While I make it a goal to try to ride new roller coasters as much as possible, there are other enthusiasts that pride themselves in having 100 or even 1,000 rides on a single roller coaster. Last month, Kings Island celebrated a 70-year old man’s 7,000th ride on Diamondback. Could there be a better testament to B&M’s smooth rides?
Roller Coaster Marathons – A Test of Coaster Riding Endurance
Every year, I hear of a roller coaster marathon where contestants try to outlast each other by riding a coaster for hours and sometimes days. For example, Six Flags Over Georgia recently had a contest where riders were given a season pass if they could endure 10 hours of continuous rides on their old woodie Great American Scream Machine.
On the extreme other end of the coaster riding spectrum, back in 2007 Robert Rodriguez set a Guiness record after 17 days of riding Arrow hyper coaster Pepsi Max Big One at Blackpool Pleasure Beach (pictured above). Apparently, he had 5 minute breaks every full hour to eat, shower, and use a restroom.
I couldn’t imagine riding the same roller coaster for even an hour. Especially a looping coaster of any kind. In the ‘G-Force Giants’ episode of Insane Coaster Wars that I was a part of, there was a young girl that was going for a record number of rides on B&M inverted coaster, Afterburn. She rode it 26 times in a row! I’m a big fan of Afterburn and for an invert it’s not the roughest, but those g-forces are no joke. When I’ve filmed there, I’ve been glad that we didn’t have to ride more than 6 or 7 times in a short period of time.
“I Could Ride This All Day” – “Could You Really?”
Many of my favorite roller coasters are intense enough that I wouldn’t want any more than probably a dozen rides in a day. If I had to pick a coaster, it’d probably be a B&M hyper coaster like Apollo’s Chariot. I remember Bert Kriescher from Bert the Conqueror noting how smooth Carowinds’ Intimidator was. “I could ride this all day,” he said. I almost agree, but even that ride’s final helix is forceful enough to make me question that idea.
I would think that the way to go would be something smooth and not too forceful. Geauga Lake’s defunct woodie Raging Wolf Bobs (the re-tracked version I rode) was a great example of ride that’d be on my short list of full-sized roller coasters I’d attempt to ride continuously.
Would you do a roller coaster marathon? What kind of roller coaster or specific coaster would you want to ride in a coaster marathon? Leave a comment below. Image via CC – Flickr User – Ingy the Wingy