“Millennium Force”. At the time of its debut, that was possibly the most pitch-perfect name imaginable for the coaster. We were in Y2K, the future was here now. Many parks try to give their coasters more timeless monikers, because they want their multi-million dollar investment to remain relevant for decades to come. Cedar Point took a daring step to give its 25-million dollar investment a name that was exceedingly of-the-moment, one that emphasized the here-and-now, don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it excitement that had built up around the world’s first Gigacoaster. I remember standing in line for it during its first year of operation, and despite the four hour lines there was always this electric energy flowing through the masses suggesting we were all collectively joined by our desire to get our first taste of the future. This was back when they had to give out hand stamps with return times to enter the queue marked on it to manage the huge demand, and even still they had set up overflow queues underneath the final turn that has remained an empty concrete pad ever since. Maybe it was simply that everyone really wanted to ride a coaster with a 300 foot drop, but I still think there was something more intangible to its success during that debut year, almost a feeling that our lives had continuously been leading up to that very moment as we boarded the train in that neon-red station. The layout’s location along the Frontier Trail and over onto the once-deserted island made it hard to catch more than a fleeting glimpse of it from inside the park, that distant view across the bay when first arriving via the causeway was the best chance to see it in full, where it was still so far away and surreal looking one wondered if it was really an enigma. Despite all the worry about the Y2K viruses and promises of hover cars, the new millennium didn’t seem that different from the 1990’s in our day-to-day lives… except for when we visited Cedar Point. That was where the new Millennium was found.

However, contrary to what the coaster’s tagline claims, the future was not riding on it; the future further passed it by with each new year, and now looking at it a full decade later the name can seem positively quaint. That said, the name is no longer spoken as a bold statement of “MILLENNIUM … FORCE” as it was when it opened. Now it’s one of those names you say in a single breath, “millenniumforce”, any literal meaning to the words having long been abandoned by the collective conscious and it’s just a phonetic string of syllables that directly conjures whatever mental image one might have of that big blue and silver structure looming along the western shores of the Cedar Point peninsula. Similar is true of the coaster experience itself. Although it has become slightly outmoded in the past decade, especially as we now have Kings Dominion’s Intimidator 305 to compare side-by-side to see the advancements Intamin has made in their design technique (Transitions no longer take several seconds to complete! Long overbanks are replaced with high-energy s-turns! The entire lift hill uses only two supports!) Millennium Force has managed remarkably well at remaining relevant, still as much of a crowd-pleaser as ever, even as it has become more of a familiar old friend rather than the unbounded enigma it used to be. Of course it helps to come right at the end of an economic boom and be followed by a decade of trying to find new ways to scale back the costly excesses of the late 90’s/2000, it’s taken a full decade for another park to attempt a coaster on the scale of Millennium Force, the ride retaining its crown by default.

Despite its years spent at the number one position in steel coaster polls, rivaled only by Millie’s also 2000 debuting smaller brother Superman: Ride of Steel (now Bizarro), there is a small but growing group of enthusiasts that claim the ride (at least everything after the first drop) is not a particularly good one, overdrawn, simplistic, too much time between elements that are a bit boring to begin with… “Millennium Forceless” is a nickname you may be familiar with, assuming you haven’t used it yourself. Airtime is always fun, assuming its present which it sometimes isn’t these days, and overbanks are overrated, so the need for four of them is a complete redundancy. The bunny hop near the end of the ride usually delivers, but then it’s followed up by a long straight run of track, and finished with another overbank that does little in terms of forces. If you like height and sustained speed, Millennium Force is still your ride. But like the Beast before it, more refined coaster connoisseurs have learned that despite the record-breaking statistics there’s not much in terms of substance and have begun to turn their nose up at the once adored, the ride’s continued popularity attributed to nostalgia or a lack of awareness of more aggressive, dynamic coasters at other less-visited parks.

I agree. When it first opened I was swept into the euphoria of riding a coaster this towering and magnificent, but the more I went on it the more I had to scale back my appreciation of the giant, and today I have no less than three other coasters at Cedar Point I would take over Millie any day of the week (Magnum, Maverick and Raptor for those wondering). I heartily ripped on Diamondback for being a static, unimaginative riding experience designed only to provide as much airtime as possible… and that ride has the advantage of actually having sustained, strong airtime! Millennium Force starts with the disadvantage of having more restrictive restraints that make it harder to enjoy the openness of exposure to the forces, and exacerbates issues by striving for sustained floater, which it was able to achieve in its first few years, but joints inevitably start sticking and vibrations start to pick up; it’s not uncommon for the entire trainload to sit as firmly in their seats as they would at home in their living room couch on any early morning run on the Force.

Now before I get any angry letters reading “well I was on it last summer and I got sustained ejector over the hills!” please don’t assume that I’m lying or misrepresenting the facts, this is true of all coasters, they perform differently from day-to-day, hour-to-hour, sometimes even from cycle-to-cycle. Occasionally Millennium Force does provide quite a bit of sustained floater, even borderline ejector over the main camelback humps. On my last visit on closing day in November, the early morning rides were exactly as I first described (100% A.I.S.), and by the last night rides there was never a moment where we felt like forces were promised but not delivered in full—and this was in the November cold! So the ride can be temperamental to say the least.

However, if you’ve read enough of my other reviews on this site you’ll know that simply sustaining forces for the sake of experiencing forces by themselves is something I will argue long and hard against as criteria for establishing a coaster’s worth. It’s all about the context of the forces, the pacing, the progression, the nuances that make forces just a single brushstroke for the full painting that is a roller coaster. I will agree that having a long hill that fails to produce anything of interest is almost always a detracting point, suggesting an attempt at a grand statement but stumbling miserably over it. But when someone tells me I’m wrong in my dismissal of a B&M speed coaster because it’s not just weak floater but actually tons of ejector over the tops of the hills, I’ll just shrug my shoulders and reply “whether that’s true or not, barely zero-g’s or strong negative, it has nearly no impact on my judgment of the ride, you’re still talking in terms of forces solely for the sake of forces”. And that’s all Millennium Force seems to be about… long, sustained, frequently forceless forces. A bit of speed, a bit of height, nothing you can actually feel if you close your eyes except for some particularly gusty wind, and nothing more.

Aw crap, now I’ve made this too easy for me. I’ve been told by people that have read some of my other recent reviews that I’m a contrarian; I’m not sure if I completely agree but I see where they might be coming from. I like to consider a perspective that might not be as popular if I think there’s some validity to it and I try to avoid re-stating things I figure most informed readers already know, so I can see how that’s a recipe for a bit of contrarianism. Since I don’t want to disappoint expectations, I’m now in a bit of a dilemma for where to take this analysis. On the one hand Millennium Force is one of the most popular, beloved rides on the planet which makes it an obvious target to knock down, but on the other I’ve said all I really need to say against the coaster in the last few paragraphs and detailing my complaints even further would only become overkill, plus while the critical viewpoint of this ride is the minority perspective it’s not minority enough to be truly contrarian. Besides, as fun as it can be to play the role of a sophist and twist an argument into whatever perspective I like on a whim (as I’ve been accused of), there’s still an underlying commitment I feel to genuine philosophy to describe what actually is. And to be honest, while it’s not my favorite in the park, I still kind of like Millennium Force more than I might want to admit. I guess I’ll just have to bite the bullet and take a nuanced approach to assessing the ride…  Heaven forefend, how will the enthusiast community manage? (Probably like they usually do by ignoring me because I’m not on TPR and the text-to-picture ratio is too thick to skim through.)

We have been loaded into the train, carefully adjusting our lapbar to the perfect position moments before the attendant comes around to properly staple us into place (actually the attendants haven’t leaned their weight on my restraint for a couple years now, I can usually go out with the bar at the position I want provided it’s still within a safe distance from my lap). The train nudges forward an inch or two, then propels out of the station, quickly tipping back and angling straight up the lift. It only takes about twenty-two seconds to get to the top so most enthusiasts quickly survey the surrounding vistas knowing that time is tight to enjoy this unique perspective; newcomers to the ride fixate (or desperately try not to) on their impending doom as they approach the top. The former personality should always take pleasure if they’re sitting behind a particularly animated case of the latter personality. About 2/3 of the way up the hill the speed increases, I think because the third train clears the last block when it pulls into the station (the interesting thing about MF is there are only four blocks along a course that runs three trains), but it’s an effective ploy to get everyone’s attention to snap ahead. The curve over the crest is at once wide enough and yet has a far enough rotation to feel the pitch of the train roll forward and then over into the first drop. The front row achieves air just by virtue of hanging over it far enough and steep enough that riders are forced forward out of their seat; as the speed of the rest of the train finally catches them they get floater all the way down (pushed up against the seat back) simply because they are in free-fall. Forces in the back row quickly but smoothly escalate from light floater to strong negative g-forces. It’s technically ejector all the way down, although the force is not felt as much straight up out of the seat but pushing backwards as if trying to force the air out of one’s lungs, again because of the steep angle.

It takes a couple seconds to reach the bottom although a lot of the vertical freefall takes place along the pullout. This pullout itself takes several seconds to get through but the positive g’s are strong as it reaches maximum speed. When it first opened this speed was listed as 92mph, then they upped it to 93 a short while later. I had heard reports that in its opening year it was able to achieve 100mph given a high enough daily temperature. I have a slightly hard time believing that because the physics of a drop that steep should ensure it’s the same no matter what the circumstances, and things like weight, temperature or ‘newness’ should only affect how well it sustains speed over the course of the ride due to variances in the frictional coefficient.

