New B&M invert in France - pretty daring for B&M

Finally! B&M seemed to have figured out the best thing they ever did (well, one great thing, anyway) is the heartline roll! This new coaster has 2 of them:

http://www.potionmagix.fr/forumix/nouvelle-zone-attraction-2012-par...-1150.html

I found the drop to be a surprise too - not all twisting like usual for an inverted. And NO corkscrew (why do they call them 'flat-spins' anyway?) That means no ucky snap that B&M puts in their corks...

Looks to be a pretty cool ride!

The 'snap' is the best part.

Why do people imply that B&M isn't "daring" or whatever? Seems to me that they build the rides that parks ask for.

"Hello B&M? Yes, this is Cedar Fair. We would like to order one of your new Mega Out-and-Back Coasters for our park in Charlotte. What? Oh, you can make it almost exactly like the one in Jackson NJ if you want to. The turnaround? Well...We do like the one on the Nitro and the last few you did for us in Canada and Cincinnati. You know what? Just do something like those. We like those... What? A turnaround like the one in Georgia or Williamsburg? No thanks. Those two are much too interesting for our parks. We aren't really looking for something that unique. We just want more of the same if that is okay..."

Looks like a fun ride. Congrats to Parc Asterix. That place seems pretty cool. Seems like it has caught up to Euro Disney in a lot of ways in the last decade.

Looks rad!

LostKause said:
"The turnaround? Well...We do like the one on the Nitro and the last few you did for us in Canada and Cincinnati. You know what? Just do something like those. We like those... What? A turnaround like the one in Georgia or Williamsburg? No thanks. Those two are much too interesting for our parks. We aren't really looking for something that unique. We just want more of the same if that is okay..."

I dunno... The "hammerhead" as they call it (or beyond 90 degree turn, whatever) turnaround does LOOK extremely interesting. The other helix turnarounds are likely more intense, but most people wouldn't know that just by looking at it... plus, you know, they need more space and etc.

The company doesn't send a park a list with checkboxes and say, "What would you like?" They ask the park what level of intensity it is they want and go from there.

I was just going with the "gives them what parks ask for" thing.

I'd like to think that it is a collaboration between both the park and the designer.

Dear Cedar Point,

Will you go out with me? Check one:

☐ Yes
☐ No

♥ B&M

Now all we need is one of those paper flippy fortune-teller things, and we're all set. (Spoiler alert: All the fortunes say "WindSeeker.")

I would like to believe that if a park has a basic layout idea, they will ask the ride designer to try to design with their ideas in mind. Why would a ride manufacture waste their time designing a coaster when they are not sure if it is what the buyer desires?

But since I have never been involved in the building of a new coaster, I'll just go with what the CoasterBuzz webmaster tells me.

I imagine that a designer would have a few designs to show, and the park picks their favorite with any changes that they may want to see... kind of like paying someone to design your dream house.

Has anyone here been involved with this kind of project? Please enlighten us. :)

LostKause said:
I imagine that a designer would have a few designs to show, and the park picks their favorite with any changes that they may want to see... kind of like paying someone to design your dream house.

This is what I suspect as well, typical of any graphic designer / customer relationship.

Heh.. I'd like to know the person that convinced Six Flags that putting speakers and audio on Medusa and renaming it Bizarro would increase ridership...

Given a certain list of requirements and limitations (cost, space available, etc), manufacturers will make several rough designs for the client to consider. Obviously there is a bit of a conversation that takes place to get the ride layout finalized. I've never been involved in the design process but have been lucky enough to see the different versions of a coaster. The ones I've seen all had a pretty similar layout in terms of the station, lift hill, and first drop. My assumption is that it is just easier to iron out those details first.

For whatever it's worth, Dick Kinzel said (many moons ago) that they were going with Intamin because B&M 'doesn't like to build custom rides' or something to that effect. Anyone remember that interview?

I would imagine the context there was more custom in relation to different ride types as opposed to layouts.

RCDB has it as 115 feet that's the only thing. Still think they never went higher than Alpengiest. That one was never boring to me. If they ever were to go bigger on an Invert I couldn't imagine that not being daring.

I tend to think the opposite. While I certainly like Alpengeist, it feels like all of the elements are giant, and the parts in between then need some run off, making the pacing overall kind of slow. The Batman clones, by comparison, are one thing after another, and that often copied design still holds up really well, I think. Raptor went bigger, and it's a sweet ride, but the block (even though mostly off) tends to break up the pace slightly. Then you take a slightly smaller ride like Talon, and you're going back in the right direction.

I guess what I'm getting at is that the smaller size may actually serve this ride very well.

Agree totally on the invert size thing. In general, the bigger the more boring.

And to go full circle back to the beginning of this thread, the bigger ones lack that 'snap' that make the smaller ones so awesome.

Definitely see how that could translate similarly to this kind of ride.