Magnum Opening Year

Jeff, you are 100% right on how to ride Magnum. I think it was thanks to you that I am able to ride with zero bruising. I appreciate that tip (which I think I read on the old Guide to the Point).

Your advice on the seat-belts is now part of Standard Magnum Riding Procedure!

-Sam

Didnt it get stuck at the top of the hill alot, or going up it. I was five or six when it opened it, but i remember that being a problem too. Didnt they have some sort of a safety device with it with the wind or something. Laugh if im wrong

Ha ha. Ha ha. ;)

Actually, it had a few problems with the chain breaking since it was such a huge chain.

Jkpark I didn't think anyone was going to mentino the chasing lights. I always thought that was the coolest thing too bad they don't have them anymore. From what I understand from earlier postings they were too costly to keep up...

Anyone else feeling old right now?

I don't think lift chain breaks were that common, but I do remember seeing people being evacuated from the lift hill on the news.

It did get stuck in the pretzel once. It was a cold and windy day and I think the combination of too much headwind and too much braking caused it to lose momentum and stop in the pretzel. They had to call in the Sandusky fire department to rescue the victims. A friend of mine was there that day and he said the employees were trying to throw coats up to the riders to keep them warm.

After that incident they added the wind monitor you see at the top of the first hill.

CF made a substantial donation to the Sandusky fire dept.

BTW if anyone wants to do the research, all of this stuff (the bloody noses, the stuck train, the fire dept. rescue) was covered by the local Cleveland Newspapers. I'm sure it's on microfilm in the Cleveland Public Library. I wish I had saved those articles.

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kpjb said: Also being 16 and not the afficianado I am nowadays, I remember getting off and asking my mom "Why didn't it have any loops?"

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I was into loops back then too. I thought KI's Vortex and SFGAm's Shockwave were so much better than Magnum because they had loops. Now I ride Vortex maybe once a visit and we all know what happened to Shockwave.

*** Edited 2/18/2005 3:20:36 PM UTC by Jeffrey Seifert***

Yeah, at the time, Vortex may have been a better thrill, but Magnum definitely aged better.

Vortex (and all of that era's Arrow mega-loopers for that matter) is just so rough now that the enjoyable parts of it are stricken from my memories.

I kind of have a bad view towards Magnum as of right now. But then again, this past visit to Cedar Point wasn't a choice one.

Magnum has seemed rough to me, but always was fun until this past year, it felt more rough than normal. I walked off with a headache. Then again, Raptor did the same thing to me this past year. Maybe I just shouldn't ride Mean Streak before some of the other rides next time. ;)

I think people think Magnum is rough compared to opening mainly because of what is around now. The ride has aged and yes, has gotten worse, but not by much. The smoothness of the new rides (Millennium Force, Raptor, Mantis [at times], TTD...) makes the comparitive look towards Magnum that it is at it's worst, when really, it hasn't changed much and that Magnum's smoothness is almost litterally the "norm" of Arrow in their day. Point of views can change by evolution, which I think is the case of Magnum.

Chippin' in my $.02 into the pot... ;)

*** Edited 2/19/2005 2:33:29 AM UTC by Rctycoon2k***