The g-forces along the first overbank sustain the positives felt along the pullout, if not increasing them despite working against gravity around the top. I remember my first ride ever on Millennium Force in the second row I nearly blacked out around the last part of the turn, and I continued to risk graying out for a couple years after that. Today I never have any such problems, possibly because the ride has slowed down enough already or my physiology has changed since then, but this is still probably one of the best places on any North American megacoaster outside of anything Giovanola-built to experience strong sustained positives. What’s also interesting about this turn is despite the 122° banking it can be very hard to judge one’s orientation with Earth because the forces are powerful enough to confuse your inner ear from being able to distinguish gravitational directionality at all.

The train slowly twists out of the overbank and runs along a ground level curve to the left, the massive lift hill towers not far away. The timing between elements and transitions is very slow yet the speed still gives this stretch of track enough of an edge; notable g-forces are generally not present, at least in contrast to the overbank before it. A vibration usually accompanies this high-speed curve and has for much of the past decade. Hidden around the turn is a tunnel that rapidly approaches, the train plunging through it with no change to the ride dynamics which remain steady on the entire turn.

A gentle transition out of the tunnel and up into the 182 foot camelback hill. Unlike the first drop there’s no super-steep angle into or out of this hill, it has a very gentle pull-up, over and back down. Even on the best days the airtime along here isn’t designed to be any more than light floater… given the speed the train has at this point it makes sense to use it in this fashion, because it would allow for one of the longest periods of sustained floater in the world (the further a hill starts to go into the negative range for g-forces the more time is taken away from how long those forces could be held). Generally it lasts for at least four to five seconds, not too far from the record set by Superman The Escape which I think is six seconds, at least when it was launching at full speed which I don’t believe has happened in many years. The danger of this approach of sustained floater air is that while zero-g’s can be fun, it borders really close to .1 g’s, which isn’t, and when the train starts going a bit slower than originally intended, that’s what you get instead and this hill becomes a dead spot. For the most part avoid riding in the morning; it normally always picks up speed throughout the day. Cold weather and rain can negatively impact the speed as well, but I’ve found not to as great of a degree as the time of day. Assuming you are able to get forces, they will be very gentle, straight up out of your seat, without as great of a distortion going forward or backward from a tight rotation or steep freefall out of the hill.

Once again there is a very long transition, the timing taking a couple seconds to get between the previous camelback hill pullout and into the second turn. This one is technically more of an inclined helix and isn’t included in the official count of the overbanked turns, but I count it with them anyway because it matches closely and it actually does go a few degrees past ninety for a moment on the way down. From the base of the turn to the transition out of it at the other end it takes close to eight seconds to make it all the way around. Forces are what you would probably expect: feather light positives. The last stretch of this curve sticks close to the ground and dodges a few supports from the way it came in, once again a slow transition into the next overbank turn, this one much taller and angled, a steeper pitch at the top and shorter element time. You can feel a few rotational effects at the top as some minor positive g-forces once again make a quick appearance before vanishing once more. At the bottom there’s a quick skirt to the right narrowly cutting past a few more supports as the track sets up the return camelback hill. In terms of uplift, I’ve found this one to perform more consistently over my past few visits, the timing still taking several seconds to complete, especially when one factors in the long flat section leading out of it in order to make it about the same length as the first camelback so the tunnels could match up. I’m always surprised that so much speed has been lost in the course of two overbanked curves that the return camelback needed to be so much smaller, but I suppose the speed is great enough that the same amount of distance covered between the two is about the same as an average medium sized coaster, just covered in about twenty seconds instead of a minute and a half.

This second tunnel is physically much shorter than the first, although they take about the same time to complete. A strobe light flashes before the exit for the photo opportunity. Perhaps it’s just as well that there have been no discernable forces experienced since cresting the camelback several hundred feet ago, it allows everyone on the train ample time to find the right pose for the camera, which is a favorite tradition among casual fans and families visiting Cedar Point. Out of the tunnel, the curve continues for another hundred feet or so and, for the first time on the entire ride we reach an element that doesn’t take several seconds to complete. The bunny hop that parallels the station always provides a decent boost no matter what the rest of the ride had been like, quickly banking into a left turn before twisting out again, the summation of these last couple maneuvers all completed in less time than any single element that came earlier. There’s a stretch of straight track that runs parallel to the queue as it anticipates the final overbank. A second bunny hill probably would have been nice, after a full ride of lethargic timing it would have been a good idea to end it with a string of elements that had some pep in them. That said, this straight section can still be used to enjoy the sustained speed for a few seconds, to laugh at all the suckers still waiting in the queue, or if this is on an early morning ride session (available to Cedar Point Resort guests and Platinum Pass holders) to figure out if the wait is still short enough for a re-ride before heading back to Maverick, assuming the ride hasn’t sucked so badly that a re-ride would not be necessary even if it was still a walk-on. But still, a second bunny hill would have been nice.

But I digress: the final overbank. If you don’t like overbanked maneuvers then this one may seem to be the least interesting. However, I think this is probably the second best overbank on the ride, after the forceful first overbank. There’s this jazzy little back-and-forth to the rotation in banking that gives this turn some character. First a little prebank up and into the turn. The banking rotation then stops as the track curves straight up (which is actually now diagonal because of the first part of the transition into it). As it begins to slow, there’s another quick rotation all the way around the top of the curve, tipping us just past ninety before angling down and around our heartline axis once more. The way out mirrors the way in, with a halt in the rotation of the banking pitch, leveling out a little bit more before a final rightward-tipping shimmy sets us up for the magnetic brakes. Nothing intense, but infinitely more interesting than if it had been one continuous motion like the other overbanked turns.

Sliding forward into the magnetic brakes, the front of the train might even be going fast enough to catch a whiff of laterals on the small right turn between the main deceleration area and the main block area before the unload station. The op at the unload platform calls out “Welcome back Millennium Force riders, how was your ride?!”, those last four words always emphasized with a precisely toned pattern, and everyone on the train erupts into cheers, most likely including yourself, either out of sincerity or politeness. But if you’re a well-traveled, well-informed, disciplined coaster connoisseur, there’s probably a fifty-fifty chance a voice in the back of your head is telling you, “That was overrated. Completely forceless after the first turn, Cedar Point just wanted to build a record-breaking ride to lure enthusiasts to the park but told Intamin to keep it gentle enough so all these casual park-goers and families around me won’t be scared off by it.” Besides, it’s a necessity that the sense of pace is going to be slow on a coaster this big no matter how forceful they make it; that might sound counterintuitive at first, but as you increase the rate of speed linearly, the forces generated by a particular element increase by a greater factor than the time it takes to complete them is reduced by, so to maintain survivable forces means the elements have to be made large enough that the time it takes to get around them is much longer than if the ride were half its size. (fyi, that’s why kiddie coasters can sometimes feel so vicious; the slow speed means it can complete a bunny hop in a fraction of a second without extreme forces generated. Try the same thing going 90 miles per hour and the airtime could be capable of bending steel. So by this seemingly backwards logic, when it comes to the timing between elements that generates an exciting pace, slower=faster and vice versa.)

Where I think a lot of Millennium Force critics go wrong during their assessment of the ride is they react to the experience too passively, waiting for the ride’s incredible size and power to actively shake them from their catatonic indifference at every moment. This coaster’s not going to do that to you the way a Voyage or a Maverick would. My play-by-play analysis above made the same mistake, looking just at the quantity of forces or timing between elements. If you’re a seasoned coaster rider that long ago overcame any acrophobia or tachophobia, and you just sit in your seat waiting to be hit with extreme, forceful sensations you will more likely than not be underwhelmed if not flat-out bored when you get back to the final brakes. You may also notice that the people around you that were excited before the ride began were excited afterward, while the few that were indifferent before the ride were only slightly less indifferent when they came off it as well. This might be easy to label a self-fulfilling prophecy but I think there’s a bit more going on to differentiate the two groups than just that.

When a trainload of riders gets back to the station cheering and clapping, it’s not necessarily because they all thought the ride was forceful, intense or full of unpredictable direction changes, at least once they understand what those terms mean and have points of reference with other coasters that actually are those things. There are a lot of ‘peripheral sensations’ that accompany a Millennium Force experience, mostly those related to the raw speed, sense of movement through space, and extreme changes of perspective. In the first case, raw speed, consider the sensations of traveling in an open-air car at 93mph: even if it’s not being used to achieve anything particularly forceful, the slight vibrations in the cars or the wind that draws tears from your eyes can be quite intimidating on their own. Next, there’s the sense of movement through space, a factor related to the raw speed. On the first ground-level left hand turn, again forces aren’t strong and the movement is sustained for several seconds, but the sense of ground rushing by, the rapid parallax with the trees off to the left or the lift hill support towers to the right, and seeing the tunnel approach and pass by within a split second, knowing that these objects are all real and not just some virtual simulation, not only would I call that a great experience, but for many people it can register as information overload, a real adrenaline rush created just from watching. And then thirdly there’s the extreme changes in perspective. You cover a lot of ground on Millennium Force, and some pretty dramatic altitude changes. Just having the ability to change perspectives from ground level to 182 feet in the air, even if it doesn’t happen rapidly enough to sustain strong forces, is something few people get to experience on a regular basis; normally our perspective with the outside world is stuck or changes very slowly, to be able to actually see that extreme perspective change take place is reason by itself to become giddy.

