Mitch's Wood Coaster Poll - Results

At this point, I just don't feel like I have enough under my belt to be participating in these polls even with 180+ coasters in my roster.

With only some of the Northeast (up to SFNE), a little bit of the South (including Virginia, Texas, and North Carolina), a little bit of the midwest (including HW, SFSTL, CP, GL, IB, SFGAM, SFKK and KI), I think it'd be an unfair comparison placing ballots without also having ridden coasters in the Northwest, upper midwest (Wisconsin and Michigan), and West Coast.

And maybe that's not the point about these polls--that you can't possibly ride everything that's out there--but some people have managed to do it.

In reply to Vater, a lot of people who've ridden El Toro are undecided afterwards if it's a "true" wooden coaster or not. But if it's the future of woodies then I'm all for it!

Getting "beat up" on some woodies (see: The Boss) is not my idea of a good time and having an awful ride because you have to trim the ride to death (see: Mean Streak) is not the answer either. If you're going to go big, then make it enjoyable or don't bother.

Mamoosh, maybe you're right that El Toro is the maintenance-free coaster (I wouldn't know) and that's why they picked it out, but I actually enjoyed Rolling Thunder despite all its squealing this summer (left track). So obviously, some work has been done on it.

No, the poll is still not relevant. If we talk about this over coffee, can we only do it in the context of the poll? Of course not.

Except the "discussion" began with two comments to the effect that El Toro was "hardly a woodie at all" and "barely a woodie."

And one of those two comments was made by someone who hasn't even ridden El Toro!

What difference does that make? I swear you guys are just looking for a pissing match. No one is saying it's not a good ride, but could someone point to all of the reviews of the ride (or any of them) that say it rides just like a traditional wood coaster? I haven't seen them.

I was referring to me. On page one I said:

At night, El Toro dreams its as good as Voyage. And then it wakes up, realizes it's hardly even a real wooden coaster, and is sad all day.

*** Edited 12/11/2007 2:24:55 AM UTC by Mamoosh***

It rides like a traditional wooden coaster. (and apparently many of Mitch's poll participants agree) There's my review!

I'd never say it rides like a traditional wood coaster because it doesn't It rides better than one.

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Intamin Fan said:
At this point, I just don't feel like I have enough under my belt to be participating in these polls even with 180+ coasters in my roster.

With only some of the Northeast (up to SFNE), a little bit of the South (including Virginia, Texas, and North Carolina), a little bit of the midwest (including HW, SFSTL, CP, GL, IB, SFGAM, SFKK and KI), I think it'd be an unfair comparison placing ballots without also having ridden coasters in the Northwest, upper midwest (Wisconsin and Michigan), and West Coast.

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Don't know how familiar you are with Mitch's algorithm, but it does take things like that into account (which is why it's so much more useful than popularity contests like GT). Your ballot only matters for the coasters you ride. If you haven't ridden it, you neither add to it, nor take away from it.

^To add to Andy's "spot-on" commment: There's almost no way to create an "unfair" situation in Mitch's ballot. If you ONLY rode three coasters in Outer Mongolia, and filled out a ballot, you would do nothing to help or hurt the rankings of ANY other coaster.

You COULD, theoretically, rank Voyage at the bottom of your list to TRY and influence its position....but even in that rare circumstance, your poll would be *overwhelmed* by the number of riders who rank it favorably compared to all the coasters THEY had ridden. It's an almost-perfect system... :)

Almost except for the Group mentality of TPR.

As a group *At least several of them the ranked Voyage 25 spots lower than ET where the average was between 1-5 spots below for the LOSSES of those who had ridden both.

I do the same with BD but not because I feel every other coaster was a ton better, It was because I didn't get the ride others claim to have gotten and the whole return run of it's is Magnumish at best.

To me that just reieiterates just how good Voyage is when it had a stack against it and still won as it does with BD still ranking well overal against people like me who just don't get it other than it's speed and setting.

Chuck *** Edited 12/11/2007 8:57:29 PM UTC by Charles Nungester***

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Mamoosh said:
No. It was Six Flags way of adding a coaster they assumed they'd have to do as little maintenance as possible on.

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It's as simple as that.

^Remember that El Toro was one of the coasters that slipped in "under the radar," under the old regime.

What's wrong with picking out a ride that you have to do as little maintenance on as possible, when you're running a huge debt?

Let's see; pay a bunch of guys (or girls) who have to walk the tracks everyday looking for loose nails and loose boards, or not (and I don't know if that's the case or not). Boy, there's a hard decision!

Nothing is wrong with it. I wasn't assigning any judgement call if maintenance costs played a part in their decision to go with an Intamin Plug-n-Play. I'm sure most, if not all, parks take long term maintenance costs into consideration when chosing new attractions.

I could be wrong, but I'm assuming people still have to "track walk" El Toro. The support structure is still the same, so those nails and wood members would need checked on a regular basis for splits, etc...

I have never ridden ET but I do have to ask, what does the trains wheels ride on? Wood or steele, I was under the impression that the wood track was capped by steele. If this is true, I would call ET a steele coaster as the train rides on steele.

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raser said:I have never ridden ET but I do have to ask, what does the trains wheels ride on? Wood or steele, I was under the impression that the wood track was capped by steele. If this is true, I would call ET a steele coaster as the train rides on steele.

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Please be more informed than that, All wooden coasters ride on steel rails that sit on top of wood layered or milled. Almost all have steel inner running rails and at points of negative G steel is placed underneith.

Wood alone with steel wheels riding on em wouldn't last one day of operation.

Chuck, not knocking you but this was a no brainer.

The Voyage is the ONLY rollercoaster I will repeatedly get in a line that's over 30 minutes long for. It's just that perfect.

That's because you need at least 30 minutes of recovery time after each circuit. So intense!

You need 30 mins of recovery...not everyone does. I rode it non-stop except for beverage and bathroom breaks at HWN this year. :-)

You and me both Moosh, But I will say prior to loosing 50pds it was a challange to handle more than a couple rides.

Chuck, who rode it more than fifteen times in the final hour both nights at HWN.