New #1 coaster, on a list of 478

lololol mean streak is teh best lolol!@1!

Originally posted by Real

I have to ask, you got ERT this last weekend? What the heck for what?

ACE Coaster Con 30.

Kings Island, Stricker's Grove, Holiday World, Beech Bend

I threw in Cedar Point as a side trip.

For the record, I talked to several people at Con who had been on El Toro and all of them preferred Voyage.

One particular guy (didn't talk to him in person) that I saw was wearing an El Toro shirt in line for Voyage. When I saw him next (about 15 min later), he was in line for Voyage again, wearing a brand new Voyage shirt and holding the El Toro shirt in his hand.

I haven't been on El Toro, but I have been on Colossus at Heide Park, which uses the same type of Intamin track system. It's fast, smooth, the g's (pos and neg) are insane, and the twisty parts are radical. However, it just lacks a certain "something" that woodies have. There's not enough shake, rattle, and roll, I guess. I felt like I had been on a really good steelie. I liked the ride, but felt somewhat cheated. I got in line to ride a wood coaster, NOT a steelie. I wanted it to FEEL like a wood coaster.

I've heard that El Toro is very smooth as well. Maybe I'm just a purist, but I like a woodie to feel like a woodie.

Besides, even if BOTH coasters are equally intense, The Voyage has the advantage of being out in the woods, multiple tunnels, and a much longer ride. I watched the video of El Toro on youtube and just about the point where The Voyage is hitting the midcourse, El Toro is pulling into the station.

'nuff said

Are there any No Limits recreations of The Voyage out there anywhere? I can't seem to find one, and when I went to make my own, I ran out of room on the template.

Wont fit in the template.

I still dont consider Intamin woodies to be real wooden coasters. For one, the actual characteristics of a wooden ride - track bed and rails arent comparable. I could care less about how much wood is used, especially since steel structures are a bit of a rage now.

But when you dont have steel plating for rails, several layers of wood AND you dont even have steel wheels (poly on the Inti) then its really not a wooden coaster anymore.


Is it a natural progression of taking an old design and making a new one? Yes. Is it a wooden coaster then or a new breed? I say new breed. For almost a hundred years woodies were built, not all the same, but at least with those characteristics. Intamin decided to design a smoother, quicker way to do the wooden coaster and what you get is a airtime filled steel coaster disguised as wood.

Not a big deal, however its almost comparing apples to oranges. So untill another company does a coaster similar, Intamin wood is its own category. It just literally doesnt fit into any other category. Cause, its more like a steel ride with wooden supports (Arrow mine rides?) than a wooden coaster.

El Toro doesn't run on steel rails? Am I missing something here, I thought it did.

I think it's just as much of a wooden coaster, just done in a different (read: much more advanced) way. I personally don't care what kind of ride it feels like, as long as the experience is good. I don't really have a steel wood bias, I just like what I like and whatever coaster can deliver it is what I like, regardless of type.

But yeah the words wooden coaster have always described a ride that runs on wood track, and never described some things like wheel type, construction method, # of layers of wood, etc. I'm sure all of these things have either changed or been deviated from at some point in history, whether subtly or radically. I think your definition is more of a subjective one, influenced by the woodies you've ridden and the opinion you formed on what one *should* be. I understand what you and others are trying to say, but if you speak completely technically...it's a wooden coaster, not sure how you can deny that. Does it feel like the average wooden coaster? Nope not really. Is it wooden? Definately.

But yeah personally none of that matters to me as long as the ride is good.

I do think, from comparing my rides on El Toro and the pictures/videos/reviews I've seen from both El Toro and Colossos, that ET is noticeably more intense and faster paced. Quicker force transitions, a lower turnaround, steeper and better shaped drop, longer train, much faster paced second half, etc. Maybe that would help some of the things you found lacking in Colossos...or maybe not. Just a possibility. Colossos looks sweet to me but from what I've seen I think it's a little lacking in some parts relative to what it could be.