Now, many veteran coaster enthusiasts are still able to enjoy these ‘peripheral sensations’ while others can be left cold. Again, this might seem to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, that those that start the ride excited return excited, while those indifferent return indifferent. Not necessarily. Being able to start the ride with a bit of an adrenaline boost can help to open one’s nervous receptors so they become more acutely aware of these sensations happening around them, while those that aren’t will be more closed in during the ride and just thinking about the actual forces or direction changes, which of course are going to be weak and slow. Therefore it could be said that those that start the ride with a bit of an adrenaline  buzz quite literally experience more than those that do not, and that can account for the discrepancy between the two attitudes rather than simply attributing it to taste. (But this is all totally unscientific speculation)

So if you’re one of the types that love Millennium Force, that’s fantastic. But what if you just can’t, for the life of you, get into the whole experience? I’m that way myself, but after enough visits to Cedar Point I’ve found ways to more actively engage in the ride instead of just passively sitting there thinking “this is overrated”. First of all, I keep my hands down, and I wish other people would as well, it would cut down on the wind resistance and make it easier for people behind them to see. Second, I recommend sitting on the right side of the train. This way on three of the four overbanked turns you can look (and maybe even lean over a little bit) straight down with absolutely nothing between you and the ground far below (also some of the supports on the first overbank come really close, one even having a notch cut out where rider’s hands could conceivable reach). The first drop offers plenty of opportunities to ride in different ‘styles’. First of all, no matter what seat you’re in, try actually following the posted guidelines and keep your back pressed flat against the seat back with your head looking forward against the headrest. The sense of angular change and the steepness of the drop is strongly heightened, partly because it removes the ‘pillow’ of starting the drop by leaning forward slightly and later shifting against the seat back on the pullover dampening the angular rotation, partly because it prevents you from looking at a fixed perspective point, and also because removed any sense of control over your experience; the cumulative result can add to the drop’s intensity, especially once you start to approach 80°. For last-row riders only, one other thing you could try is looking backwards as you go over the first drop, it can be quite terrifying for obvious reasons (officially this is against park rules and possibly for good reason, so use your better judgment before trying this; it doesn’t put anyone else at risk so I don’t agree with outright prohibiting it for libertarian reasons, besides there’s no way they can enforce it). And for front row riders, if you waited over 45 minutes extra in line you probably want to get all the use out of your front row position as possible; lean way forward on the first drop, you’ll essentially be inverted at the steepest point and it’s an amazing visceral experience. On night rides during Halloweekends when they’re running the Fright Zone along the Frontier Trail, there usually will be a lot of fog that drifts into and around the first drop area, and the result can be surreal. On one ride in the front row I leaned all the way forward and the drop was completely encased in thick fog, just as the lights on the lift columns had changed to red; the effect was not unlike plunging head-first into the bottomless stygian abyss of hell. In 2008 Cedar Point added a new pirate-themed haunt on Millennium Island, which by itself I thought was a pretty lame walk-through, but the real benefit comes to Millennium Force riders where the fog can be so thick that the entire middle section is spent not able to see fifty feet ahead of you. I don’t care what your definition of a great coaster is, get a good night ride on Millennium Force during Halloweekends when the fog and running conditions are right and I’m fairly confident your mind will be blown just from the visual experience.

Millennium Force is like an uncircumcised penis. Wow, I am positive that if you were just scrolling through the article to look at the pictures, after seeing that phrase out of the corner of your eye you started reading. So, while I briefly have your attention I’m going to get through some nerdy layout sequencing analysis before explaining what prompted me to make the above comment. I always have respect for a coaster whose layout isn’t just a semi-random sequencing of elements and has some logical order to it, with a sense that each moment is somehow predicated by the one before and after it, at least once the ride is over and you can step back and look at the entire experience as a whole. While the long transitions and flat, sustained forces in a layout that’s an odd collection of hills and overbanked turns might seem like a ripe formula for random dreck, I’ve actually found a very formal sequencing to each of the elements that, even if I’m bored stiff by the weak forces and long transitions, I can at least appreciate as an overall layout. There’s a pattern of brief, strong airtime (red, 1); sustained, floater airtime (blue, 1); overbanked turns (2), both forceful/interesting (red) or basic and sustained (blue); with segments of ground-level, sustained speed turns with tunnels (…3…) that can be written as such:

(1, 2) …3… 1, 2, 2, 1 …3… (1, 2)

Hopefully both fans and skeptics of the ride can appreciate the symmetry of the ride’s layout. I should make some more clarifications and specifications in the above structure: although the first (1,2) and second are very different experiences from each other, both stand out, the first for the forcefulness and extreme height and speed, and the second for the faster timing and greater variety of force sensations (also why I think a second bunny where the flat section currently is would greater benefit the ride, to help the finale better match the opening act in terms of intensity/distinctness, it’s still too weak to make a proper counter-balance). The overbanks should also be noted are each different from each other, so while the overall structure of the ride mirrors itself, there’s a linear progression to each of the overbanks that helps the ride from becoming too repetitive: the first forceful and mostly circular, the second wide and sweeping, the third taller and steeply banked at the top, the final with the funky back-and-forth to the banking rotation that I mentioned earlier. Obviously if it’s analyzed too closely the structure starts to fall apart because there are moments that don’t fit, but stuff like sequencing has less to do with adrenaline than it does with simply having a greater appreciation for the coaster after the ride is over. Now, about that odd analogy…

When I first was working out that sequencing pattern, I realized that the symmetry to the elements could even be seen from the overhead view of the layout itself. So I drew out a rough sketch of that layout to be able to illustrate what I meant, only to discover afterward that it looked a lot like… with the first and last overbanks being the… the side-by-side camelback hills forming the… and the two island overbanks being…  yep.

When I was younger I used to think a lot of Freud’s theories (at least the ones that made it into pop culture) were something of a joke, but as I grew older I came to realize how true they could be, especially having spent a lot of time in online enthusiast forums. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, the same as it is possible to visit Cedar Point and climb aboard that massive woodie that is Mean Streak, then going over to Power Tower to ride up and down an erect shaft several times before finishing the day by launching an enormous white plume of liquid on Snake River Falls and have absolutely nothing subconsciously implied whatsoever. (I am so sorry the analysis has devolved this far. I promise my next one will have a paragraph or two contemplating the epistemological uncertainty that is a necessary condition of all human intellectual endeavors, but for now you’re stuck with juvenile sexual innuendo.)

(Header banner photo credit to Anthony Harrison, used with permission)

For a B&M inverted roller coaster, Raptor isn’t the most impressive. It’s a rather bland, cookie-cutter set of elements, packed together in a basic B&M spaghetti bowl configuration with a similarly standard color palate and theme. To be sure, it’s big and forceful and definitely one of the ‘must-rides’ of any visit to Cedar Point, each element packing a punch in that special way you could always count on early B&M layouts to do, and it by no means ever disappoints. Raptor could very well be the most consistent crowd-pleaser on the Cedar Point peninsula, without the questionably weak forces and slow timing of Millennium Force, the lack of substance of Top Thrill Dragster, the antiquated roughness and quirk of Magnum, or the free-form uncertainty and persistent neck-choppiness of Maverick (notice I’m not making any statements against any of these rides in one form or another, only that there are certain groups of people that would cite those things as a debilitating negative against each respective ride). Meanwhile, everyone likes Raptor. Okay, occasionally you might hear reports of some Vekoma-like hang-and-banging when the ride’s having a bad day, and for a few others more than one ride could very well leave them feeling sick to their stomach due to the aggressive inversion line-up. But these are quite minor and circumstantial compared to the accusations of some more fundamental problem the Point’s other star attractions are prone to have lobbed at them from time to time. Raptor’s a great ride by nearly any criteria you choose, but creatively it wasn’t a high point for anyone involved, and both B&M and Cedar Point would later go on to have bigger and better ideas.

Looking backwards along the timeline there was both the super-tight intensity of the Batman rides and Nemesis (the latter of which is still one of B&M’s crowning achievements). Then Raptor was caught in the middle of things as they transitioned away from tight, compact layouts to much more sprawling and ambitious projects that would become manifest two years later with Busch’s Montu in 1996 and then even further with Alpengeist a year after that. Even then, until the turn of the millennium, B&M continued to experiment with other ideas (or, at the very least, had those ideas presented for them to build), such as the Great Bear’s unique, free-flight helix first drop and river section, Afterburn’s frenetically-paced opening sequencing culminating in a subterranean batwing, or Dueling Dragons with its obvious creative strengths. Even international rides such as Katun or Pyrenees took the basic ideas behind Raptor but improved on them with a larger scale and/or some other uniquely defined element (Pyrenees’ tight helix threading a second large vertical loop inserted between the heartline roll and cobra roll; Katun’s overall larger scope, also featuring a tunnel and a high-speed ground curve). I love Raptor, but on the surface it’s just all a bit too bland and, well, Cedar Fair-ized to outpace any of its above-listed compatriots.

