New soft strap restraints installed on I-305

The new soft strap restraints were installed on both I-305s trains in the last day or so. A friend of mine sent me a picture of him on the train today. He said the ride is a bit smoother. I believe this is the first style of this particular restraint in the USA on an Intamin coaster. I will be going tomorrow to check them out.

Danny Biggerstaff
CoAsTeRDaN

One of the people in this video says you get the benefit of being able to put your arms up and not whacking your head on anything, but it also holds you in the seat more. One of my complaints before was that the "lap" bar stapled down so much that any airtime is lost, so I guess that would still happen, but I'd still love to give it another try with the padded straps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgB9Jpvlsb4

Hallelujah

Tekwardo Likes This.

Well, that's just great. I was there just last week. It will most likely be a few years before I make it back.

Was just in the last day or two. They weren't there this past Tuesday.

Does that mean you rode it Gonchar? Interested to hear your opinion.

I really wish they would do this to Maverick.

I really wish this were the only retrofit made to the ride after it opened.

I was planning my first ever trip to KD after seeing videos of it running in its first few weeks of operation. The -20mph version of it looks so sad in comparison.

Also +1 for the "please do this to Maverick" comment! I liked Maverick but was a bit bothered by the couple jabs that the restraints took at my neck.

BBSpeed26 said:
I really wish this were the only retrofit made to the ride after it opened.

I was planning my first ever trip to KD after seeing videos of it running in its first few weeks of operation. The -20mph version of it looks so sad in comparison.

Also +1 for the "please do this to Maverick" comment! I liked Maverick but was a bit bothered by the couple jabs that the restraints took at my neck.

The ride still hits 90mph. Thats what its been clocked at even after the trims. This was told to us by John Pagel last Saturday at Hurlfest.

The only Intamin with the weird OTSR harnesses that *didn't* bother me was Ka...not that I didn't have other issues with the ride.

I don't want to get my hopes up too much, but if these work out - and get sent to Hershey, Mavy, etc., this could be the best thing to happen in restraint design since the Premier retrofits...

The guy in the video said something about these straps possibly accommodating larger riders? Is this something Cedar Point could put on MF to replace the seat belts and reduce the walks of shame?

Kick The Sky said:
Is this something Cedar Point could put on MF...?

NO! Please, no!

Let's not screw around with the restraints on Millennium Force. Ever. Unless of course they adopt the Dragster seats/lapbars. That might be OK.

Great news...the hard OTSR's on Ka didn't really bother me, but the ones on Storm Runner bashed the hell out of my head at the end.

thanks for sharing. i have learnt a lot from this site. i just love it.

Jeff said:
Let's not screw around with the restraints on Millennium Force. Ever. Unless of course they adopt the Dragster seats/lapbars. That might be OK.

Hmmm.. ok call me dumb. What's the difference? And yes, let's under no circumstances get rid of those glorious lap bars.

Danny Biggerstaff CoAsTeRDaN said:
The ride still hits 90mph. Thats what its been clocked at even after the trims. This was told to us by John Pagel last Saturday at Hurlfest.

No way. I absolutely do not believe that, and you shouldn't either. The speed difference between 94mph and 90mph would be almost imperceptible, and there is an extremely noticeable difference between the 94mph trimless version and what they have running now, both on the ride AND off. Just look at the second hill: consistent ejector over a radius that large (aka the way it ran pre-trim) is not rendered incredibly weak floater/barely-air with a -4mph difference.

I'd love to see side-by-side POVs of the pre-and post-trim rides. I would bet money that from the time the train crests the lift to the time the ride hits the first bunny hop at the end of the ride (where the original trims were), there's a 5+ second difference (which would be, to say the least, significant). In fact, when I get home from work I just might see if I can prove that.

I’m going with Duane of RCDB on this one: “When the Intimidator 305 opened it claimed a top speed of 94 mph.Changes made to the ride in the first few months of operation limit it's speed to 79.5 mph." (source)

The only way it'd still be in the 90mph range is if they went up the first hill and removed the majority of those trims.

D_vo said:
Hmmm.. ok call me dumb. What's the difference?

The part of the restraint that connects to the floor on TTD has a kink in it that allows the restraint to come down on top of your legs better. I believe the seats are more bucket like so you sit further into the seat.

...and the seats have high seatbacks, which is not a feature that would be wanted on Millennium Force, imo.

I bet the high seat backs are for the launch feature and not to hold you in.