Coasters that surprised you?

3 woodies suprised me this year: Cyclone @ Coney Island, Phoenix @ Knoebel's and Hershey's Lightning Racer. Cyclone and Phoenix has awesome air, Lightning Racer is 'intensely smooth'.

Viper at sfgadv surprised me. Everybody on every board i have gone to has said this is a horrible coaster and should be torn down. I actually though it was cool. All it needs is new cars and a little paint and it would be awesome. I thought it was fast for a small coaster. My restraints were also tight on me. Maybe people complain about it becasuse the restraints are loose?

I also have to go with Wicked Twister. When I first heard about it, I didn't think it was going to be much fun at all. I looked at the construction pictures while it was being built and still thought it looked lame. Now it's one of the rides I absolutely must ride before I leave the park for the day. It's in the top 3 of my favorite coasters at CP.

I forgot about SFA's Wild One. That was definitely a surprise for me back in '03.

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lurch said:
double loop @ geauga lake because of how smooth it was for an arow.

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I totally agree on that one. I got on thinking "I'll do this just once", and three rides later I was still excited about it.

I was truly surprised by how much fun Wildcat is at Cedar Point. The drops are amazingly fun.

All Schwarzkopf Wildcats impress me. They look like run-of-the-mill Zyklons and Galaxies (which are also fun) but they are so much more. Almost as much fun as Jet Stars, which are becoming way too rare.

I'll put in a vote for the aforementioned Wild One at SFA. I definitely expected it to be just another crappy Six Flags-maintained woodie, but it definitely had a surprisingly nice kick to it. I think I like it. :)

5. Wildcat at Cedar Point. a little single-car coaster thingy, looks almost like a carnival ride, but it's surprisingly smooth and fun. the best part is how the cars brake at the end of the ride ... by ramming into the car in front of them!

4. Wild One at SFA. the almost completely unbanked helix, and that one sideways jerk right before it, really make this coaster unique. it LOOKS like your standard out-and-back, but it packs a punch.

3. Apollo's Chariot @ BGW. it was my first B&M Hyper, and to me, this is almost the perfect roller coaster. so high and so fast, and so unbelievably smooth. the landscaping and the view take your breath away, and that little dive down to the river at the turnaround is bliss.

2. Le Monstre at La Ronde. i'd heard this was nothing special, but i found it to be one of the most interesting layouts i'd ever ridden, and it's huge (but not rough or painful) to boot. awesome ride!

1. Outer Limits: Flight of Fear @ PKD. look, the subject is which coaster SURPRISED me most. this is going back a ways, but when FoF was brand new, i went to PKD with some friends. i saw the new ride, and thoguht the building looked cool, but had no idea what was inside. i think i had vague knowledge that it was a coaster of some kind. i really liked the line with the cheesy movie playing, and the huge UFO that you walked up into, i thought the whole thing was really well done, but i still had no idea what the ride was. so finally, we make our way up into the UFO, and turn a corner, and there is a coaster train (yay a coaster!), and people getting into it. there are some neat sound effects, too. cool, reminds me of space mountain. and then, without warning, the train is GONE! it SHOOTS out of the station like nothing i've ever seen before! my mouth fell open. i'd never heard of a launched coaster before. i had no idea what i had just seen, just that it looked crazy fast. the next train rolls into the station, sans passengers, and i apprehensively strap myself in. the train shoots out of the station, which is even MORE intense when your on it, through a strobe tunnel, and into a ridiculous series of disorienting inversions and turns. back then the midcourse brake was NOT turned on, and the ride was fast-paced throughout and didn't let up till it was over. i suppose i was also tall enough not to get my head banged around by the restraints =) i got off with my head spinning. i had never been made that DIZZY by a coaster before, nor been so impressed with the theming. and my god, the launch!

of course, we've got bigger and better nowadays, and poor FoF gets a midcourse STOP now, but my first ride on that was my most surprising coaster ride of all time.

Canyon Blaster at the Adventure Dome, in Las Vegas. I was expecting it to be rough like most arrow loopers, and considering it was ten years old. Instead it was incredibly smooth, and absalutly fun. I rode it over and over again, it was a great ride for how small it was, and I cant get over the smoothness.

Good to hear, since I'll be riding it next month!

As others have commented, Geauga Lake's Double Loop is pretty good. Not at all rough or uncomfortable... I just wish there was a little more to the ride!