However, writing as a long-time Raptor rider familiar with its every turn, force and shimmy, and having been on more than a few of the alternative titles mentioned above, once I’ve looked past the surface of the type of ride Raptor appears to be and started looking more closely at the details, I will not feel too uncomfortable in claiming that Raptor may very well be B&M’s most successful inverted coaster to date. The only other inverted coaster I’ve not been on (yet) and might hesitate in making that claim is Alton Tower’s Nemesis, and possibly by extension the similarly terrain-insane Black Mamba (but remove the stunning setting and you’ve still got a pretty basic B&M invert layout). Otherwise every other invert I’ve been on has one major downfall, and those I haven’t don’t appear to fix the problem much at all. The problem is this:

Just about every ride that opens with the Bollinger and Mabillard stamp of creation will inevitably be weaker in the second half than the first. In some cases that’s because the first half is simply strong enough that it sets the bar too high to begin with (Afterburn, Katun), in other cases the second half will start out great but they’re unable to sustain it all the way to the brakes and after the last flat-spin it’ll start to disengage the rider from the experience a few moments too early (Montu, Dueling Dragons, especially Great Bear after the river section and intense flat-spin), and in other cases the entire second half will just be one enormous duff, at least relative to the pre-midcourse block brake section (Alpengeist, Pyrenees). This analysis will extend to nearly any other B&M design as well; if the second half isn’t actively bad, it at least isn’t quite able to match the quality of the first few elements, and this imbalance is always off-putting to me since in dramatic structure you generally want a clear climax rather than steady denouement. Granted nearly every designer has to work hard to avert this problem and will inevitably have several rides in their portfolio that suffer the same fate (it’s a simple fact of coaster design because the friction will inevitably slow the train down over time so the designer must work extra hard to keep the design as fresh and challenging as it began), but B&M are possibly the only major design firm where there are virtually no exceptions to this rule.

One of the few is Raptor.¹

Raptor is the first coaster most people come across when they enter the park in the morning, and it is for that reason that I advise skipping it as your first ride of the day to avoid longer than necessary waits (unless you have an early ride time session, but even then your time is probably better spent on Millennium and Maverick whose queues will generally be longer later in the day anyway) and coming back later in the afternoon when many of the crowds have moved on to elsewhere in the park. Normally I’d include a sentence complaining about the garish paint scheme and poor location choice (all green on a coaster that big and domineering of the main midway’s visual focus?) but somehow I don’t seem to mind the aesthetics of the coaster any more, it’s simply part of the whole Cedar Point experience, and if not exactly subtle the green does at least suggests natural foliage so it’s not as inherently attention-grabbing the way a Talon or Silver Bullet color scheme might be. The queue is one of those massive, labyrinthine plots sprawling over the infield sandwiched between the ride’s lift, station, helix finale, and then underneath the break run and filling up the space between it and the Blue Streak as well. With three, 32-passenger trains dispatching every minute or so one hopes they never have to visit on a day when more than a couple of the switchbacks are open, but if they do catch glimpse of a full queue, they should hopefully take solace in the fact that Raptor has probably the second fastest-moving line in the park only after Magnum (Gemini used to be all-time king champion in terms of capacity until they permanently removed a train from both sides; nevertheless it’s still a crowd-eater). I only visit on Friday or Sunday Halloweekends or early season weekdays anymore so my personal tolerance for waits on Raptor has been reduced to not much more than a walk-on.

The station floor plan is a pretty minimalist cube with a simple metal roof over it, and a tasteful design aesthetic that balances bright pinks and yellows with a lot of sheet metal. If you’re in a group of two (or even more so, a single rider) be on the lookout for empty spots in the middle rows because there’s not much room or time for people to arrange themselves into groups of four and as a result a lot of empty seats can get sent out due to the rapid pace the trains are dispatched with. The fact that everyone that walks through the ride’s turnstiles wants to wait for the front row only complicates things because they frequently will end up blocking the station entry point for people willing to try other rows. And while popularity in and of itself doesn’t dictate any truths about the nature of things, it should proffer at least a worthwhile hint at where the best seats in the house are located.

Strapped into our seats the floors drop and front safety gate folds downwards in a way that would have been really cool if the year were 1995. There right curve out of the station has a minor dip to it with a very sharp pullout at the bottom. I’m not sure what this is for other than to advance the speed of the train around this curve. If I’m sitting on the left I can always reach out and touch the car ahead of me; I’ve wondered if the reason for this tight pre-lift dip is to keep the connecting joints between the wheel bogeys and the bases of the cars flexible, but I somehow doubt it. The train rolls up into a flat, pre-lift tire-drive section before engaging the lift, the noise it makes as it does this is now so imbued with nostalgia in my conscious it’s probably something akin to the sound of the first car you ever owned starting up (or for those of us of a later generation, the sound of a dial-up modem connecting. Well, maybe not really, but I think you get the general idea of what I’m trying to describe with that ‘Raptor engaging the lift’ sound and are just wishing I’d move on with the review already.)

How tall is the lift? The RCDb is telling me 137 feet. That both seems a bit too tall and yet about right. I never think of Raptor as being a very tall coaster (certainly not taller than the 122 ft. tall Shivering Timbers) but whenever I get to the top I still have a moment of surprise to see that the ground and people appear much smaller looking down at them from up here than the riders on the train looked from when I was on the ground. There’s a fast leftward turn over the midway where the sharp rotational motion of the train helps mask the lack of forward-moving motion. On the twist out, if you’re in the back seat, right side in particular, you’ll notice a slight but still very real pop of airtime, something of a rarity to find on a B&M inverted drop. What I find more interesting is the shape of the transition out of the turn and down the drop… is it heartlined? A precursory glance at a photo of it would surprisingly seem to indicate “no”, the boxy spine clearly stays inline while it’s the trains that twist around it back under to the left, instead of the other way around. But this hardly makes any sense for B&M to deliberately decide to not design the track around the rider’s heartline for just one section of track, and indeed I think the real answer between the drop’s shape is a bit more deceptive. This first drop I think was actually designed to be an S-curve drop, but because of the heartlining techniques the rightward twist after the lefthand curve remained hidden by the shifting track spine, the only physical result you can see from this path is the slight right curvature remaining on the pullout of the first drop. Between the fast rotation at the very top, pop of airtime on the way down, and hidden s-bend on the way down, this already puts Raptor’s initial plunge at a more interesting level than most other B&M inverts where it’s just one continuous downward twisting motion.

The vertical loop is always a functional element to start the ride with, providing a forceful but uncomplicated heels-over-head moment before moving on to more twisted inversions. The forces are especially strong on Raptor’s, the circumference tight enough to result in tremendously strong positives all the way around the top, but still large enough to last longer than the ultra-quick Batman rides. To be honest I tend to forget about this element when I’m actually riding Raptor, by the time we’ve gotten to the midcourse I’ve all but erased the loop from my short-term memory and I only recall an extension of the strong positives on the pullout of the drop. One other pointless thing I’d like to mention is it’s always appeared to me as though the loop is tipped slightly backwards, so that the tightest part isn’t precisely at the apex. I can’t tell if that’s caused by the lateral shift in the track or the supports not being the same height, but it’s always caused me a moment’s pause whenever I look at it. Just an observation…

The zero-g roll that makes up inversion number two is still probably the best B&M ever designed. Admittedly I’ve never been a huge fan of these maneuvers the way everyone else seems to be, the rotation always being too fast to appreciate it as an inversion while at the same time the weightlessness can be hard to discern because of said rotation (which, unless you happen to be sitting in precisely the middle of the train, will also translate into some laterals). I’m sort of the same way with Raptor’s, which also possesses some of the fastest rotation at the top that B&M would ever design as well. But even this element I like better for a couple reasons: first, it has a slight left tip in the banking before suddenly whipping around to the right at the top; this adds a lot more to the experience than rolls where it’s nothing but a basic pull-up leaving one waiting there passively for the rotation at the top to start. Second, the hill is still large enough to produce some real weightlessness over it while retaining the super-fast rotation that B&M would later slow down; this means that you get more ‘crest’ on the way up or down to enjoy the floater than in cases when the roll is so spread out it starts halfway down the hill. And third, the roll is still just so super-fast and disorienting that it hardly matters if you’re supposed to feel any weightless, I always get a kick sitting on the right side towards the back  of the train and watching as the cars ahead sharply bend around the heartline while I’m flung off into the side of my restraint.

At the base of the zero-g roll is a small flat section of track that lasts for a second or so before curling up into the cobra roll. This is another one of those little ‘quirks’ you’d find in earlier B&M designs I wish they’d still include. It helps establish the pacing better than if it’s just a monotonous grind of constantly swooping down and back up between one inversion and the next with no change in flow whatsoever. Plus it helps generate a bit of anticipation for the cobra roll, allowing one to appreciate the roll itself a bit more once they get to it than if they had just been flung right into it without a chance to regain orientation after the roll.

The cobra roll sort of mirrors the first two elements, at least in the way it mixes the vertical flip of the loop with the horizontal rotation of the zero-g roll while putting two elements back to back. The pace is also much faster here and is an effective coup-de-grace for the opening act before it starts to slow up. There’s much more of a whip at the top on the transition from loop to roll than would found on later inverted cobra rolls (with the possible exception of Alpengeist), and while sometimes this can lead to some unnecessary headbanging, it also lends an added aggressiveness to the maneuver that makes it very unpredictable. The positive g-forces are also smothered around the entire element and it’s not uncommon for your feet to tingle a little bit afterward.