I agree that Voyage does have the length advantage, I'd generally rather ride a longer ride of high intensity too. Do consider though that El Toro seems to have a much much better track than Voyage's first half. I think Voyage starts to catch up and possibly pass El Toro as it gets more intense through the turnaround and ending sections.

Oh, I also wanted to add that one of the reasons I like El Toro and some of the other Intamins I've ridden over wooden coasters in general is because the airtime is more sustained, and by that I mean on most regular wooden coasters you get good air but also bounce over hills from the bumpiness (as you can see in the reverse POV of even the superbly shaped Voyage) whereas on El Toro, anywhere on the train, on any of it's strong ejector hills, you never touch the seat from when you leave until the pullout. Even front row gets airtime on the down side of the hills, and that's pretty awesome I think.

Meh, nothing beats this for airtime. http://www.rcdb.com/ig120.htm?picture=1

[Oscar]

^^ agreed!

Originally posted by Jimmy Yoshi

Meh, nothing beats this for airtime. http://www.rcdb.com/ig120.htm?picture=1

Take that moment, make it twice as powerful and terrifying, and repeat it 8 times and you have this:
http://www.rcdb.com/ig320.htm?picture=2

^I still envy you and joe after... 3 years now (?). I wanna ride that soooo badly.

What kiddy rides. If you want real, ridiculously sustained and extended AIRtime, look no further than this ride...I guarantee you it has the most AIRtime of any rollercoaster in the world.

http://rcdb.com/ig1458.htm?picture=18

^ THat is not AIRfunny lol

Originally posted by dcs221
But yeah the words wooden coaster have always described a ride that runs on wood track

You knew Id get techincal here

What defines wooden track? I just look to history to define that. Multiple layers of wood. Steel rails. Steel wheels. Those are consistant, I do believe, back to the dawn of the coaster.

El Toro has the steel rails, but thats it. Wheels are definatly poly (which is far more a Steel coaster attribute) and its own completely new style of the track bed itself. Supports matter not since even the CBC has steel supports.

Just dont say "is it wooden? Yup" Cause you know if thats the case, you can rule any Arrow Mine Train wooden since majority of its made of wood. And we all know thats not how you define a ride...


This isnt something I think, its just how its been. Alot of things that are made closely the same ways for decades develop a name to describe them. When something new comes along, it often gets a new name - even if it takes its namesake/design from an older tradition.


Seems like you guys consider it an insult to not call it a wooden coaster.


Take the Mag Lev train for example. Its the Intamin wood to traditional wood. It doesnt have those twin rails like normal trains. Doesnt feature a diesel or steam engine. It does ride a single rail and it does transport people in the exact same manner. But its not called a train, its a Mag Lev. Yet, you could call a steam train, deisel train the same thing - a train.


Its time to face the fact that its not a wooden coaster - its an Intamin Wood coaster. Its something new, something different. A progression from decades of the same thing.

[jayman]

[worship][lol] wonderfuly worded, real.
i live a long way from both, and i love wooden roller coasters.
no, i havent ridden either. if someone gave me a free ride to go on el toro.. i'd take it for sure, and you'd better bet i'd enjoy the crap out of the same way i do out of any good roller coaster,wood or steel. but it wouldn't be my choice.. .
real's right. voyage is a reeallly and truly, pure and unadulterated
wooden rollercoaster.. true to form ,.i'd even say pure rollercoaster, and people review as such.
most reviews i've read of el toro describe how much it doesn't "this or that " like real wooden rollercoasters. airtime and tight turns are great. goliath has them. and i love it. tall steep drops were taken care of in the late 80's.
nothing's wrong with el toro. and it is a rollercoaster made of wood. but really, i'ts not a "wooden" coaster traditionally speaking ..i'm positive it's a great coaster, and that i'd enjoy it very much.
but i regard voyage and hades as the real deal.
el toro's kind of a pouser wooden rollercoaster. like an out of control christian rock version of wooden coasters..it's over produced. it's dressed up in lots of wood,and it tries hard to look like a real wooden coaster. but it's never truly like the real thing. there's something sort of cliche about it, and it has none of that really scary stuff that comes from the real thing.

