Riding backwards! It sounds fun!!

Ride of Steel's question about others looking backwards when riding gave me a thought.I think more parks should turn their coasters around to run backwards to enhance the ride experience and give something new to experience for that ride. Obviously, some coasters such as the Racer at PKI make it normal operation for one of the sides to run backwards, but what would your pick be for the best coaster to run bacwards. I would love to ride MF at Cedar Point this way. The first drop would be something looking backwards!!

I don't think that most coasters are designed to go backwards, MF in particular.

I'm not a fan of SFMM's Colossus backwards (even less than I like it forwards). Way too rough for its own good, and tons of airtime that is way to painful to be fun.

So to make a long story short, 99% of coasters wouldn't be possible to run backwards.

Wow, I think MF would be pretty exciting backwards. Unfortunately, many riders are much more likely to become ill from riding backwards. I know several people who get motion sickness that way and can't even ride in the backward seat they used to put station wagons. I myself get a little queesey (sp?) riding the Racer backwards sometimes.

Also, the forces on several coasters might be dangerous without something to hold your body upright against the seat since your body would be falling away when it normally would be pinned into the seats if riding forward and vice-versa. I think only specific rides can safely be operated backwards.

The first drop on American Eagle is quite a rush going backwards. I can only imagine trying that on Millie.

Mmmm... Magnum backwards.

By the way, I'm a personal injury lawyer. ;)

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- John, who isn't really a lawyer.

Fun...

Furst if all it couldn't happen on MF because of the cable.

And also the chaindogs would have to be reversed as well.

Thirdly some rides, such as Predator at SFDL, have brake fins on the trains that are off centers, Meaning if the train was backwards it would completely miss the brakes.

However yea it would be fun!

I think they should run one side of Gemini Backwards.

CP has said in a number of venues that Gemini backwards probably is never going to happen. I think it would be fun to but don't expect it. *** Edited 10/16/2004 1:59:29 PM UTC by matt.***

Gemini would be the perfect ride to run one side backwards because:
1. people can choose forwards or backwards
2. The turns aren't taken at very high speeds --> comfortable ride.

But they'd have to turn up the trims near the last helix probably.

They'd also have to completely reconfigure a lot of the hardward in the station and on the trains. I believe on rides like PKI's Racer they pretty much just turned the train around without many other modifications. Gemini would be a lot more complicated.

Gemini is no doubt a decently smooth ride, but the transitions are far from perfect. A few years ago, when I was riding with a group of friends, we decided to ride with our eyes closed... even that was a painful experience! The bumpy trains, the jerk that you get going from a turn to a hill, and the oddly designed helix would kill people if they rode the thing backwards...

I'm not a fan of backwards coasters. A little voice inside my head screams"NO" during the whole ride. Even on boomerangs I thank my lucky stars when the ride is over.

The problem is that pretty much every coaster that does run backwards, Jester at SFNO comes to mind, is horrible. Look at racing coasters that have one side running backwards, the forward line is usually about 3 times as long.

By far the best backwards coaster is LoCoSuMo. :)

Indiana Jones adventure at disney world paris I believe once was forwards and now changed to going backwards( correct me if I am wrong maybe its some other ride I am thinking of?) They had to widen the radius of all the turns and have the forces less intense when going backwards. My point going backwards maybe fun but you would lose the feeling of speed and high G's on rides that go backwards.

They rean the Screaming Eagle at SFStL backwards for a Halloween season a few years back. It was okay. Thunderation's (Silver Dollar City) backwards seats are pretty fun though. Best backwards ride I've ever had.

How about having two of the cars of the train face backwards while the rest face forward? It works for ThuNderaTion at Silver Dollar City.

-D

Mixing the seats is a good idea if it can be done. They should have the cars with good forces (front and back) going forwards and they can turn the middle around.

ThuNderaTion has only two cars turned facing backwards, and I belive that they are the 3rd and 5th cars (I think there are a total of 7 or 8 cars to the train). I honestly don't see why they couldn't do this to other coasters.

-D

I just wonder how The Phoenix would be in 4-1 backwards? I bet it would be pure insanity!

batman side of batman and robin the chiller is awesome backwards. When you go up the hill and head backwards its awesome. there is nothing like going up the top hat backwards and looking down at the ground as you are going up .