The opening act of the ride now complete, it fares pretty well compared to most other inverted coasters, so far having been a steady build-up in intensity through to the end of cobra roll similar to other great inverts such as Alpengeist or Afterburn (although I would rank both of those ride’s opening acts slightly above Raptor’s for various reasons). But this is where Raptor starts to differentiate itself from the rest of the pack. Needing to gain some altitude for a midcourse block brake, instead of choosing to simply climb a hill straight up the way Montu does, it instead takes the time to offer a moment of free-flight, a fun little s-curve between the supports before taking a slow carousel far above ground level into the brake run. With other inverts always so focused on sequencing one inversion immediately after another, it can easily overwhelm any sensation of flying that the inverted coaster was designed for in the first place. While this lead-up into the brake run isn’t much, it’s still more than enough opportunity to show a different side to the overall ride, enjoying a brief moment of free-flight as the surrounding Cedar Point landscape slides around you, and at the same time forming a middle ‘interlude’ that’s formally distinctive from the rest of the experience, rather than in cases where it’s only a straight hill on either side of the midcourse which doesn’t distinguish it at all from the rest of the elements other than finding a sudden letdown in pace at the top instead of another zero-g roll.

Off the other end of the midcourse, we mirror the way we got up the hill with another fun, sweeping helix, only this one a little steeper and more to-the-point. The speed quickly increases and there’s a brief moment at the bottom of anticipation from the regained potential energy before it explodes back into kinetic (at least in terms of g-forces and pace). The first flatspin can easily stand toe-to-toe against any of the ride’s first four inversions in terms of intensity, the uniformly fast rotation with an uber-quick ‘snap’ at the top no less forceful than the rollover in the middle of the cobra roll, and the timing is just as quick as well. There’s a moment to breathe with another drawn out flight near the midway. Honestly this moment would have been a dud if it weren’t for two things: the sustained speed which adds to the enjoyable ‘flight’ sensation, and how it leads into a banking increase before suddenly diving down to ground level, which sets up the finale quite well.

The final flat spin / corkscrew is just as intense as the one before it. That’s what I really appreciate about Raptor, these elements don’t get weaker as the ride goes on, these flatspins with the snap at the top and forceful rotational g-forces are just as relevant as the opening elements. There’s an awkward pause in the banking as it begins to anticipate the ride’s final maneuver, the downward helix.

Until this point, Raptor has performed about as well as many other B&M inverts. I appreciate things like the elevated helix into the midcourse brake run that allows for a change of pace, but plenty of other B&M rides have their own special features that are easily cooler than that. However, on each of those other rides, once the final inversion is over they’re best off finding their path to the final brake run as quickly as possible because the pace only lets up afterwards and the longer it takes to wrap the layout up the more anticlimactic the ride is. What sets Raptor in a stratum several notches above the rest is the fact that the exact opposite is the case. While I might have a hard time deciding for sure, if I were to pick a favorite singular element on the ride, it would probably be this final helix. As I mentioned, the g-force / intensity range has been relatively consistent over the course of the entire ride so far, the last flat spin being about as white-knuckle as the first loop, and the same is true of this helix.

But not at first. It starts out slow and gentle, like those few moments of freeflight sensation mentioned earlier. “Hey, this is going to be a piece of cake!” The train continues its spiral around the back half of the helix and navigates sharply downhill. The centrifugal forces steadily accumulate, stretching our dangling legs taut. The last 1/3 of the helix holds us nearly parallel to the ground while the forces continue to increase, the blood flow having difficulty getting to our heads and rushing towards our toes. Feel that tingle? Your body is no longer simply feeling the forces but is starting to display physical reactions to them. On a hot day when the train is really hauling around the course it can be a bit scary and lead to tunnel vision. Personally I still wish it could last just a moment longer but I understand the need to let up lest some riders with weaker constitutions start risk blacking out. Not only is this the most forceful element of the entire ride, but it’s also the longest lasting, and stands as a uniquely distinct centerpoint to the overall ride experience (the analytical nerd in me also wants to note how the layout comes full circle to mirror the first inversion in that it’s just sustained positives with no rotational interference).

There’s one last left turn before the brake run… so much for the ride ending immediately after the big finale. But in actuality, I’m still engaged with the ride experience, and here’s why: the final transition out of this left turn and into the brake run is notoriously sudden and frequently quite painful. I’ll let the reader make their own decision on whether that’s a good or bad thing, but at the very least it definitely shows that the ride is in control of the rider until the very last minute. On the turn leading up to this transition I always get a bit nervous and have to brace myself. Two out of three times it’s for nothing and we jolt into the brakes with no damage to my neck vertebrae, but I still get just enough bone-jarring snaps to always keep me on edge (I’ve not noticed any clear pattern but I do think sitting in the inside rows helps lessen the jostling). It’s not until after the ride is over and we’ve come to a complete stop that I’ve had a chance to inspect myself and determine if we’ve made it through this final maneuver unharmed that we’re finally released from the ride experience and can sit back and reflect on the whole thing as the train advances back to the station. On every other B&M coaster I’ve already started that reflection process before I’ve even made it to the brake run, which a truly well-designed coaster should not allow (unless it’s somehow a deliberate artistic device, which I think it’s safe to say neither Claude nor Walter have ever intended). It is primarily for that reason that I continue to call Raptor B&M’s most successful inverted coaster even though many bolder and more ambitious rides have been designed since it thrilled its first riders back in 1994.

I’d be more than happy to be proven wrong; I do have to wonder how much of an influence 100 or so rides on it will be towards my final opinion over other rides. However, as long as we’re to accept the criteria outlined for a good riding experience as a valid one (i.e. consistent intensity/quality throughout, and one that keeps riders engaged with the riding experience all the way until the end instead of ending in anticlimax), then it should at least be factually provable that Raptor is indeed most successful at meeting these. Whether or not such things are personally as important to each individual reader as other factors such as a really forceful first half or near-miss collisions will invariably rely somewhat on personal tastes. As for my personal tastes… I’m a bit embarrassed I’ve had to establish such a basic, ‘traditionalist’ criteria for a good ride and would like to see an avant-garde response to such aesthetic rules one of these years, but at the moment I’ll take whatever I can get.

[1] Another possible exception is Apollo’s Chariot, which is able to more fully utilize the terrain and small design quirks in the second half that the first half doesn’t as strongly take advantage of. Others such as Kumba, Dominator or many of the stand-ups could also probably be contenders, and I’m sure some people out there would like to refute my assertion about B&M’s designs altogether; the comment box is directly below if that is the case for yourself.

If you’re a coaster and you’re located at a park that has sixteen other coasters besides yourself competing for the guest’s attention, it can be relatively easy to become overlooked. Cedar Point’s coaster collections can more or less be divided into one of two groups: first, the elite group of newer headlining attractions that can generate hour long waits and frequently find rankings in numerous coaster polls, coasters that are not simply ‘rides’ but rather an ‘experience’. These are Millennium Force, Maverick, Top Thrill Dragster, Raptor and Magnum. Then there are the rest of the older, smaller-scale coasters that are there either to allow younger riders a way to work themselves up to the big ones (Iron Dragon, Cedar Creek Mine Ride, Disaster Transport), or are there primarily for fun and to fill in the gaps between the starring attractions (Gemini, Blue Streak, Wildcat), if they’re not just outright bad (Corkscrew, Mean Streak).

Where do Wicked Twister and Mantis fit in? They’re certainly built like they’re starring attractions; Mantis clearly intended to be a larger, stand-up counterpart to the much-loved inverted Raptor, while Wicked Twister is a one-of-a-kind display of innovative technology and ideas that manages both some pretty extreme sensations while also being the third tallest and fastest roller coaster on the Point’s peninsula.¹ But they’re not. Mantis is frequently mentioned in the same contemptible breath as Mean Streak due to frequent roughness in the awkward stand-up cars, and while Wicked Twister has a small following that might think it’s one of the best three or even two coasters in the park, it’s hard not to view it as more of an extreme flat ride rather than fully fleshed-out roller coaster experience. Both are easily overlooked or dismissed as gimmicky, but could there be more than meets the eye?

Wicked Twister

Chalk it up to the beachfront location or the way it perfectly frames the Giant Wheel, but Wicked Twister just seems like a natural fit for the park. Unlike other Intamin impulse coasters where the towers can be a bit of an eyesore from the main midways, Wicked Twister’s bold sunburst yellow spiral towers contrast sharply against the blue sky and lake but don’t detract from the rest of the surroundings. It also serves that area of the park well, as before 2002 the Oceana Midway as it was called was just sort of dead and outdated looking, but with the addition of Maxair and the rest of the renovations in 2005, this corner of the park is now quite colorful and flowing with enough positive energy that we can overlook the fact that it’s also home to Disaster Transport.

