Kiddie whip musings

I'll be truly amazed if anybody has anything to offer on this but I'll say it anyway.

I've looked at a lot of kiddie whips and I noticed an interesting difference between them. Some of them appear to operate pretty much like a standard whip where the ride tubs actually "whip" outwards around the turns. Others don't do this. The tubs are ridgedly attached to the drive cable and instead of whipping out around the turns they just make a sharp turn (and whipping the child riding it instead).

I'm pretty sure both varients are authentic Mangels whips. Did Mangels change the design at some point? Was the non-whipping version a modification made by a park for maintenance purposes?

Two examples off hand of the whipping versions are at Trimper's Rides and Rye Playland. A non-whipping example is at Stricker's Grove. *** Edited 8/17/2005 4:58:02 PM UTC by millrace***

Bushkill has one of those non-whipping versions. Seems that Cedar Point does as well... click here.

I think Mangels offered two versions of the kiddy whip- the smaller version of the full-sized Whip and the Roto Whip that you mention. I'm not sure what the point of the Roto Whip is, although I image it's more about laterals and less about whipping.

The Roto Whip does give you the whipping sensation though. There is an arm on the bottom that simulates the whipping motion.

Cedar Point has 2 different whip rides. The one linked by Rob is a Roto Whip. The other is a new version of a whip (by Zamperla, I think). It's called the Peanuts 500.

Also, I disagree about the Stricker's kiddie whip. It seems to be a whipping version. It's like the one at PKI. The one at Stricker's has less slack in the chain. The PKI one has a fair amount of slack.

Our kids love whips. Any size, any style, it's all good.

No, not the roto-whip (and where is the "whip" in a roto-whip?)

The non-whipping whip I'm talking about looks pretty much the same as whipping whip but if you watch it run you'll notice that the ride tubs don't whip out around the turns. Instead, they stay parallel to the the drive cable. You can also look at the wear pattern on the floor and see the wide arc the whipping versions make as they turn vs the simple oval made by the non-whipping versions.

So it's basically a ride that travels in an oval? Weird.

When i was a kid in the 60's, there was a kiddie whip that came around the neighborhood about once a week during summer with music playing (Like an ice cream truck). It was pretty big and had a cage around the back of it where the ride was. It was rough and the cars rocked back & forth, the wheels would come off the floor as it was rounding the curve, which did whip around. There was also a ferris wheel and a merry-go-round, but you only saw those two once a year.

I remember seeing those rides at my grandfather's Exxon company picnic, but never a whip version!

Fanofwood, I seen something like that in Oklahoma when I was 10 is years old at a strange little amusement park called Sunshine City. It was 3 kiddyrides on the back of a truck. It was parked at the amusement park for use. I didn't even think about it being like an ice cream truck type of business.

I never knew why the rides were on the back of a truck; it just struck me as very odd. Thanks for helping me to understand is purpose.

...

I worked on the penuts 500, and I seem to remember that it whiped a little bit, but I could be wrong. I remember trying very hard to annunciate the word "peanuts" so it did not sound like "penis" over the intercom. :)