Two B&M Hyper Coasters Go Head-to-Head in the First Edition of Roller Coaster Showdown
Bolliger & Mabillard’s critically acclaimed hyper coasters are tall, airtime-packed, modern thrill rides. This week, I’ll be pitting Busch Gardens Europe’s Apollo’s Chariot against Six Flags Great Adventure’s Nitro.
Nitro at Six Flags Great Adventure
-Nitro boasts a taller first drop (215′). It’s the 9th largest America.
-The fourth hill is a hammerhead turn more than 100′ in the air. (Seen here.)
-Nitro has an S-curve and a tight upward helix. Nitro has more of a flying in the air feeling” than Apollo’s “closer to the ground” layout.
Apollo’s Chariot at Busch Gardens Europe
-Apollo’s Chariot’s lift hill is only 170′ tall, but it offers a 210′ drop to the surface of the Rhine River.
-Apollo’s third drop features a swooping decent resulting in the train skimming the ground. Great for those riding on the left side of the train.
-AC is packed with airtime, especially on the series of bunny hills on the trip back to the station.
Edge: The edge goes to Apollo’s Chariot for its relentless amount of airtime on pretty much every hill. Not only are riders treated to an insane number of drops, but they also experience airtime (being lifted out of your seat).
Which coaster would you pick in this week’s Coaster Showdown? Do you have suggestions for next week’s edition? Leave a comment below.
Coaster Critic 
39 responses to “Nitro vs. Apollo’s Chariot | Roller Coaster Showdown”
Cole, that post will be locked soon. Just trust me. It'll be edited, or eliminated
Yup. Cole you've been blocked. Please people, try to make your point without swearing.
I agree. A.C. is better.
I've been on both, and they both are very good rides – but I think Nitro has a slight edge. Nitro's spiral is much better than A.C, and Nitro's drops are better. I think the woods setting also helps Nitro.
I think Nitro is better becuase you go over the hills faster and you kinda fall out of your seat. Nitro has more drops and their mostly bigger throughout the ride. I also like the bunny hills and drops at the end of nitro. I think nitro is in a better park than AC is in.
i would have to say the edge goes to nitro.
ac is good, but i don't think it does a hole lot! the turn around on ac is pretty much just a double or tiple helix and their are no over banked turns on ac just a tun of bunnyhops.
the themeing on ac is verry good verry colorful and a nice line to wate in with covered roofs wood, and umbrellas providing a canopy obstructing sunlight. another thing that turns you on is the smell of ac. they put the line next to some great pastery shop and it smells amazing.
nitro offers a lot more nitro offers 3 great hills 100ft+ one of them turning you sidwase at the top, a hammer head(overbanked turn) a (s) curve and what few bunnyhops nitro has to offer, are better then any of ac's bunnyhops going back to the station.
nitro has a junk yard theme and i would have to say has the better theme. line wise. not station or ride wise
for daytime riding i would choose ac cause the line is in the shade, but night time nitro lights up much like top thrill dragster where as ac id like kingda ka at night.so nitro looks cooler at night and you have a better sunset to look at.
station rules, ac does not offer bins to put articals in. so you have to sit on what ever you have or your not riding ac. nitro your were allowed to just throw your shoes etc. on the other side but now i think they have bins.
reply to me at youtbe.com/tslabjr7 if you want to reply.
I prefer A.C. because of the airtime as the critic pointed out. I also love the dive into the River and the pre-drop on the first drop. I rode Nitro front row and it is still on the chain when you go over and I think that halts some of the momentum. Either way they were Both GREAT rides and I love them both. B&M hypers are my favorite!
Apollos all the way! love dat ride! Has better hill with the fake drop! -lol 😉
i still like nitro enough said :}
I think Nitro is just a more intense ride. I usually ride Nitro 2-3x per visit which is multiple times a year b/c I have a seasons pass+live about 1 hour away. I did however ride AC over 15x in a row b/c of unlimited quick queue and I must say I was very impressed by it as well.
Love them both. I think Nitro is better and more intense. My wife actually raised a hand on AC, She barley even opened her eyes on Nitro and would not ride it twice. She rode AC repeatedly. She has blood pressure issues…so that nitro affected her pressure that much more than AC should tell you something…
Noo this isn't right at all
Nitro!!!
In terms of the actual ride, Nitro felt a bit more intense and had a little more airtime when I rode it. They're both great rides though
I never even knew Nitro had a theme. The station just felt like an old shack when I was there.
Nitro is an abbreviation of Nitroglycerin, a heavy liquid material used in dynamite and other explosives. I don't know why it would have a junkyard theme, so I think the supposed "theme" of the ride may of been just a coincidence.