But as for the ride itself, is it really that great as a coaster? It goes back and forth several times along a short stretch of track shaped in a large U while spinning the riders. That sounds less like a coaster than like an oversized Disk’ò. Obviously the ride system itself qualifies as a coaster, it’s all the same technology and interface as any other inverted shuttle coaster, but the fundamental nature of the attraction seems to recall less that of a roller coaster— which normally implies some sort of layout with pacing that progresses through a complete experience— than a flat ride, which are only about repetitive motions designed to create and then sustain a singular form of sensation. While it fully qualifies as a coaster, it doesn’t deserve an analysis that extends any further than that which would be befitting of a flat ride. In short, the rotation and freefall up the spikes can be fun, especially if you’re in the back on the second trip up the rear spike, and it has some good speed and strong forces on either end of the pullout once the cycle reaches full speed. That’s all that needs to be said about Wicked Twister, moving on…

Mantis

I still approach Mantis with apprehension. It’s generally not a coaster I go out of my way to ride, but if I’m passing by it on my way to or from Millennium Force and I look up at its dominating vertical loop and first drop and the crowds aren’t too bad, I really don’t have a good reason to pass it by. Some people would say that there are plenty of good reasons to just keep walking, such as a general interest in self-preservation. Yes, the general consensus seems to be that Mantis is a very unpleasant experience and is one of the two or three coasters located on Cedar Point that should be actively avoided at all costs. Considering that Mantis was created by one of the most popular and beloved design firms of all time and located at one of the most popular and beloved parks of all time, one has to wonder how seriously messed-up Mantis must be to have earned it such a reputation.

For starters, the capacity doesn’t do the coasters any favors. Back in the day it would routinely see some of the longest waits in the park, outdone only by Millennium Force and Top Thrill Dragster at the prime of their popularities. It was designed to run three trains in theory, but they quickly realized that trying to get everyone on the loading platform to stand up straight at the same time so they could lock the seat height takes a fair number of practices before they can get it right, so they’re permanently down to two trains with the third one shrink-wrapped in blue plastic sitting under the transfer track shed, presumably being used as a parts donor for the other two trains. After waiting in a slow-moving line for multiple hours in a queue on a hot concrete pad watching trains cycle only once every couple minutes, when people finally get their turn to ride and find out that all of that was for an experience of considerably lower quality than MF or TTD, it’s not hard to see why Mantis is disadvantaged from the start.

Contributing most dramatically to that perception that the coaster is of inferior quality is the roughness. For whatever reason, stand-up trains do not seem to track as well as other B&M rides. Perhaps it’s from the excessively heavy trains and the fact that rider’s heads are so much farther above the rails than on other car designs, small vibrations become multiplied by the extra mass and then made worse by the farther distance they have to travel up the back columns. Or maybe the wheel assemblies just don’t hug the rails that tightly, or the wheels become more easily deformed due to the extra weight. I don’t know; all I do know is that I’ve had rides on it where I’ve seriously had to question the existentialist assertion that a state of existence, even if it is in pain and without meaning, is better than a state of non-existence. The most recent of those rides was over five years ago.

Maybe it’s just good luck on my part but every ride I’ve had on Mantis since (if my memory serves me correctly) at least 2006 has performed somewhere on a spectrum spanning from slightly bumpy but completely tolerable if you know what’s coming next, to as smooth as your average B&M sitdown looping coaster (read, still not glass smooth, but that myth I’ll feel like dispelling another time). Granted, I’ve only ever been on it during early season weekdays or on Halloweekend Friday and Sundays when the park isn’t as crowded so it’s possible I might have some sort of sampling error in terms of the rides I’ve had on it, but honestly based on some of the better Mantis rides I’ve had in recent years I could probably call it one of my favorite coasters in the park if I could ever get over myself.

As I am frequently apt to complain in reviews of B&M’s rides, their layouts normally consist of nothing but plugging one huge, generic element in after another, and they’re unable to maintain good dramatic tension, the second half always being lesser in nearly all regards compared to the first, with riders normally having already checked out in the final moments of the ride and just waiting for the brakes to come. In my eyes at least, Mantis avoids both these pitfalls, making it one of an extreme few of B&M’s creations to do so.

In terms of actual elements featured on Mantis, despite only featuring four inversions, there’s a surprisingly good variety of maneuvers to be found, and even one of those inversions is relatively unique by B&M’s standards (Mantis’ original inclined loop was only reproduced twice in later B&M designs). I will forgo giving a play-by-play analysis of the first half since it’s basically identical to what I wrote for Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom’s now-vanquished Chang, and will just highlight the few points that I see to being key to the layouts’ success.

The opening section with the elevated curve, straight drop, and first two impressively oversized vertical loops is probably the most generic but it only constitutes roughly one-third of the overall ride and serves a very clear purpose as an opening act: WOW! Huge sense of scale, speed, hangtime at the top, overall very impressive and just a little bit intimidating without ever needing to be intense or fast-paced. Even people that get the ride when it’s running at the bottom of its form will generally find some pleasures in this section.

The next section is very original (at least relative to a B&M design), being based much more on twists, turns and slightly odd track geometry and features more varied pacing. After the cloverleaf turnaround over the station which itself has some nice little banking changes, the inclined loop over the lagoon stands as one of my favorite singular inversions on a B&M ride. For the most part you get the same dynamics as on a vertical loop that produce that satisfying feeling of being flipped completely upsidedown (any sort of horizontal rolling motion as found on most other types of inversions will decrease this sensation). However, the trick to it is not just that the loop is leaning to the left by several degrees, but in that physically you cannot simply tip a regular vertical loop like that without incurring lateral g-forces to some extent, particularly at the bottom. Since that’s a big no-no for B&M, what happens is there’s a back-and-forth banking motion going up and down the loop that tries to neutralize any would-be lateral forces. This doesn’t detract from that ‘over and around’ looping motion but does make it feel much more interesting. After this inversion, instead of popping straight back up it continues with some non-standard pacing with the ground level s-curve that both sustained the speed for several moments, offers a quick moment of intensity in the fast direction change that hints at the final section of the ride to come, while even providing a quick pop of airtime that both pleases and surprises. A quick upward helix with a fast transition back to level at the top and the ride slides through the midcourse brake run… falling off it, if you’re in the back rows you can expect to get another strong boost of negative-g’s, assuming the brakes weren’t on too hard.

The final section is what I think makes Mantis the superior ride compared to the two other mega stand-up coasters that followed in its footsteps. Despite only having one corkscrew immediately after the midcourse brake, the rest of the ride is a nonstop collection of very intricate turns with sudden banking transitions, and the ride seems to add layer on top of layer of new direction changes that keeps the timing between elements and through transitions very fast all the way to the final brakes. Both Chang and Riddler’s Revenge sort of commit to the same sin we’ve seen on nearly every other B&M ride, sort of meandering around through some indeterminate twists and curves, eventually working up the momentum to do a complete inversion but sort of not taking the finale anywhere. Mantis’ finale, when running at a good pace (from reduced trims on the midcourse, a good greasing that morning or just favorable weather conditions) can be absolutely explosive, the highly-banked, tight turns switching directions on a dime several times within seconds of each other while snaking around close to the ground is quite a dynamic contrast between the opening section of the ride with the impressive but slowly-timed loops. And for the most part this pace doesn’t let up until it hits the brakes, finishing the ride with one last quick s-turn before the final transition snaps everyone back upright as they prepare for the final stop. I do wish it didn’t have to be over an empty gravel patch (look at how naturalistic Iron Wolf is, it’s about as compact as Mantis and it’s practically in the middle of the woods)

I have a feeling that it’s been dreamt by many other Cedar Point fans that the ride one day get its stand-up cars replaced with sitdown or even floorless cars. I wouldn’t be opposed to such a move, if only for reasons that it would undoubtedly increase the capacity which is still sorely lacking on busy days. That said, I do have a bit of an affinity for the stand-up car design, at least whenever it’s also not the direct cause of severe jostling. The body’s in a much more vulnerable position to forces, the small pops of air found along the course or hangtime in the first loop are much scarier than if experienced with other seating designs. Also as a result of the standing position, one is able to sense rotational forces much more strongly (especially horizontally in fast transitions and forward/backward over drops and loops) and consequently the movement through space feels much more imminent. Besides, it is undeniably a different sort of experience to go through a ride standing up, and after riding every other coaster in the same position, Mantis sees the removal of that comfort zone. While it’s still probably a ride to be avoided on busy days when there are better uses of one’s time, on days when crowds are light and the train isn’t beating its rider’s up, Mantis is probably one of the park’s better roller coasters. One final comment: want to know why they call it Mantis? Well, besides the whole “they looked up the definition of Banshee in the dictionary” thing, look at the ride from Millennium Force’s queue area and tell me what you see…

Wicked Twister (continued)

Oh, come on! I wasn’t really going to just leave it at that, was I? Especially because the statement “flat rides don’t deserve their own analysis” was a perfect example of begging the question, and I figure Wicked Twister is a good example to answer that question with. Besides, anyone that’s actually been on Wicked Twister should know that a fair bit more goes into the experience than that.

To begin with, I’ll spell out my traditional reservations towards flat rides. They’re just not capable of being anything better than a simple diversion. Roller coasters, as this website spells out over many, many pages, have the potential to be art. The tracked nature of the device allows designers creativity to express different ideas and depending on the progression and sequencing of the elements they can emotionally connect to the riders in different ways, much in the same way storytelling or music composition can work. Dark rides also have this potential, although mostly because they’re able to directly borrow theatric or cinematic conventions and apply them in a slightly new context. Other tracked rides could also be said to have this potential (flumes and water rides, cars, transportation, etc) although the number that actually get anywhere near this potential is slim to nothing. With almost no exceptions² flat rides really can’t overcome this. As I said in the beginning, they are nothing more than endless repetition designed to create one or more pleasurable (or nauseous) sensations which are then sustained for as long as they can until they have to end the cycle. There’s no place for the thinking mind anywhere in this experience, no way to understand it that would help one to appreciate it better, at least not beyond finding ways to increase the immediate sensorial feedback. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I love me a good flat ride whenever I go to the local carnival (the Zipper is always one of my favorites). I would even extend the argument for flat rides by pointing out how many styles of flat rides have a social value attached with them in the ways they allow people to share in the common experience and interact with each other while on the ride. However when visiting the amusement park smorgasbord that is Cedar Point, flat rides are for the most part the junk foods that are maybe nice to indulge in every once in a while but in the end you need something with actual culinary artistry to it rather than just the starches and saturated fats that appeal to the leftover hunter-gatherer parts of our genome. My concern is that Wicked Twister is better approximated by a can of Pringles than a dish of fine risotto.

