Judging coasters without riding

I think there's a certain amount of pre-judgement in everything we do, not just ride roller coasters. When you sit down and decide which new park to visit, in part you're deciding based on what coasters you may want to ride most, in other words, you're making a decision based on a variety of factors that do not include actually having ridden.

Last night my friends and I had dinner and discussed where we want to go this year; we had narrowed our choices down to a Kentucky Kingdom/Kings Island trip or an all 3 Six Flags in Texas trip. We wanted to ride Texas Giant, we wanted to ride Beast, we decided we wanted to ride the KI/KK coasters more. It wasn't a slam against Texas coasters; but we did make a judgement based on our past experiences.

People who just sit about saying "Ghostrider sucks!" or "Magnum sucks!" without having ridden them, well, why bother about them? Skip the post. Move on.

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LIfe is something that happens when you can't get to sleep.
--Fran Lebowitz

I think its insane to knock (or praise for that matter) a coaster before you ride it. As Jeff alluded to in another topic that a lot of the greatness in a coaster is to be found in the charachter of the ride.

In addition, I know there's a lot of airtime junkies on the board and how can you tell if the thing has great air by a video or a look at a layout? Take Wild Thing for example, great layout and it'd look like you get tons of airtime on the coaster, but you don't if the brakes are on.

Ride it before you judge it.

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Randy Hutchinson
You build it, I'll ride it...eventually

I almost made this mistake with the PNE/Playland Coaster.See my comments on'Bigger hype, bigger letdown'.You should ride a coaster before making an opinion

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Everdred said:
"I disagree. I can make an accurate judgement based on very little information. Take Millennium Force for example. I made a completely accurate judgement after watching Badnitrus' 1st-person video. I have also done this with Son of Beast and Outer Limits. THis applies not only to roller coasters, but to pretty much everything. With very little facts, I can make accurate judgements. I can tell what rides I'll like, and what ones I will dislike."

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Has it ever occurred to you that you're causing yourself to like those rides you've judged early, and you're causing yourself to dislike rides based on early prediction? If you get on a ride after 3 months insisting that the layout is boring, you're going to try to find every little thing wrong with it so that it stays boring in your mind.

Take me and S:ROS (SFDL) for instance. When I first rode it in 1999, I was still CP biased, and anything that didn't come out of CP couldn't really be that great. I thought it was ok. Good, but by no means anything great. Over the last year and a half, I've learned to love coasters of all types, from all parks. This summer, I went back to SFDL and rode Superman, and I was astonished at how good the ride was. It firmly jumped into my top 5, and I just kept riding and riding. Great rollercoaster.

Same thing with MF. I had hyped it up so much in the year before I got on it, that my first ride was good, but not as good as I'd hoped, and I was happy, but felt that maybe it WAS a boring layout....rode it again later in the day, and just got on for fun and experienced it without any preconcieved notions, and darnit if it wasn't the best darn ride I'd ever had on a rollercoaster. Everyone judges, but if you are too set in your thinking, you'll ruin the ride!

Jman

Jman --

Extremely well put. I was going to say something drastically similar to what you wrote above. My theory is if you truly tell yourself a ride will suck, even if you end up liking it a little bit, you had already made up your mind, so you tell yourself it really does suck. I like to refer to that as "self-fulfilling prophecy." As hard as it is not to judge a coaster, I try to not do it too much, as I'd hate to be let down. I find myself talking down about a lot of new-to-me coasters because I want to be completely surprised. Take Goliath. I am expecting a piece of crap, or at least that's what I tell people. Deep down inside though, I can see that it does look interesting. I try to underhype it so when I do ride it, if it IS good, I'll be surprised.

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Millennium is spelled with two N's ;)

Anyone who really loves coasters won't put don't one before they ride it. You should enjoy the new experience and then judge.

This forum is crazy. People can make an opinion about a ride if they want. There are people out there who just can't accept that someone doesn't like their fav. coaster. DEAL WITH IT! It's someone's opinion. It's very unlikely to change!

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SROS221 said:
"This forum is crazy. People can make an opinion about a ride if they want. There are people out there who just can't accept that someone doesn't like their fav. coaster. DEAL WITH IT! It's someone's opinion. It's very unlikely to change!"

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So, basically your saying its OK to formulate an opinion (whether its positive or negative) on a coaster that you HAVE NOT ridden???


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Dayuum, Your HOT!