PS- According to Wikipedia, Nitroglycerin is also used to help treat heart disease and prostate cancer. I just thought that was interesting.
that is a difficult question for me. i have ridden both of them. Fortunately Apollo's Chariot was my first experience of the two. So i'm going off on a limb and choosing AC over Nitro.
Nitro is smoother, and has more big hills. It also has the swooping drop out of the station, which is fun. Nitro has more elements than apollo does with the hammerhead. Nitro also has, in my opinion, a more interesting L shaped layout than apollos out and back. Nitro also seems more spread out, and like c c said has more flying in the air feeling, which I think is what makes great coasters.
My wife and I for our honeymoon hit 10 roller coaster parks in 11 days in July 2010.
We got to ride well over 50 coasters.
Apollo's Chariot was very memorable. I was simply awesome and the amount of airtime reminded me of Magnum XL 2000.
Nitro was lost in my memory along the likes of the Mind Erasers and racing woodies. SFGA impacted me much more with El Toro and Bizzaro. Nitro just didn't seem like a standout to me like Apollo's Chariot.
Clear winner to Busch Garden's.
Now that's quite a honeymoon. You chose well Peter!
Peter, you just verified what I was thinking about for a while. Nitro is overlooked by some people because it is in the same park with el toro and kingda ka. I think Nitro is much better than bizarro(sfga) by alot, though. Apollo stands out because it is in a park with 3 other roller coasters- one that is an old but still ok arrow looper(loch ness), one that is a tall and fast but somewhat painful on cobra roll invert(alpengeist) and one that is tall and fast and steep and awesome but is too short(griffon, although I do like it better than apollo). Nitro is in a huge park with more than 10 other roller coasters. I love Nitro, though. Its only equal in sfga is el toro.
I simply choose Apollo because this oldie is a goodie. I know it's got fewer camel backs than Nitro, but for being the first hyper coaster by the same company, it's pretty impressive. Plus, I really like the view you get when you're on the lift hill.
Nitro was everything Apollo had (with a better kick of excitement), but…. I HATED waiting in line. The amount of time they took dispatching each train was ridiculous. That's my only complaint
Really? The loading was slow? I always think the loading is fast, especially for great adventure. But apollo did not have any line at all except for the seat lines when I went, and Nitro does. The secret might be to go to nitro early in the day, although I have also ridden it later in the day and the line wasnt bad. Compared to waiting for el toro and kingda ka, nitro's line is almost like a walk on. Except when those evil platinum flash pass people take a second ride on the row youre waiting for, then it takes longer.
what about Goliath at Six flags over Georgia? i think its better than both of these
apollos chariot is smoother and has better airtime and more length
wrong
voted by many coaster enthusiast in the world, A.C is one of B&M's smoothest and quitest coasters. It been rateda 9.31 in smoothness, while Nitro gets stuck with an 8.4.
I pick nitro because of all the uniqueness of the ride ! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I didn't post this.
I didn't post this either.
From now on on I am going to change my name to player 118462.
I'd pick Nitro, but I have been on it more, so I'll have to get back to BG to ride AC.
Apollo is great but not even close to the intensity of Nitro. I feel the airtime is much longer and stronger on Nitro. Each of the big humps pins you out of the seat for over 3 seconds. The 3 largest humps are insanely scary especially the one that turns at the top. It feels like the train is going to keep going straight and fly off into oblivion! I also think the smaller humps at the end of nitro have much stronger airtime. Although that sneaky last drop on Apollo is great! And yes the Hammerhead turn around on nitro is way better than the helix on Apollo.
Nitro is way better. Apollo is probably the the B&M mega coaster with the least amount of intensity. I'd say It's horrible. I would change the edge if I were you, Nitro's theme is better than a historical theme, and if you say Nitro doesn't have airtime, you didn't ride the coaster. Enough said.
Does what you ride first matter? You should see the rest of the peoples comments, which don't focus on what they rode first.
Nitro also keeps getting the golden ticket for being one of the best steel coasters on the planet. Apollos Chariot is unknown to lots of people.
I'd be interested to see Montu go against Alpengeist. My vote would be for Alpengeist. My top 5 favorite looping inverted coasters would be
1. Alpengeist
2. Montu
3. Talon
4. De Javu
5. Raptor
You should do a showdown with nitro vs Goliath sfog
Why did you write such a short showdown?
Not sure. I think this was one of my first showdowns.
I have ridden both and even though they are both built by my favorite manufacturer Apollo win hands. The air time, the ride and the smoothness of this ride is the ultimate ride–especially at night.