Mitch's Poll - Wood Coaster Results

The wood coaster poll results are in.

The top 10:

1. T Express
2. The Voyage
3. El Toro
4. Boulder Dash
5. Balder
6. Phoenix
7. Aska
8. Troy
9. Ravine Flyer II
10. Colossos

Looks like Intamin's wood designs are becoming quite popular.

Almost as interesting as the top 10 is the bottom 10.

166 Mean Streak
167 Magnus Colossus
168 Rattler
169 Coaster-Express
170 Underground
171 Lil' Dipper
172 The Bandit
173 Predator
174 Son of Beast
175 Anaconda
176 The Grizzly

I need to get my ass on one of those Intamin's.

I know looks aren't everything, but T-Express sure looked like all the best of Toro without any of the pointless meandering...I can understand how some airtime junkies could rate it number one... ;)

Who the hell among Mitch voters has been to Korea to ride T Express? Yes, it looks like an awesome coaster, but c'mon, give me a break.

Wow at these supposed "not real wood" coasters absolutely dominating the wood coaster poll. Can we get a few more state side please!

There's no way in hell I'm ever getting to Korea, and even if I do, roller coasters would be the last thing on my mind. ;)

No offense, but I am so tired of all this talk about these intamin woodies like El Toro not being wooden coasters, and people degrading them simply b/c they don't feel like a wooden coaster. Would you rather rate them with the steel coasters? Or are you guys campaigning for a new class call hybrids, so we have wooden coasters, steel coasters and hybrids?

I rate coasters based on how much I like them, and not based on how much they fit a certain category. I always thought these polls were about how awesome coasters are, and not about how they fit into certain categories.

By the same token, Tremors has 36 riders voting (glad I'm one of those). Would I argue that it's clearly in the top-10 wooden coasters? Sure would. But of the fourteen total people riding T-Express, they say there's nothing better. Universally. There's something to be said about "recency effect" whereby most recent rides tend to get rated higher. There's also something to be said for personal opinion in several other ways...one of which is "how much of an effort did I put in to get to this ride"? But you can't discount undefeated.

Very impressive showing for Ek over at SFStL, too.

Ensign Smith said:
Who the hell among Mitch voters has been to Korea to ride T Express? Yes, it looks like an awesome coaster, but c'mon, give me a break.

I believe TPR took a group over this year, which would account for a lot of them.

Great news for T Express. Hope to get to ride it some day. Of the ones in the Top 10, glad to say that I helped put at least 6 of them up there.

Personally, I gotta say that Boulderdash was running insane this year. Even with my bias towards GCI coasters, it should have been #1 in the poll this year. The new trackwork, and reprofiling of the old tricktrack area have made this coaster better than when it 1st opened.

I bet it's those TPRvw riders who exalted T-Express. El Toro still # 3..I'm happy!

GIGAFORCE01 said:
No offense, but I am so tired of all this talk about these intamin woodies like El Toro not being wooden coasters, and people degrading them simply b/c they don't feel like a wooden coaster. Would you rather rate them with the steel coasters?

Actually, yes, for similar reasons that we don't call Gemini or Excalibur wooden coasters.

Matt, the fact that one group of nomadic enthusiasts would be sufficient to skew the poll so much says volumes about what an inadequate sampling of the population it represents.

That's what I've been saying for years. Sure, it separates quality from quantity, but the sample size is statistically irrelevant.

John Knotts said:
There's no way in hell I'm ever getting to Korea, and even if I do, roller coasters would be the last thing on my mind. ;)

Careful. A lot of those girls will steal your money! ;)

Ensign Smith said:
Matt, the fact that one group of nomadic enthusiasts would be sufficient to skew the poll so much says volumes about what an inadequate sampling of the population it represents.

Jeff said:
That's what I've been saying for years. Sure, it separates quality from quantity, but the sample size is statistically irrelevant.

I'm still going to disagree.

It's not the size of the pool that's the potential problem, it's the diversity of those polled...and even then, it's still probably as accurate as one can get for such purposes (and quite possibly accurate enough). 629 enthusiasts is plenty large.

And 14 riders of 629 (a little over 2%) unanimously choosing a given coaster as the best they've ever ridden is a pretty solid indicator.

I suppose you could argue that it's the inverse of the problem with 'popularity' polls like the GT's where sheer numbers put you at the top. Mitch's poll balances that out, but in doing so, seems to lend more credence to smaller samples.

I'm not sure there's a better way to do it though.

With that said, numbers win me over and with the head-to-head thingy he does with the poll, the numbers look plenty solid to me.

In the end, if you feel a sample size is too small to be valid within the poll, then look past those entires.

At the very least understand that like all polls, the results are simply the opinion of those polled when interpreted by those doing the poll - and that's true of every poll from the smallest and most insignificant (like this poll and Mitch's system scoring the votes of those that participate) to the biggest and most important (like presidential elections and the electoral college scoring the votes of those that participate).

I still feel that Mitch's poll is far and away the best indicator of the opinions of enthusiasts in general and a great starting point for finding the 'good' rides out there.

Ensign Smith said:
Matt, the fact that one group of nomadic enthusiasts would be sufficient to skew the poll so much says volumes about what an inadequate sampling of the population it represents.

Gonch took care of this very well above, but I think he kinda buried his best point - if you feel like something has been skewed by a small sample size, then just ignore that part of the results. It doesn't really invalidate the rest of the poll. As long as you understand the methodology Mitch's poll can be a useful tool, but I don't think it ever purports to be anything more than that.

That being said I disagree with your sentiment. Like Gonch pointed out, 14 people may be relatively small but their overwhelming support of the ride absolutely speaks volumes. Additionally I don't really think it matters that there was a large group that went - on the contrary I think that's *great* because otherwise the sample size would have been even smaller. Korea is available to anyone with the time, the money, and a passport so it's not as if many more of us couldn't have gone to Korea to ride the thing. More than anything I think we should be thankful for the ballots of the few that did go, instead of dismissive.

rollergator said:
I know looks aren't everything, but T-Express sure looked like all the best of Toro without any of the pointless meandering

Er.....no offence intended, but which bit of El Toro could possibly be described as pointless meandering? :)

As a general observation I've ridden all the top ten woodies except T-Ex and wouldn't dispute the credentials of any of them. As for the final ten, well IMHO none of these come even close to being as generally hideous as Medusa at SF Mexico.

It's not the size of the pool that's the potential problem, it's the diversity of those polled...

That by definition is statistical irrelevance.