- Joined
- Feb 9, 2014
- Messages
- 20,922
- Name
- Peter
The last roller coaster I was on was the wooden one in Santa Cruz, CA. Always liked the Wild Mouse ride better.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV3hXbUJOAM
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxWg75ACm3Q
**********************************************************************************
http://nypost.com/2016/06/14/the-worlds-most-terrifying-roller-coasters/
The world’s most terrifying roller coasters
By Michael Kaplan
Japanese thrill-freaks jaded by high-tech, high-speed coasters and flumes strap in for Zen-like thrills in the city of Okayama.
A Brazil-themed amusement park there, appropriately called Brazilian Park Washuzan Highland, boasts an attraction called SkyCycle that requires riders to provide the power. Pedalling tandem bikes and controlling their own destiny, they move along on frighteningly narrow tracks, without the benefit of visible barriers, and rise 50 feet in the air. Parachutes are not provided.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNgF3GIfF1c
A water-torture of a thrill ride, SkyCycle ramps up the fright-factor with a no-tech approach: There’s nothing to prevent bikes from rear-ending into one another, tight turns add to the adventure and safety precautions appear minimalist. Riders gingerly pedal up a roller coaster-style track with seemingly little to stop them from plummeting 50 feet to the ground.
According to the Daily Mail, it is one of the amusement park’s top attractions and ranks among the world’s scariest rides.
What will make people go on these sorts of amusements this summer? “You wouldn’t think we’d put ourselves in such a terrifying situation,”acknowledges Margaret J. King, director of Cultural Studies and Analysis, a Philadelphia-based think tank. “[But] we like the idea that we can get through it. Terror gives us a chance to test ourselves.” And even the most heart-stopping ride probably won’t really stop your heart: The chance of getting injured in a theme park looms at around one in 24 million.
That said, the world of whirl-and-twirl-and-hurl has a new vehicle for administering the test of terror closer to home than China. Dolly Parton’s theme-park Dollywood boasts a new ride that clearly pushes the tremor-inducing envelope. Riders on the country star’s Lightning Rod fly at a speed of 73 miles per hour, rise 200 feet above the ground and risk losing their lunch on a 73-degree drop down. As one early experiencer put it, “Every drop but the last is a serious ejector.”
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVmYoKfU5h0
In nearby Jackson, NJ, at Six Flags Great Adventure, The Joker is nothing to laugh about. It goes up 120 feet, drops at a mind-blowing 90-degree angle and is built so that riders may randomly hang off of the track. A writer from the Asbury Park Press describes it as “maniacal and unpredictable.”
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OauaB05T2nQ
On July 4, things promise to be taken to a new level thanks to the Mako hypercoaster in Orlando’s SeaWorld. According to theme park insider Surya Fernandez, it is the “tallest, fastest and longest roller coaster” in amusement park dense Orlando. It moves so fast and drops so steeply, reports promise, that riders will get a feeling of weightlessness characterized by industry pros as “air time.”
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t90YNARctZA
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV3hXbUJOAM
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxWg75ACm3Q
**********************************************************************************
http://nypost.com/2016/06/14/the-worlds-most-terrifying-roller-coasters/
The world’s most terrifying roller coasters
By Michael Kaplan
Japanese thrill-freaks jaded by high-tech, high-speed coasters and flumes strap in for Zen-like thrills in the city of Okayama.
A Brazil-themed amusement park there, appropriately called Brazilian Park Washuzan Highland, boasts an attraction called SkyCycle that requires riders to provide the power. Pedalling tandem bikes and controlling their own destiny, they move along on frighteningly narrow tracks, without the benefit of visible barriers, and rise 50 feet in the air. Parachutes are not provided.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNgF3GIfF1c
A water-torture of a thrill ride, SkyCycle ramps up the fright-factor with a no-tech approach: There’s nothing to prevent bikes from rear-ending into one another, tight turns add to the adventure and safety precautions appear minimalist. Riders gingerly pedal up a roller coaster-style track with seemingly little to stop them from plummeting 50 feet to the ground.
According to the Daily Mail, it is one of the amusement park’s top attractions and ranks among the world’s scariest rides.
What will make people go on these sorts of amusements this summer? “You wouldn’t think we’d put ourselves in such a terrifying situation,”acknowledges Margaret J. King, director of Cultural Studies and Analysis, a Philadelphia-based think tank. “[But] we like the idea that we can get through it. Terror gives us a chance to test ourselves.” And even the most heart-stopping ride probably won’t really stop your heart: The chance of getting injured in a theme park looms at around one in 24 million.
That said, the world of whirl-and-twirl-and-hurl has a new vehicle for administering the test of terror closer to home than China. Dolly Parton’s theme-park Dollywood boasts a new ride that clearly pushes the tremor-inducing envelope. Riders on the country star’s Lightning Rod fly at a speed of 73 miles per hour, rise 200 feet above the ground and risk losing their lunch on a 73-degree drop down. As one early experiencer put it, “Every drop but the last is a serious ejector.”
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVmYoKfU5h0
In nearby Jackson, NJ, at Six Flags Great Adventure, The Joker is nothing to laugh about. It goes up 120 feet, drops at a mind-blowing 90-degree angle and is built so that riders may randomly hang off of the track. A writer from the Asbury Park Press describes it as “maniacal and unpredictable.”
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OauaB05T2nQ
On July 4, things promise to be taken to a new level thanks to the Mako hypercoaster in Orlando’s SeaWorld. According to theme park insider Surya Fernandez, it is the “tallest, fastest and longest roller coaster” in amusement park dense Orlando. It moves so fast and drops so steeply, reports promise, that riders will get a feeling of weightlessness characterized by industry pros as “air time.”
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t90YNARctZA