Raging Wolf Bobs construction work being done

Maybe the ride will be better next year? Maybe they'll get new trains? The reason I'm saying this is that the park was rumored to do a heavy overhaul on the ride and now they have started to tear up the ride's track.

If you want to see the pictures I took from today you can see them on my website.

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Six Flags Worlds of Adventure Online

When I was driving to work the other day saw a couple cranes around it.

Just MY opinion mid you, but short of a pretty serious re-profiling, any work done on RWB falls under the heading of "throwing good money after bad". Poor layout was what doomed the coaster...of course, your mileage may vary....
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I have ridden the future, and it's name is......X!

Mileage? I think I jerked about 6 inches in a constantly changing direction every 5 feet of the track. Left, then right, then up, then left, then down, then into my lapbar... owww!

Legend has it the layout worked pretty well at Riverview, any Riverview Bobs riders out there care to enlighten us youngsters?

I personally don't see what was wrong with RWB. Villian hurt more during my visit to WoA...

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Never Has Gravity Been So Uplifting.

BullGuy -

I thought both of them were bad. But RWB hurt more...

I don't think it needs to be reprofiled, but the track is a mess. I realize those trains aren't ideal, but the gauge is so sloppy that they have no choice but to shift violently about through the entire course.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com
"There's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, when it's all in your mind. You gotta let go." - Ghetto, Supreme Beings of Leisure

The profiling is the reason that the RWB are an embarassment of a homage to the Riverview Bobs. The footprint is a proven winner but the pacing of the hills on the RWB are sooooooo BAD that it doesn't look at all like the original. And for that matter it doesn't ride like it either. Even before the shuttling was really a problem the ride was slow.

Jeff said:

I don't think it needs to be reprofiled, but the track is a mess. I realize those trains aren't ideal, but the gauge is so sloppy that they have no choice but to shift violently about through the entire course.

I hear you man! The only thing I was thinking of while I was on RWB was "how many inches far are the guide wheels from the inside running rails?". The entire train was literally shifting from left to right as if we were snack crackers inside a lunch box.

RWB is not a poor homage or whatever you call it. It is a 'tad' better than the original do to the better engineering alterations that allow better transitions. It is a great paced ride that Geauga Lake was able to handle for their centennial in 1988.

And for the record, the Bobs has been gone long enough that any comparison is null and void. If more people visited Riverview (which was a great park in its time), the Bobs might still be there. No one can remember a ride that has been gone for 30 + years.

Sorry about this, but it is time to cheer on and support what we have today. A good wooden coaster in a old park setting is getting hard to come by these days. Dinn built a damn good ride for the money, and it just needs a little tlc. If Geauga Lake did not like his work, there would not have a Predator at SFDL.

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"Every Man Has Got to Know His Limitations"

I for one like Raging Wolf Bobs. I didn't find it rough but more bouncy. I now know what it feels like to be a jockey. LOL

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Formerly known as coasterzach1

Any human being who calls them selves a roller coaster enthusiest and says RWB is a "tadd" better then the original BOBS can't be taken seriously. Has Agent made some kind of comparison between the layouts? Have you ridden the Riverview Bobs lately? Poor engineering? Designed one lately? Give all of us a break.

I have only had the opportunity once, in '01, to ride RWB...I really hope to get a different impression of the ride in the future. It just seems that a coaster with that many laterals (unbanked turns) is going to eventually have an adverse effect on track gauge and ride quality. But I can also see where RWB, Mean Streak and Herc, for that matter don't feature many *drops* in the second half, meaning that they are taken at a breakneck speed early on in their careers only to be emasculated at some point by trim brakes when the ride is deemed *too rough*. Perosnally, I think the roughness can be alleviated to a large degree, by performing lots of *routine* track and train maintenance, like in some parks where the wood is GOOD. (You KNOW who they are!)

But I also believe that a few *smaller* drops added to the second half of some of these rides would allow for a VARIETY of speeds rather than the "slow, but steady pace" that allows riders to FEEL each bump....;).

Pacing, what pacing? It is slow and dull. It always has been. The second turn around (next to the station on the lake side) is especially bad. It peaks to high and to far into the turn. The train comes nearly to a stop instead of pushing down through the turn. A simple reprofile like that could change a good portion of the ride. Also the last leg out to the other side of the station could be improved greatly if the profile was taken from the old Bobs.

As for a comparison, anyone who has ridden the old version will rate it among the best that they have ridden then or now. And even if people were to have gone to the park in its final seasons it was still fighting a losing battle in a city like Chicago where the land was more valuable in other uses. Add a negative image of the neighborhood and the outlook was bleak for the park even if there was patronage.

And when the park does somehting worth cheering on i will.

Hey, when it opened in 1988, it was fast, smooth, and a lot of fun. The 2nd drop and following curved speed bump were the 'utmost' in good wickedness. The rest of the ride was fast and smooth.. I think the first "fast at the top of the curve" woodies. When I went back in like '92 it was a mess. And that ugly, unnecessary (oops) paint job. The layout in the original bobs, but the profile has almost nothing to do with it.. Even with that rediculous 65 degree banked curve, it was still a blast when it opened. But of course... Six Flags owns like 3 capable woodie coaster maintence guys... they work on the Viper at Great America... Scream Machine in Georgia and Texas Giant (although they slacked after the first 3 weeks of the rides operation)...

Out of strange curiousity...How many of you have ridden RWB in the back seat?

The ride has probably the two best drops in ALL Ohio. The first drop you get whipped over SOoo bad, you have bar marks for a good 2 months. And the second drop after the first turn, I could have swarn I saw my "maker"!!

Is the rest of the ride great, not much, but just the two drops are worth it BY FAR! You don't even come close though in the front of the train.

I also think it's not rough, more bouncy then rough. On the bright side, it at least has padding. :)

Anyone happen to see the new "BOB" infront of it's sign over the weekend? LOL

"The Future of Roller Coasters"

-RollerCoasterGod

http://OhioThemeParks.com

Worst woodie ever!

Geauga Lake went out on a limb when they built RWB. Woodies had seen a resurgence a few years earlier but the Bob's started what I call the 3rd coming of the woodie. It was built "in the spirit" of the Bobs but certainly not built identical to the Bobs. Noone could make a Bobs coaster now b/c today's standards wouldn't allow it.

The problem is the gauge and probably the trains, which I never particularly enjoyed. Fix those two issues and you will have a much improved ride.

I don't think Raging Wolf Bobs has had any significant track work done to it since the day it was built. That's its #1 problem. Last time I rode it (a couple of weeks ago) I noticed that Summers' team was careful to do some ridiculous banking on the curves so as to attempt to overcome the train's absolute inability to handle a flat turn. It loses a lot of energy to the train shuffle, though, and much of that isn't the trackwork, it's the train.

Personally, I think the train can be fixed. Move the wheel assemblies on all but the lead car backward to place them inline with the hitch ball, and the lateral tracking problem should go away. But for that to be successful, the track also needs fixed. It will be interesting to see how the ride runs next season.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.