Well last time I rode El Toro (around a week ago) I had 2 inches of space between myself and the lapbar! (lol that's funny Real, because that was exactly what I was thinking/going to say, even before your post haha) Yeah the ops generally don't push down as hard as people say, and this one was just pulling up on lapbars. I usually have around an inch of space, and the lapbars don't go down during the ride, whereas on the PTC's I've been on, like B&M speed trains, the lapbars staple me at the bottom of the first drop and stay down the whole time (unless I hold them in place...I'd rather be keeping my hands up and enjoying the ride rather than worrying about the lapbar though).

If PTC lapbars staple you more than Intamin's do, then there's something wrong. Also, it doesn't matter how many inches of space you got... that's very misleading. Intamin restraints are formed to securely fit to your thighs, so the only way you will get as much air as PTC lapbars is if you get at least 8 inches of room. 2 inches WILL NOT give you anywhere near the room of PTC lapbars.

Also, I don't know if you were referring to me when you said that El Toro doesn't have more airtime than Voyage, but for the record I never said that, or anything like it.

I meant more as in stronger, and by airtime I meant actual airtime as in flying out of your seat instead of being excessively restrained by a lapbar.

You also say "leave the negative g's without airtime to the steel coasters" or something to that effect, and I know that I've gotten more airtime on Nitro and Apollo's Chariot than any wooden coaster I've been on, and I've gotten negative g's *and* plenty of airtime on El Toro.

Sounds like you need to ride a few more wooden coasters then. I've ridden Nitro, and I enjoy it's "airtime", but out of the 50 or so wooden coasters I've ridden quite a few of them have more airtime than Nitro. But it really depends on what you consider airtime. It's a pointless debate since most people feel steel coasters with negative gs = airtime, and I only consider airtime that feeling on wooden coasters when you actually fly way out of your seat and you have plenty of room around you to fly around the train. Anything less isn't true airtime in my eyes.

I just don't understand a lot of your argument. Intamin wooden coasters are made of just as much wood as any other wooden coaster, and they're ranked among the best, even THE best in the world, but yet you imply they don't know how to design wooden coasters? How is that logical? Maybe they don't design woodies like you'd *like* them to, and that's fine, but that doens't mean they can't design a good wooden coaster. I won't even say I disagree there, based on experience, reviews and rankings, I don't mean any disrespect but I'd have to say you're wrong about that.

I think those Intamin wooden look-alike coasters look to be AWESOME, but they aren't real wooden coasters. Wooden coasters have been around way longer than Intamin was ever formed, and with hundreds if not thousands of wooden coasters built the same way for almost 100 years, Intamin comes around and modifies the design of them. Sorry, but there is no way that makes Intamins legitimate wooden coasters. I won't get into why they aren't from the trackstyle standpoint, as Real already completely covered that, but they are steel coasters in every way besides what the supports are made out of. Just look at any prefab-track Intamin from an engineering standpoint; Lead-ins everywhere, turns banked to produce 0 gs, full heartlining -- there is NO place for that stuff on a wooden coaster. Wooden coasters have straight banking segments, transition jerks, laterals, multi-layer wooden plank rails (not this kind of bull$hit: http://www.rcdb.com/ig1562.htm?picture=21), natural roughness from the wooden track, WOODEN TRAINS, etc. Please tell me where Intamin wooden look-alike coasters have any of these wooden coaster traits.

In response to Real, that is a pretty clear ratio (and again, I think I'd like Voyage better than El Toro). However, there are other factors to atleast take into consideration... long lines at GAdv (El Toro probably averages an hour, but can get up to 3), more frequent breakdowns, less friendly park guests...all these things I've seen people say about El Toro, when in reality they don't affect the actual ride experience at all. I think most of the (few) comparisons I've read actually have El Toro over Voyage, by a very slim margin, and they don't really take into account outside factors which really shouldn't be considered when describing the ride experience itself.

