New Entries in the CoasterBuzz Top 100

Yeah I know it has to be the experienced riders- that's what I was inferring with the "riders with big track records" part of my post. But I thought it would be cool to see how many riders there are as part of the coaster stats/pics page. I can check if any cb user has been on a ride by looking at their track record but not the other way around. I'd also be curious how big of a track record one has to have to be in the top half of riders and therefore be counted in the rankings.

Banshee is fantastic I agree- I love the drop out of the zero g roll into the valley and the slow roll at the end. Plus the restraints are uber comfy. If the final helix was more forceful- a la top gun (flight deck) CGA the ride would be just about perfect!

I think inverts eat people so well because ride ops have such easy access to check restraints- they can walk through rows freely and don't have to bend over. Add on top of that it's easier for boarding/ stowing loose articles- rather than wriggling your way in and out of a coaster train you can walk right through.

The specifics of that are not something I'm interested in sharing, just because I don't want some clever PR person trying to game the ratings. Yeah, I've had to delete some fake accounts.

You caught me! Wow, I hadn't even thought about that. Makes sense.

Jeff said:

What is it about the designs on many of the inverts that makes the dispatch interval so near perfect?

I'm not sure what it is - maybe it's the placement of the seats and that they're easily checkable by one person across the row? No bending down, and no train link/hump in the middle?

I don't know what it is, but especially with Banshee, it's incredible how the train only parks on the brakes for a short stint, then pulls in to the station as the other one is on its way out. It's quite impressive, actually.

If I get a little time, I'll go into a little more detail in a trip report, but anyway, I was at Carowinds on Sunday, and if I were to say the Fury crew was hustling, it would be a major understatement. I don't think the crew ever stacked all three trains, and the second train was only parked outside the station for a few seconds. There was a period there in the late afternoon that the crew was so good at dispatching trains, that the computer would hold the newly dispatched train on the holding block before the lift hill for 5 - 10 seconds or so before it would let it onto the lift hill.

Anyway, I think the biggest thing slowing the rides down is the bins. The parks really need to get rid of the bins for all the big rides. Rides like Fury, Gatekeeper, and Banshee have a no loose article policy, and thus they don't waste time for the riders to place things in the bin. If Diamondback didn't have bins, I'm sure the dispatching would be better.

As far as the inverts go, I think the big advantage they have is how easy is is for the operators to buckle the seat belt. They just grab it, click it, check it and move on. On the rides like Fury, Diamondback (last year anyway) the seat belt is tucked away in a position where it is much more difficult for the operators to buckle.

I have to disagree with you. Bins don't cause a ride to stack all 3 trains.

Yeah, but they don't help either.

Sure, but you can't blame bins for a crappy crew.

Sometimes it's the policy. When rides don't open the incoming guest gates until the last trainload of guests has crossed the exit gate (Nitro, for instance), picking stuff up at the bins delays the loading process....and kills capacity.

I forget what coaster it was. But, at a park in Spain, on most of the coasters in the park they told you to take everything on the ride with you. This was partly (or mostly) due to the rampant thievery. I recall a guest holding a large backpack in his lap a few rows in front of me on a fairly aggressive wooden coaster. At the same park, I think it was a B&M inverted coaster (don't hold me to that) they actually have bins for your stuff. However, due to the same reasons mentioned above, the ride departure sequence was as follows. 1 ride op blocked the exit while another watched everyone gather everything up from the bins. After everyone had everything, they would open the exit. After everyone had exited, they let in the next train load of people.

Just saw this today, but Outlaw Run joined the list this week at #2!

Very nice! I was expecting it to land top 10 one day but #2? Great dubut!

Excellent. Outlaw Run remains one of my favorite coasters ever, it's so thrilling.

Here's my question. How does a coaster debut at #2 but not until it's into it's third season? Did every one of us finally get there? Or did we finally get around to updating our lists and ratings? Not that I'm complaining, mind you, it's had my five star rating since it opened. But this list mystifies me sometimes.

The math is explained in the FAQ. You've gotta be in it to win it.

I expect Fury 325 to claim one of the top 5 spots whenever it makes it to the list. If I had to guess, that will likely be sometime this year. I suppose it depends on how many people have made plans to make to Carowinds this summer.

I suppose I should get around to rating my coasters instead of just logging that I've ridden them.

Wow. I gave Outlaw Run 5 stars, but I didn't think it was *that* good. Heck, it's #6 on just my wooden (an increasingly meaningless distinction) list. I would be surprised if it didn't settle a little bit closer to #15 on the CB100.

Yeah, the sample is kind of small. I've wondered if it wouldn't make more sense to require a ride to be on 2/3 of the experienced track records, but it would take a long time to get new rides on there.

I think I'd rather have a ride appear and be slightly inaccurate than not appear. I mean, I gave it 5 stars and it's a great ride, so....

If anything I need a little more granularity in my ratings up near the top, like a 4.5 star rating (which Outlaw Run would have gotten, had it been available).

Edit: After a little looking I've given out ~30 5-star ratings out of ~300 coasters. 10% seems about right, but that 30 includes my OMFG rides (El Toro, Voyage, Phoenix) and ride that were pretty good but...(KRumbler, Outlaw Run, Xcelerator).

I still really like the simple rating system according to the key. I think when you give people the choice between "above average" and "among the best," it's pretty clear to make a distinction between the two. Anything more than that, to me, is over-thinking it.