"Walk of shame" an issue for larger enthusiasts

It's true. I'm a size-ist when it comes to dicks. :) (Can I get a "that's what she said?")

And he's a dick when it comes to size, so it all comes full circle.

Politically correct way to say it now is he has big hands, isn't it?

Really really great hands. The best hands. Fantastic hands.

YOUUGGE hands. Really youuugge hands.

You might want to leave the room... I bet it feels huge in this hand...

Was at Great Adventure last weekend and noticed at least one ride (Bizzaro?) had a sign asking larger riders to sit in a certain row, so some manufacturers are already accounting for it. I also noticed that the "practice" seat on Nitro at the ride entrance had specific instructions on what level of restraint was considered safe, so a larger person could try it out and see if they were ok or not.

I've started three times now to post a terse response, but erased the first two.

I'm a big guy with a hobby that I try to enjoy with comfort. And by big I mean 5'10", 239 with a 38 waist. I carry it well, and I don't consider myself to be morbidly obese. Neither does my doctor. I monitor and manage my blood sugar through smarter choices and so far have avoided medication.
At the start of each amusement park season I make an effort to drop a few inches so my hobby will be more comfortable for me. Still, I've been asked to take the big boy seat on occasion, and I've done the mortifying walk of shame a couple of times. I haven't tried Wicked Twister or a Huss Frisbee again since.

I'm infuriated by flip, a-hole responses like bjames'. I'm well aware of the benefits of proper diet and exercise. And before anyone accuses me of not trying or caring, I invite them to pick up my genes, look up at my family tree, then walk a mile in my shoes. For a lot of us it's not as easy as it looks, or that we're shamed into believing.

I'm not one to go all activist and demand accommodation on amusement rides. I understand safety requirements. (Although I would like to demand Ohio Stadium give me a space wider than 18 inches to sit on...) And if for some reason between now and the day I die I'm forced to give up my hobby due to health issues, whatever they may be, I'm going to have to be ok with it, just like the rest of us will.

So I would just like to thank, on behalf of struggling endomorphs everywhere, those on here who have shown sensitivity toward this subject. You know, those that have not been huge dicks about it.

Jeff said:

It's true. I'm a size-ist when it comes to dicks. :) (Can I get a "that's what she said?")

"That's what she said!"

And as much as I'd like to expand on that subject....

I have weight issues. Part of it is genetic: both sides of my family tend towards being overweight. I've only ever had to make the walk of shame once, during an ACE event, during ERT on Woodstock Express.

This is such a sensitive subject. Last week my wife and I were at SFGAM and saw 4 people have to do the walk of shame on Goliath within 4-5 ride cycles. You can totally tell they were humiliated. I felt so bad for them.

I do have strong opinions on the diets of people nowadays and the excuses people make that cant diet or workout but I am not in those peoples shoes so I have no idea how hard it is for them. By calling them turds and having no sympathy for them like Bjames said is disgusting.

This is a big problem to me in this country. We laugh at people that struggle in life instead of finding ways to help them.

Jeff, do I get to play moderator this time? ;)

Quit being a dick, kiddo.

We've found a dick, may we ban him?

Figures...now that I can no longer visit amusement parks and ride roller coasters, I've lost so much weight I could literally fit into anything. Those memories of being turned away from Millennium Force and Wicked Twister seem soooo far away. Oh, wait...they are.

^I haven't been to CP since Gatekeeper opened because of gaining weight. This season I am going back and ready for Valravn and all the other coasters.

I've dropped the needed weight and my 12 year old daughter's enthusiast gene kicked in on our recent trip to Great Adventure. She loved Nitro, El Toro and Ka. It was so awesome on our 2nd lap on Nitro, her hands went up from the first drop to the brake run. I have to be able to enjoy the rides at CP with her.

Hey BJAmes. I am 6'5" around 280 lbs. The seats were made from people under 200lbs and under 6'3" I would love to ride Mindbender at SFOG again but can't due to the seats being too close together and the width of the seats themselves. The parks need to stop shortening up the belts as well.

If anyone needs a little help in losing weight, I highly recommend an app called MyFitnessPal. Works great both for weight maintenance and losing weight.

Coasterfantom2 said:

It's embarrassing and feel for anyone that has to do it. I went home after that weekend and went on a diet. The next season I was able to ride everything with no problems.

That sucks you had to do the walk but cool that you turned it into a positive. I've had two friends that were also motivated by the WOS at CP to lose weight and get serious at the gym and were able to ride everything the following season. That's definitely not an option for everyone but it's great to hear stories where something motivates a successful lifestyle change to improve quality of life or simply being able to ride the rides they want.

I'm 6'4 and have never had to do the walk of shame but have had to do some seat changes. The S&S towers have a couple of seats to accommodate larger riders. I used to fit on the 2nd gen Intamin drop towers ok, but barely fit and find them now and find them super uncomfortable. I think there might have been some modifications after the Great America accident in the early 2000s. Shoulders are sore after and really feel the forces of the ride in my back. Because of this, I avoid them now. Never a ride I really loved so not a big loss.

At 6'1" 215, the only ride that's even close to a tight for is Wicked Twister, and ive always fit fine into it. I would, however still like to drop a few pounds, still. I'm a pretty big gamer, so I moved a treadmill to right by a TV, so I can walk while doing hours long gaming sessions and loose some weight, maybe. I usually get around 14 miles in around 4 hours, and it really helps, as I've dropped around 5 pounds in the last 2 weeks. So, if any of you play games or something, this stupid, but effective idea could work.

I changed positions at my workplace about six months ago and now it's a more physical job. I know I've lost some weight. I never have done the walk of shame, but over the last few years ride hosts would have to push on my restraints to get them locked. I'm kind of excited to not have to have them do that now.

I don't consider myself obese, but I know I'm overweight.

(Grr. Let me try this again. Then I need to complain to Apple about data loss in iOS...)

Sure, Americans are getting bigger. The population has been growing in all directions for as long as I can remember. Our nutrition is better than it used to be, maybe not in terms of the mix of what we eat, but we're getting lots of calories in really useful ways, which means we're growing taller as well as fatter.

But even so, this really seems to be a *very* recent phenomenon. I'm a pretty big guy and there are very few rides out there that I can't squeeze into, and most of those are built by Intamin. But let me ask you this: Why is it that even though I am larger than the stereotypical American (that is, someone who possesses the human characteristics the ride is designed around, based on anthropomorphic data such as Dreyfuss Human Scale 4/5/6 (1)29, 7/8/9 (2), or SAE J833, and Center for Disease Control Growth Charts [Footnote 1])...even though I am apparently not, myself, "ASTM compliant", why is it that I have a much easier time fitting into rides that were designed at a time when the average patron was much *smaller*? If your coaster train or ride vehicle was built in 1920, I can slide right in; if the ride was built in 2015, there is a good chance that I might not fit. What is going on here?

As you can imagine, I have an idea. I think at least part of the problem has to do with the desire to automate the restraint checking functions, along with the effective mandate to switch over to individual, adjustable restraints...which carries with it the need to switch over to individual seats. I'm not sure when this got added to the design standards, but it was (and still is) so poorly written that it prompted me to join ASTM. A committee worked for years on it, so I fear for the moment we're stuck with it.

As you may or may not be aware, ASTM F2291-15:6.4.3 considers *only* "acceleration and seat inclination". Considering only sustained acceleration experienced by the rider, which may be the result of either ride motion or seat position, the standard establishes five restraint categories. Presumably each category represents an increased risk of being thrown from the seat, and therefore a need for a more secure restraint to prevent this from happening. The standard for a Class 5 restraint requires an individual, adjustable, locking restraint which is either failsafe or redundant. So far, so good. Unfortunately it also requires an "External Correct or Incorrect Indication," meaning that, in theory, the restraint has to be able to tell you whether it is correctly secured. There is also a line in there about the "failure of any monitored device" having to either stop the ride or inhibit cycle start. It seems that is being misread to imply that the restraint must be monitored by the ride, and identified to be correctly secured, in order to enable cycle start.

Now this is a problem. If you have an adjustable restraint, how do you determine when that restraint is properly secured? Traditionally, that has been done through operator training. The lap bar comes down over my legs, my safety belt is fastened, and I am good to go. But if the restraint is adjustable, how can you tell *mechanically* that it is in the "correct" position?

The answer is simple: You can't. If the 'correct' position is one in which the lap bar is crossing the thighs, that is going to be a very different position for me than it is for a 50" kid. If the bar is in a position where it can secure me quite easily, it may not be able to secure a smaller rider *at all*.

Ed Dangler explained this back in 2004 while giving a tour of the Flight of Fear coaster at Kings Island and describing the process of developing the lap bar for that ride:

...That's why it's so tight; because we had to get something that could be from the minimum height to as large as we could fit in there.

Did you catch that? If you want to detect that the restraint is in a safe position, that means the *maximum* detected 'correct' position *must* be a position which is considered "safe" for the *smallest* rider who can fit into the seat. Otherwise you run the very real risk of putting a smaller person on the ride, securing the restraint, getting a "correct" signal from the ride, and throwing the person down the midway. As this is clearly an undesirable outcome, the parks and manufacturers are erring on the other side, and simply excluding larger adults who *could* be safely accommodated on the ride.

I also wonder if any of the larger riders who have been ejected from rides recently would have been more adequately secured if the restraints had been properly adjusted for their size, instead of squeezing into a restraint two sizes too small. It's a counter-intuitive argument, I know, but I wonder if any research has been done to check it out.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Footnote 1: ASTM F2291-15:6.3.1

--DCAjr.