I doubt people are going to change their vote from El Toro to Voyage because of the surrounding park. There is no reason to assume that the ratio Real provided does not reflect the true opinions of those people.

SMer:


^I still envy you and joe after... 3 years now (?). I wanna ride that soooo badly.

Heh, there is quite a bit to envy about that entire coaster trip [;)]. You should've came with us!

When I rode New Mexico Rattler, I had about 6 inches of space between myself and the lapbar, and the airtime completely threw me out of my seat. On SROS @ SFNE, I was only left with 1 or 2 inches, yet the force of the airtime and the duration provided a MUCH better sensation, even while being stapled, than being thrown out of my seat completely on NMR. Don't get me wrong, the air on NMR is still completely ownage, but it just doesn't have that sensation SROS provides.

Whatev people! We all know that this is the king of airtime;

http://rcdb.com/ig67.htm?picture=12

You guys are still not making sense. At all. First of all, "wooden roller coaster" describes the material used, not necessarily the ride experience. New GCIs are very different from the first wooden out and backs. They also "came and modified the design" by having track shaping that includes about half leadins and half no lead transitions. They also may feature atleast partial heartlining in spots. So according to your erroneous inclusion of track shaping in the discussion, GCI's are half steel coasters. Even Dinns have leadins and leadouts! Excuse me while I roll my eyes.

"Lead-ins everywhere, turns banked to produce 0 gs, full heartlining -- there is NO place for that stuff on a wooden coaster. Wooden coasters have straight banking segments, transition jerks, laterals..."

So, under this part of your definition (that also has nothing to do with the track material), Arrow loopers are wooden. They have every single one of those characteristics at the end of your sentence.

The easiest way to look at this is to see what the name "wooden roller coaster" describes. OK, the roller coaster part. Basically, a ride where a car of some sort rolls on tracks due to gravity. That's not important to this discussion, as there are both steel and wooden rides that fall under that description. Now, lets look at the first part, "wooden." What does that describe? It describes the material used in the ride. Not the layout type, not the forces, not the wheel material (that argument also makes no sense... what does a wheel, which is traditionally steel anyways, have to do with a wooden track?) History has attached the disclaimer that the word "wooden" only refers to the track material, not supports...fine. That still describes material, so it's valid. El Toro's track is made of wood. It is a roller coaster. Since "wooden" refers to the track material, El Toro is a wooden roller coaster, just like Voyage, just like Phoenix, just like Son of Beast are wooden roller coasters.

Yes, El Toro uses a more advanced construction and trackwork style, but wouldn't you say GCI uses much more advanced techniques than were used on oldies like 1917 Wild One now at SFA, or Jack Rabbit at Clementon?

You can argue that El Toro does not have the "traditional" wooden coaster experience. That's fine, that's opinion. But whether El Toro is a wooden coaster is not opinion and is not open to opinion. It runs on steel plated wooden rails, just like pretty much any other wooden ride. It's 100X more advanced than most other wooden rides, but that's modification, not a complete change.

The only differences between your picture and this http://rcdb.com/ig616.htm?picture=10 are the construction method and layering... who included that in the definition of a "wooden coaster?" Is it called a "6 layer of wood coaster?" No.

Now, for those who say it's a steel coaster, go light a match on the track/supports. It probably won't burn too well because I'm sure they treat it with some flame retardant material, but it'll burn a whole lot better than a steel ride will.