It’s not much of a concern. I still go on Wicked Twister whenever I can while I’m at Cedar Point, and for the most part I enjoy my rides. Sometimes the harness might knock me in the side of the head while entering one of the twists at full speed, but generally I try to brace for that. My mom avoids it like the plague, far too nausea inducing. Some people rate it as one of their favorites in the park, and I can’t for the life of me understand why. This is the coaster I always experience:

After clearing the train the operator reads down “launching in three, two, one,” sometimes having fun with when the actual timing of the launch occurs. The movement forward is initially very sudden, jolting riders against the seat back as the train seems to instantaneously jump from standstill to its steady rate of acceleration, but that rate itself isn’t all too fast, seeming to reach the end of the launch strip just as a bit of real speed has been accumulated. The scream of the LIM motors along this stretch match almost exactly the screams of the riders. The train pulls up, pushing everyone back against their seats harder than the actual launch did, and the front catches a bit of a twist and sunshine, and then the rest of us fall back down. The acceleration kicks back in, not in a way that you can particularly feel it, but the sense of speed, especially as the train flies back through the station at the end of this stretch, is much stronger. Once again we angle up although this time we’re pushed forward against the restraints, the train making it much farther up this back tower than it did the front (although from an individual’s perspective this will vary greatly; back seat riders will notice a huge difference while front seat riders will think the ride’s becoming weaker).

Once again the train is pushed forward down the launch track, the acceleration again not too strong but the speed really having been built up to near maximum, about 69 mph. The train very quickly angles upward in about half the time it took the first time to become vertical, and the front twists around all the way up to the top. For the most part one can only distinctly feel lateral forces, but notice something odd: the forces are both stronger and opposite on your head and feet. That’s pure rotational forces, something Wicked Twister is probably one of the best in the world at doing. The negative side-effect is that you’re going to have a hard time noticing (or at least enjoying) any airtime, not that that’s a huge drawback for me. Once again the train spirals back down, this time taking much longer to get back to the pullout, but once we’re back at beach-level the time before we’re shooting up the back tower again is incredibly short. The LIM motors add a few extra miles per hour on this final segment until the train is rushing back through the station at 72 mph, and this second rear spike ascension is easily the most intense of all, not just because of the extra speed and height but because one is forces forward into their harness and cannot see where they’re going at all.

After this the ride has maxed out its potential and the LIMs grab the train a little bit before sending it up the forward tower for the third and last time. We reach higher than the first time up but the ride’s as good as over when you compare it to the previous two tower ascents. Back down, the final brakes grab hard, pushing everyone back against their seats. This braking force, perhaps because it’s coupled with the reduced bloodflow to the brain after forty seconds of ride time, for some reason always leaves me feeling a little dizzy and lightheaded for a moment, as if I want to go to sleep (sometimes I even put my head against the restraint and close my eyes for a moment as the magnets slowly grind the train back to the loading platform), although I imagine if I were more of a drug-user I might have a better analogy for this sensation.

The final question I’ll pose my readers with is: are Wicked Twister’s successes attributable to the roller coaster design despite the heavy flat-ride influences, or is there something more?

In terms of the actual sensations produced it’s easily one of the most out-there ride experiences you can find (as evidenced by my body’s reaction when we finish with the final deceleration strip), and looking at it more closely I now realize that my initial appraisal of the coaster as not much more than an amped-up flat ride experience is completely wrong. It never approaches a tower with the same speed it did on a previous cycle, and each time it’s only faster and more intense, at least until the final one. There, we’ve got a progression that continually builds up to a climax just with that. But additionally, as a result of the increased speed it also affects the timing of the elements so it’s not just simple repetition. The first cycles will spend much more time on the launch track and curving around the pull-ups than on the actual towers. As the ride gains more speed, the time spent on the launch track and pull-ups decreases quite significantly, while the time spent on the towers increases, along with the total rotation achieved. If there is repetition in this ride, it’s hardly anything like what one would get on a flat ride, and as I’ve noted in other reviews, while basic repetition is generally bad, repetition with variation can be a far more powerful sequencing structure than if each and every moment is completely unique from the other.

One more thing I want to mention is the seating. I remember once a while ago I was in line behind an enthusiast who commented to me just before finding a seat that it doesn’t really matter where you ride on this one. I think he was referring just to the total quantity of airtime produced, which I suppose makes a bit of sense because the more height one achieves by sitting farther forward or back in the train on one tower will only be canceled out when you go up the reverse tower. But it was still completely strange to hear, Wicked Twister probably is the one coaster I could think of where the most difference is found between different seats, to the point that you almost get completely unique ride experiences. While the front tower will get three circuits compared to the back’s two, I generally find myself preferring the back because the experience of going up the tower backward is so radical, and as I mentioned, both the first and last trips up the forward spike are relatively toothless. That said, the very front row is always a treat when the line isn’t too long, looking up the forward spike and watching the perfectly heartlined track seem to spiral away until there’s only fifteen feet or so of yellow rails left is always a one-of-a-kind experience. However, the best seat hands-down goes to the right side seat in second-to-last row of the train, at night. Why not the very last row? Because as the train ascends the backward spike, this seat will twist outward from around the cars ahead of it leaving nothing in front of you except for the sandy beach 200ft below. Unable to see how close we are to derailment at the top of the tower (‘it’s gotta be pretty damn close’, my mind always screams at me), this experience probably even betters Top Thrill Dragster in terms of pure scare factor.

One last completely random, unrelated thought before I close this out: what the heck ever happened to the wheel coverings? I can’t even remember when they were removed, it’s been so long that the wheel assemblies have been operating naked I even began to think that they were always like that until I noticed some pictures of them just now from the ride’s opening year with these big magenta globs covering up the wheels. Also, this is a quote from my dad from a couple years ago; “maybe it’s just me but I’ve always thought that the voice for the pre-recorded announcement in the station sounds very sexy”.

Okay, that’s all.

[1] Technically it’s tied for third fastest with the also 72 mph Magnum XL-200, and whether the 215ft. towers on Wicked Twister should count above Magnum’s 205ft crest even though riders themselves never reach that pinnacle will probably remain debatable. I also could have sworn that Maverick was originally advertised as having a 72 mph top speed but now the RCDb is telling me it’s an even 70.

[2] King’s Island’s Tomb Raider: The Ride was one such exception, as least as it had been in its original form. There are probably other examples of these ‘theatrical’ flat rides out there, but it’s not really important because the theatrical elements are more or less independent of what the flat ride experience at its core is.

“Keep arms down, head back, and hold on.”

That’s the best part of Top Thrill Dragster. Nothing else along the ride can even compare. Accelerating to 120 miles per hour in four seconds? No problem. Ascending straight up a tower 420 feet in the air? Nothing to it. A 400 foot long vertical freefall back down through a 270 degree spiral? Piece of cake. Sitting perfectly still on the launch track, listening to the safety recording, waiting for the anti-rollback brakes to drop and the train to roll back an inch to engage in the catch dog? That’s where the genuine thrills are found. Much as they say it’s more erotic to wonder if you’re about to be kissed than it is to be kissed, so the same applies here. It’s more thrilling to contemplate riding Top Thrill Dragster than it actually is to experience it. For a coaster with the tallest and fastest statistics when it was built, it relies on a surprisingly large degree of psychology for it to work.

This might sound slightly counter-intuitive. Psychology can maybe help make a coaster that isn’t the biggest and meanest out there seem scarier than it otherwise would be. There’s certainly a lot involved in the anticipation of the ride, and that only helps make it all the more effective. But it would seem to most people that once they’re being catapulted to 120 miles per hour and thrown 420 feet in the air, they’re screaming not because psychological tricks are being played on them but because the ride is terrifying, period. Not just as a thing we perceive, but as a thing-in-itself.

But take a moment to analyze what it is that one could properly call objective terror rather than subjective (or psychological) terror. First of all we should realize that all terror is, by definition, subjective. Chunks of steel mass, no matter how enormous, can’t be terrifying unless there is a sentient being around to be terrified by it. But even still, that’s just a technicality, right? The emotions experienced while riding Top Thrill Dragster are all subjective but they are in response to this thing-in-itself which, through logical, rational analysis, can be determined to ontologically have qualities that make it more intimidating than nearly any other roller coaster out there. That’s true of any aesthetic judgment, right? Yes, as humans we subjectively experience a sensation of ‘redness’ and therefore find it pleasurable or not, but we still assume that there is something objectively out there that causes that perception, even if it’s in the form of quantum physics and molecular structures causing light particles to bend to a certain wavelength that, upon hitting our optical nerves, causes the mind to register it as ‘red’. If we want to establish Top Thrill Dragster as a genuine thrill device rather than an overblown use of $25 million just to make us think it’s scary when it’s actually not, that sounds like a promising argument (albeit pretentious, but that’s par for the course on this website). Now we must ask, what are these ontological qualities we perceive as genuinely terrifying?

