Ride tolerance decreasing with age.. Anyone else?

I'm 39. This year, I've realized Boomerangs are not for me. I've never done well going backwards (see also: Batman inverts with the reverse trains), and this just solidified it. I'm going to chance it later this month for Tigris, but might wait until the end of the day to try it.

For me, it's also dependent on seat location. I enjoy the front, more for the rush, but also because it allows me to see the track and anticipate what's coming. Sitting in middle rows, especially on inverts, I lose the track; it's then that I feel it the most.

31 here… I can’t say my tolerance has changed much over the years due to dizziness or motion sickness, if anything I just don’t have the desire to ride things over and over again in general. Usually a ride or two is good enough for me.

That being said, I have never been the most tolerable for re-riding even when I was a teenager. I have learned for me, the repetition of positive and negative G, over and over, get me the most queezy. I could ride Raptor over and over without issue, yet Gatekeeper can do me in quick (which if you pay attention, basically does the whole positive/negative/positive/negative thing the entire ride). Raptor is mostly positive G and laterals. Maverick doesn’t cause much issue for me, yet Blue Streak can really mess me up. Just depends on the dynamics of the ride, not so much the intensity.

RMC’s hit me pretty hard because they just constantly do the positive/negative thing… The ending of Steel Vengeance for example is just horrible, as it usually gets me queezy and it’s also extremely uncomfortable to boot.

I haven't really marathoned anything since my teens/early 20s, and never could endure spin-n-spews, but now at 46 I'm happy to get a single lap on a handful of coasters in a day. Park visits are mostly about my kids now--at the end of the month my son and daughter will be 13 and 9, respectively, and while my daughter is pretty averse to big coasters, the bug bit my son a couple years ago and there's nothing he won't try.

We were at Kings Dominion on Father's Day this year and I managed single rides on Woodstock Express, Dominator, Drop Tower, and Twisted Timbers, two laps on Intimdiator 305, and spent a couple hours in the water park. I considered it a full day.

Thanks everyone. I’m happy to hear I’m not alone. Obviously the changing of the inner ear makes sense.

Thanks so so much for the reminder to stay hydrated!! I work outside, so I’m almost constantly aware of my need to drink water— but when I get to parks, I’m always so excited that I just go ride! I think this will absolutely help (h20 + pacing myself).

My fiancée doesn’t enjoy the bigger rides as much anymore, so when I visit with her (like I will be at KI sun/mon), it tends to keep me paced. We enjoy the overall park visit, and mix it up with some flats / restaurant visits etc.

While certain times I like to run around and cram laps on what I can, Ive enjoyed sort of mixing enthusiast/GP experience in parks (feels like I’m really visiting the way it was intended).

Anyways, thanks again for lending an ear and some advice, hope to see some of y’all out on the rails!!

Vater said:

Park visits are mostly about my kids now--at the end of the month my son and daughter will be 13 and 9, respectively, and while my daughter is pretty averse to big coasters, the bug bit my son a couple years ago and there's nothing he won't try.

I'm with you there, with a 12yo son and 9yo daughter. Daughter is happy right now with smaller rides and son, after making Copperhead Strike his first inversion in March, has now ridden every ride in Carowinds and loves getting his butt in any ride possible.

Like you, I tend to spend my park days making them happy. Before kids, the wife and I had a mantra to our park visits: "Open to close, front seat only". Now, it's "Open if it's not too early to whenever the kids are ready to leave, front seat preferred, but whatever."

Likewise here. I can ride any coaster, anywhere, anytime, but put me on a Tilt, a Scrambler ... and I'm looking for the nearest bench or bathroom.

31 here and also can't ride like I used to. The closest I've gotten to becoming sick was from Delirium at KI last year. That said, there are some roller coasters that've given me some fits, but I haven't been able to find commonality between them.

Another big factor that I've continuously learned is I can't ride with ANY coffee in my stomach, and I have to have a good deal of solids in it as well. Any type of liquid sloshing around really does a number. If I have a full belly -- all seems to be well. Drinking alcohol the day before is also a no-go.

51 here. No spinners and no backwards looping coasters.