About the airtime, maybe because I'm relatively tall but PTC's staple the middle/upper area of my thighs while Intamin restraints are closer to my body. Trust me when I say I generally have more room to get airtime on El Toro than I do on say Roar, whose restraints staple my legs after the first drop. Again, *my butt doesn't touch the seat over the hills*. What part of that is hard to understand? Also, *I'm very rarely stapled*. Why did you bring that into the conversation if I was telling you what my experience was? Who are you to tell me how much space I have when you A: are not me, and B: haven't been on El Toro. I've been on SROS SFA and SFNE before and after the modifications, Millennium Force, TTD, and El Toro. I've been on many PTC's including Roar, Wild One, Texas Giant, Cyclone SFNE, Thunderhawk DP, among others. Wild One has both floater and ejector airtime, and so do the others so I also have decent experience with those restraints on a variety of 0-g to negative forces. Argue about the space you get, but don't tell me about my space. Also keep in mind that I don't do anything to get around any rules and keep my lapbar up.

^ Pointed at for truth.

Look at that bull $hit - http://www.rcdb.com/ig3231.htm?picture=50

No place for leads like that on a wooden coaster!

Originally posted by dcs221

You guys are still not making sense. At all. First of all, "wooden roller coaster" describes the material used, not necessarily the ride experience. New GCIs are very different from the first wooden out and backs. They also "came and modified the design" by having track shaping that includes about half leadins and half no lead transitions. They also may feature atleast partial heartlining in spots. So according to your erroneous inclusion of track shaping in the discussion, GCI's are half steel coasters. Even Dinns have leadins and leadouts! Excuse me while I roll my eyes.

"Lead-ins everywhere, turns banked to produce 0 gs, full heartlining -- there is NO place for that stuff on a wooden coaster. Wooden coasters have straight banking segments, transition jerks, laterals..."

So, under this part of your definition (that also has nothing to do with the track material), Arrow loopers are wooden. They have every single one of those characteristics at the end of your sentence.

The easiest way to look at this is to see what the name "wooden roller coaster" describes. OK, the roller coaster part. Basically, a ride where a car of some sort rolls on tracks due to gravity. That's not important to this discussion, as there are both steel and wooden rides that fall under that description. Now, lets look at the first part, "wooden." What does that describe? It describes the material used in the ride. Not the layout type, not the forces, not the wheel material (that argument also makes no sense... what does a wheel, which is traditionally steel anyways, have to do with a wooden track?) History has attached the disclaimer that the word "wooden" only refers to the track material, not supports...fine. That still describes material, so it's valid. El Toro's track is made of wood. It is a roller coaster. Since "wooden" refers to the track material, El Toro is a wooden roller coaster, just like Voyage, just like Phoenix, just like Son of Beast are wooden roller coasters.

Yes, El Toro uses a more advanced construction and trackwork style, but wouldn't you say GCI uses much more advanced techniques than were used on oldies like 1917 Wild One now at SFA, or Jack Rabbit at Clementon?

You can argue that El Toro does not have the "traditional" wooden coaster experience. That's fine, that's opinion. But whether El Toro is a wooden coaster is not opinion and is not open to opinion. It runs on steel plated wooden rails, just like pretty much any other wooden ride. It's 100X more advanced than most other wooden rides, but that's modification, not a complete change.

Now, for those who say it's a steel coaster, go light a match on the track/supports. It probably won't burn too well because I'm sure they treat it with some flame retardant material, but it'll burn a whole lot better than a steel ride will.

Quoted for truth. I couldn't have said it better myself. Nice Job dcs221.

An even better example adding to Mr. Yoshi's point... http://www.themeparkreview.com/voyage/h ... orld64.jpg

Notice that you said "no place," not "little place" or something like that. So, is Voyage steel too?

Hey, Minicoopertx, I have a question. Which ride did Voyage beat out at #1?

That's a good question. I was actually curious about that myself but didn't think to ask.

[jayman]

calling el toro a wooden rollercoaster is like calling blink 182 punk rock.

sorry but i must agree with ECG, grand national kicks the ass of any woodie. the history, the ride and the im perfections just make it the best coaster.

its not the perfectness that makes a good ride, its the problems with the ride that makes it great