I'm-going-to-die punch in the mouth from Lemmy. I was alone in the seat, and I learned all about laterals in the first few seconds. This thing was a screaming death machine, shaking the shit out of me. I have vague images of plunging down an impossible slope into the darkness of the structure, flying back up a hill, doing a quick turn-around, and plunging down again. The train threw itself into a jungle of wood. The tunnel was scary loud. I was getting bruises from being tossed back and forth.

It was absolutely furious and frightening and primal and I nearly had an orgasm from riding it.

I rode it several more times that night, and also rode Wildcat, the other woodie. Not as mind-blowing, but fun as well. And that did it for me. Cherry busted. Confirmed roller coaster person. A couple of nights later, we went to Lakeside and I rode the excellent Cyclone coaster and the Wild Chipmunk.

I've been obsessing about them since. While I haven't ridden as many as some of my friends, I've managed to get rides on over fifty coasters.

Sadly, Mr. Twister is gone. Elitch Gardens moved out of its land-locked site in the nineties, into a slightly bigger land-locked site near downtown Denver. They build a drab imitation coaster called Twister 2, and then sold out to Six Flags. The original Mr. Twister was demolished shortly afterwards, as was its conjoined twin, the Wildcat.

But they still scream along in my brain from time to time.




Keith Hopkins writes at susskins.com. His favorite roller coaster is the Raven at Holiday World in Santa Claus, IN.

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