About to turn 68, I find that I have a lot less stamina than I did even two years ago although that depends partly on the coaster. Two rides on Afterburn made me somewhat dizzy and two rides on Copperhead Strike were all I felt I could handle although I wonder whether that's because I was still feeling the aftereffects of Afterburn. On the other hand, I had no problem with Fury after these two so maybe I'm becoming less able to tolerate inversions. As to flat rides, I've been prone to motion sickness for as long as I can remember and became somewhat dizzy and nauseated from riding Wonder Woman Lasso of Truth, although not until the ride was almost over. Attendance at Great Adventure was so low that day that everything was a walk-on and as a result I rode El Toro 4 times and could have ridden it a lot more but really didn't feel like doing that; I think I would have felt the same way even had I not ridden Wonder Woman first. Several years ago I was able to get 10 consecutive rides on Toro but now I doubt that I'd be able to stick it out for that long.

I'm 47 and can ride pretty much anything without getting sick. I have to take a few moments to get my bearings after Raptor or too many times on the Tilt-A-Whirl so I don't fall over as I walk away but I don't get sick.

71 here I still ride everything, but I have a hard time getting in and out of the rides.

hambone said:

I'm also worried because I started having non-ride-induced vertigo about a year ago and I'm not sure how I'll deal with anything.

My wife suffers from Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo [BPPV] (I think that's the one - she's at work and I can't confirm). Through her doctor, she learned some maneuver she can do to move her head. Maybe check with your doctor about it?

Thankfully, it's never cropped up around coasters and she still enjoys rides. Her vertigo comes two or three times a year and the maneuver helps mitigate the dizziness.

43 - no issues related to motion, but I definitely have comfort problems because I've gained weight. Most recently I was pretty tightly stapled into Rip Ride n' Rocket and I found that PTC lap bars on a wood coaster are a pretty tight fit. Rough wood coasters definitely get to me, notably Texas Giant prior to the RMC redo. It was so bad I couldn't enjoy the rest of my stay at the park and I said I wouldn't ride it again.

I think this came up recently, but I'm amazed at how high the typical age skews on here. That definitely wasn't the case nearly 20 years ago when I started reading the forum.

bigboy said:

I think this came up recently, but I'm amazed at how high the typical age skews on here. That definitely wasn't the case nearly 20 years ago when I started reading the forum.

Because you're all 20 years older. :)

Since starting coaster forums earlier this year, I've found this one to be more "mature." The conversations are less about coasters themselves, but coaster-relevant topics. I think this would skew more toward an older crowd who doesn't need to post "OMG! THAT RIDE WAS GREAT!" all the time.

No dig on the other forums. I enjoy those discussions, too.

due to my age, I don't remember if I already commented. But, yes. Feeling nauseous after riding a roller coaster is now a problem from which I previously did not suffer.

At 46, I'll ride pretty much whatever, but I won't go for frequency anymore. The last opportunity I had to really get laps was the media day for Steel Vengeance, a pretty extreme example, and while I did my best, two in a row was a bit much.

I'm 51, and started noticing it about 5 years ago, after doing some marathon riding on The Voyage. After 3 rides in a row, I had to sit down for a little bit. When I was 40, I could continually re-ride during HWN. Getting old sucks.

Some of you must have used up at least some of your ride tolerance in your youth. I was in my early 40s when I went to my first coaster event. So other than riding Gemini 15 times during 8th grade trip, I never rode any coaster more than a 2-3 times in a day. Much less marathoned anything. Now in my early 50s I can ride anything as many times as I want. I have reserve tolerance still in the tank. LOL

yawetag said:

bigboy said:

I think this came up recently, but I'm amazed at how high the typical age skews on here. That definitely wasn't the case nearly 20 years ago when I started reading the forum.

Because you're all 20 years older. :)

Good point, but even back then I don't remember feeling like the crowd here was that much more mature.

I've never been into the marathon riding at all, but I probably came close on my one and only trip to Cedar Point when I was around 30. The weather was less than ideal, and on one of the evenings of our 3 day trip, everyone else went back to the room and I stayed behind in the park and bounce between Power Tower, Corkscrew, and Magnum for about 2 hours with no waits on any of them. I feel like I could probably still handle it, but I really don't have any interest in trying.

One thing that gets to me the older I get is the heat. On our WDW trip last June, I had a day where I just flat ran out of gas mid day. I stopped down in the shade with an iced tea from Starbucks for the better part of an hour and we adjourned for the day shortly after that for pool time and an early dinner. Similarly, I took my daughter to SFOT on a sunny and warm Monday a few weeks ago. We planned on staying for a couple of hours, but after seeing no crowd and my daughter upping her game on trying new rides, 2 hours turned into almost 6. Unfortunately the sun and a dumb lack of stopping for water for most of the trip really took it out of me. I crashed around 8:00 that night and I was a zombie the next day.

I know one thing. I can’t do it s**t-faced drunk like I used to.