The incredible height and speed are the first things we want to look at. 120 miles per hour in four seconds and then up a 90 degree, 420 foot tall tower are not numbers to be scoffed at. But that’s a problem, these are only numbers. You can’t actually ‘feel’ speed or height; if we could then a twelve hour flight from Chicago, Illinois to Rome, Italy would be way more exciting. So then maybe we should conclude that its accelerational motion we feel, and that’s what makes it exciting? Top Thrill Dragster certainly has plenty of that, correct? Let’s see:

We’re waiting for the Christmas tree lights to count down our launch. The hydraulic motors start reeling in the cable, the catch-dog positioned along it thrusting the entire 5.3 ton train forward. Not only is the forward accelerational force very strong, but it hits very suddenly (i.e. the change in acceleration very abruptly shifts from zero to the constant force felt down the launch track), causing everyone’s back to snap flat against the seat, and then holding us there for the four seconds down the launch track. An interesting side-effect is that after a second or two our bodies start to acclimate to this constant accelerational force so that once the train gets to the end of the launch strip, many people will report a sudden slow-down in speed. That’s actually not due to any massive deceleration (although the wind resistance is a much greater factor here than on most other coasters) but just from the removal of the accelerational force.

The pull up into the tower is the most forceful part of the ride, the positive g-forces frequently capable of bringing enthusiasts’ arms down, at least those who weren’t expecting or preparing for this force. The way up the tower can only be felt as a light push against the back since we’re mostly following the same freefall path as the train would naturally take, along with some minor rotational forces on the twist up. Cresting the top of the tower can produce very different experiences depending on the launch. Sometimes it barely makes it over, in which one will still feel some ejector airtime on the curve from and to 90 degrees on either side, as is physically required under the dynamic conditions. At times when it’s launching at full speed, the airtime is some of the best you will ever find on the planet, at least for a single, sustained moment’s worth. As mentioned, the physical requirements of such shaping ensure that on the parts of the curve nearing 90 degrees will be the most intense because not only is the train traveling at its fastest along these points in the curvature but the upward centrifugal force no longer has the pull of gravity acting in opposition to it. The way down is in freefall, so again we can’t really ‘feel’ very much here, although the rotational forces around our forward axis can be rather fast and produce some interesting dynamics, especially given the unusual context. The pullout of the tower also produces more positive g-forces, but not nearly as strong as the way in due to the loss from wind resistance. Actually one of the most forcefully powerful sections of the ride comes on the final brake run, the deceleration throws everyone forward into their restraint and holds them there for several seconds until it comes to a final halt. In terms of forces it is actually more intense than the initial launch, mostly because of the position we’re in isn’t able to distribute the forces across our body as effectively.

Now, imagine this entire experience of just forces taking place in an empty, black void. Are we very thrilled? Not really; the forces are sort of strong, but constant, and there’s nothing that could be labeled as ‘dangerously forceful’ or even ‘unexpected’ that should induce in us any emotions anywhere near what we actually experience from the ride. But perhaps that’s fairly obvious to most readers. “Of course it’s not just the forces, but the context of them!” There’s the wind in your face, watching scenery peel by in a blur, looking at the world from 400 feet in the air, and just the pure thrill of knowing how rapidly we’re moving through space…

But wait a minute, this puts us back to where we started, with a roller coaster that physically isn’t all that intense, but becomes terrifying only through an entirely subjective perspective. This would then probably make sitting still, watching the Christmas tree lights count down, waiting to launch, the most (if not only) terrifying moment of the entire ride for most people, because once we’re launching forward the tension from the anticipation has been released, and the rest of the ride that follows is only as scary as we subjectively perceive it to be rather than because it actually is. It’s only after having spent the last hour thinking about how scary 120 miles per hour and 420 feet must be, that when we actually get to experience it, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy all entirely based on psychology. I one time rode it with a friend who, right as we were rolling up to the launch zone, I asked if he was at all nervous, and he answered flatly, “no”. When we got back he reported to be much underwhelmed and the only part he really liked was on the pull-up when the positive g’s forced his arms down, and a little bit of the airtime on the way down but even that he said could have been a lot better given the scale. At first I thought he was exaggerating but after thinking about it I realized his assessment really was completely accurate, at least for anyone that didn’t leave the station already slightly nervous.

This isn’t to demean Top Thrill Dragster in the slightest. It’s a method that works, as evidenced by the 99% of riders that return to the station breathless and hands trembling. What’s more, this argument that the thrill of the ride is purely subjective can be applied to every roller coaster no matter how big or small. It’s rooted in Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgment, particularly on aesthetic judgment and the sublime. For Kant, there was no such thing as an objective judgment, everything we know about the external world must be transmitted through our sense organs and interpreted by our brain, therefore making any aesthetic judgments reflective of the subject looking at it rather than of the object itself. The sublime refers to those seemingly boundless objects that leave one in awe at the sheer scope of it. Examples are normally natural: a mountain, Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon; but they could also be man-made, such as St. Peter’s Square, the Egyptian pyramids… or Top Thrill Dragster. Again, the important feature to remember is that an object such as Top Thrill Dragster is not sublime in-and-of-itself, but only when a sentient subject compares a ride of such incalculable mass to themselves and declares it to be sublime. What specifically makes a coaster sublime is the failure of the subject to be able to mathematically comprehend the object; one can logically conclude that the ride is 420 feet tall or 120 miles per hour, but these numbers are so great that they cannot imagine or understand it in their head at once. Therefore one is left in awe, not because of Top Thrill Dragster itself, but because of the subject’s self-reflexive realization of just how finite their own sensibilities are, and with that the realization that an object of such magnitude has the capability to destroy them.

This all occurs while waiting on the launch track, when one’s intellectual faculties are still able to make such judgments. As a philosopher I suppose it is natural that I would call this ‘waiting and thinking’ part of the experience my favorite part of the ride, because it engages more with the ego and superego. But then the bottom countdown lights turn green and the rationalist subject’s mind is transfigured into a mass of pure id for the next sixteen seconds of their cognitive existence.

Aww, that thrust feels like orgasm, I don’t know what my response should be, am I allowed to enjoy this?

Maybe I should scream, that’s what I expect of me and I’ll not feel so guilty.

Wait, I can’t breathe! they can’t take my air away that’s my air!

what’s wrong with me? i cant see any thing, im just moving through everything

i dont know what this means, am i going to die?

im almost at the end, im going to die in a second this is awesome!!!

this vibration is all inside of me, soooo good, i cant see anything anymore alright death here i come!!!!!!

WAIT im slowing down? not fair i was ready to die but i guess existence is still pretty good

someones punching me in the gut and holding my arms down. i want to hit them but i cant see them grr

samla mammas manna im going straight up into the sky i knew i was going to die!

everythings so big and im so small i wish everything could become only myself

i can breathe again, I can leave my seat, I’m free and alive!

Okay, I can think again. Wow, look at that view. Everything is so real up here! I really don’t want to die, I want to enjoy my existence forever but I know I only have a couple seconds left before we going back down. Try to enjoy this rush of external reality flooding my senses for a single instantaneous moment before we go back down and that thing causes me to close back into myself.

Shit. that is a long ways down.

im spinning and falling and these yellow things look like they want to kill me. i know theyre supposed to let me live but how can i be sure of that? i cant fight it, so maybe death is the only way to guarantee survival.

i think its almost over, i dont know i cant see anything again. somethings pulling on my stomach am i hungry?

alright im back on the ground but im not stopping when am i going to stop i want to go home now.

ow im being punched again, where is it, wait, this is slowing down, I made it, it’s over!

That was insane, but I feel so good to be alive, I loved it! What was all of that I was thinking while on it, I’m already starting to forget? I don’t know, I think it had something to do with Immanuel Kant and the sublime, or is that just my superego taking over again? Whatever, I think that’s good material for my website so I’ll use it. Hopefully I don’t have to deal with too much stacking on the unload platform, once I get off I should probably get something to eat at the Happy Friar and then go over and do Maverick, I hope the wait isn’t too long…

So much for Kant’s theories of aesthetic judgment. In fact, what we may have witnessed is potentially quite revolutionary and could refute my thesis that takes the Kantian argument that Top Thrill Dragster’s thrill is purely subjective. The general assumption in Kant’s work is that while making an aesthetic judgment, one’s rational faculties operate independently of any external object (that’s precisely what makes it subjective rather than objective). What happens on the roller coaster is they become so overwhelmed with sensation (while consequently receiving a boost of adrenaline and other natural responses that automatically respond to these external conditions independent of the brain’s cognitions) that this external object becomes the initial cause that directly alters the way the mind perceives it. We now have a case of an aesthetic judgment that is in some ways objective. Top Thrill Dragster is thrilling because the ride itself is thrilling, not just because we subjectively perceive it to be. Whether or not this represents a fundamental assault to Kant’s theories or is merely an incidental circumstance (or if I completely butchered and misrepresented Kant’s work altogether, an entirely possible event given my aesthetics professor this semester isn’t much more of an intellectual resource than Wikipedia) I will leave to the discussion box below. In the meantime, enjoy a front row point-of-view video: