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Roughest/Worst coaster you've ridden?

gavin

Moderator
Staff member
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I'd have to say Thunderhawk at MI Adventure.
While I've heard there's much rougher SLCs, this one was pretty bad compared to the other coasters I've ridden.
What other SLCs have you done? Thunderhawk is one of the smoother ones I've done, so if you found that rough, you'd find a lot of the others unbearable.

I was at Heide Park yesterday and stupidly rerode Limit to see if it was as s**t as I'd remembered it. Nope, it was worse.
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
I'd be shot at dawn for calling Grand National awful
Gonna take the bullet for you and call out Grand National. Used to like it, but my last time on it gave new meaning to bad rides.
Had to sit down for an hour and reconsider my hobby after it felt like it was rearranging my internal organs.
Bumps and
36339202866_7237f7a538_t.jpg
fade after a little while. That sh*t doesn't.
 

Coaster Hipster

Giga Poster
This POS by a country mile. Just listen to my reaction to each element. Skip to 1.49 for the worst piece of track work I've ever experienced! Props to @Coaster Hipster for helping out with the grunts and moans.


It's funny to the the same ride filmed from the other side of the front row, thanks for sharing the vid :p Rode Goudurix again yesterday, and that lap was even worse than the one with you! I think there's worse coasters than this, but Goudurix isn't too far behind either.

In @Chris Brown's video you can hear me say King is even worse than Goudurix. Here's why:


Absolute piece of awful track design and maintenannce!
 

Will

Strata Poster
Had to sit down for an hour and reconsider my hobby after it felt like it was rearranging my internal organs.
Bumps and
36339202866_7237f7a538_t.jpg
fade after a little while. That sh*t doesn't.
I'm glad it's not just me, as that's among my more controversial opinions.
I blame it on the fact that I never rode it before the fire and new trains etc. I can only assume it wasn't as evil pre-05, but I'd never bother riding it when I'm at Blackpool now if it was up to me.

Also, that travelling 'King' coaster looks amazing for all the wrong reasons. I want it.
 
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MestnyiGeroi

Giga Poster
I actually have a new one! This horrendous thing:

20429662_1761709057191447_3693480877396176475_n.jpg


Arsehole Pony, as I call it. At Mt. Olympus, park that simply does not know how to prioritize where they spend their money, it's pretty obvious that this ride hasn't been maintained in a while. However, the three full-sized coasters there aren't nearly as bad as this abomination. It spends the entire ride layout just knocking you around and shattering your spine, I wasn't convinced the structure would just collapse under us. And at the end, there's this turn, a very memorable turn. Oh, this turn. There's no way it's under 2 Gs lateral, you can actually feel the upstops hitting the top of the track on one side to keep the train from flipping and pulling a Paul Walker it turns so abruptly. I literally felt it in my neck for a good hour after riding it, and that was even with some of the strongest bracing I've ever done on a coaster to handle that turn. I could tell it was offensive watching it, I prepared to be offended, and still it offended me more than I expected. I walked off actually mad at this machine for the way it violated me, it's practically mechanical assault and battery. Greek things that are less painful include a session chilling in the Brazen Bull and biting right into a kalamata olive not knowing it still has the pit in it. Don't RMC it, don't bulldoze it, burn it. Burn it to ensure that it can never be rebuilt and cause more pain.
Wait, so did you like it or not?
 

Zek_Teh_Kek

Hyper Poster
What other SLCs have you done? Thunderhawk is one of the smoother ones I've done, so if you found that rough, you'd find a lot of the others unbearable.

I was at Heide Park yesterday and stupidly rerode Limit to see if it was as s**t as I'd remembered it. Nope, it was worse.
It's not that it was rough, it's that I didn't really like it. I've heard that Flight Deck is much worse, so I guess I started off my SLC credits with a better one.
Oh, and I've only ridden one.
 

Bat Fastard

Hyper Poster
Time Warp at Canada's Wonderland was absolutely ****ing awful. It's funny because this thing is worse than the SLC right next to it.
 

sKrATcher

Roller Poster
For me, the majority of *OLD* woodies and the Arrow corkscrews!

I was NOT a fan of The Racer at KI! Mean Streak beat the heck outta me, but the view was nice!
 
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Swoosh

Mega Poster
I find Vortex at KI to be extremely rough (on me). The main issue is that I am tall, so I don't fit very well in the Arrow cars - and especially if I have to sit in the back of a car.
 

SaiyanHajime

CF Legend
I find Vortex at KI to be extremely rough (on me). The main issue is that I am tall, so I don't fit very well in the Arrow cars - and especially if I have to sit in the back of a car.
So weird because I loved that ride... Height is definitely a factor for discomfort experience, but then there have been other times where someone is in pain who's similar in size to me and I just my sanity.


I have no issue with acquired roughness, I think... ? So, that feeling when a coaster is just old? That's fine. What I hate is janky poor design. Unless it is by fluke producing an experience that "feels right". Like, I would argue Ultimate managed to create a similar ride experience to the weird outerbanked, unpredictable manoeuvres RMC have brought to the table. They feel right, and righter still on RMCs obviously, but I don't know exactly why they're ok whilst other rides trying to be crazy and unpredictable fail.

I rode Thunderbolt at Coney this year and Jesus Christ... It truly redefines poor manufacturing. No transition was right, nothing felt right at all. It felt hard? Hard. Yeah...

I remember having a discussion with Lain yeeeeeeeears ago about prog rock and how it so often doesn't feel right or flow, and Lain arguing that's the point though. I tend to just dislike things that don't conform to some expectation of progress or feel... melodic? Jazz is mostly terrible, too, because it takes a tune and just sticks a bunch of notes in for the sake of it, or that's how it seems to my ears. And a lot of coasters are the same. Eurofighters, especially Saw and Mystery Mine's outdoor section, are good examples of this, where there is no... pattern, no theme, no story progression, no melody. Whatever. There is nothing natural or right about the way it transitions from one element to the next.

Kings Islands Vortex, however, has progression. I love it's weird first drop helix thing, and how it saves the batwing highlight for relatively late in the layout. I think Nemesis is possibly the best example that everyone mostly agrees on of what I'm talking about, where each element feels in the right place... Even that final corkscrew feels right, because it comes at a time when you think the ride is over. So even though it catches off guard, it feels appropriate?

This is mostly subjective nonsense, but most of the rides I dislike for being uncomfortable aren't rough, they're just poorly transitioning. There are examples where the opposite is true, often B&Ms feel a little too perfect and soulless (though never objectively bad) and something like Colossus, who's progression is too predictable and thus boring, as well as being rough.

Thunderbolt is the new absolute worst. What a pile of absolute junk. Wrong, on every level. Garbage. Absolute garbage. They need to go back to their day job of building kiddy flat rides.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

Swoosh

Mega Poster
^I just got measured yesterday and I'm 6'5" now. (Who would have guessed a 36yo would still be growing?). I literally could not fit in the back seat of the car without contorting my body. So that's probably the main reason I hate Vortex this year
 

wakey1512

Roller Poster
Times have changed. Steel rides can be just as bad as woodies. Furius Baco (2007) possibly more unbearable than the Grand National (1935). The thing is woodies are allowed to be rough and somewhat add to the fun factor of it. And the Grand National is 80 years old! Furius Baco shouldn't be as rough as it is for a 10 year old ride.

Other steel rides just as bad is Jubilee Odyssey (which urgently needs a retrack) and for my memory there was a Mourn a Son wild mouse at flamingo land some years ago which had trim brakes that stopped you dead and if you weren't expecting them youd probably faceplant the front of the car.
 
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NickyTheComb

Roller Poster
Part of me kind of wants to say Grand National because it tried to break my back but it's age makes me forgive it somewhat (that and I still enjoyed it)

I must say I'm gobsmacked only 1 person so far has mentioned the Zamperla Volare coasters because they're just horrendous. For whatever reason I decided to ride Hero at Flamingo Land for the first time because despite not seeing a single positive review about it I like to come to my own conclusions. I'm not sure what I'm more surprised at really, that I waited 80 minutes to get on it thanks to Flamingo Lands appalling operations or that it was actually worse than people had said. I came off it feeling like a bobble head figurine. I think they could bolt me into a coffin and throw me off a cliff and I'd choose that over riding Hero again. It's not as if it has any redeeming features like Grand National its just plain boring and painful. Not sure what they were thinking installing it.
 

MestnyiGeroi

Giga Poster
Part of me kind of wants to say Grand National because it tried to break my back but it's age makes me forgive it somewhat (that and I still enjoyed it)

I must say I'm gobsmacked only 1 person so far has mentioned the Zamperla Volare coasters because they're just horrendous. For whatever reason I decided to ride Hero at Flamingo Land for the first time because despite not seeing a single positive review about it I like to come to my own conclusions. I'm not sure what I'm more surprised at really, that I waited 80 minutes to get on it thanks to Flamingo Lands appalling operations or that it was actually worse than people had said. I came off it feeling like a bobble head figurine. I think they could bolt me into a coffin and throw me off a cliff and I'd choose that over riding Hero again. It's not as if it has any redeeming features like Grand National its just plain boring and painful. Not sure what they were thinking installing it.
Yes. I found it so ridiculously rough that it made me laugh rather than grumble. I've been on two, and Soarin' Eagle (Coney Island) is smooth as silk compared to Super Flight (Rye Playland).
 

Edward M

Strata Poster
My new number one worst is Goliath at SFNE. Just, wow, that was horrendous. My ride was so bad that they literally closed the ride after (we were the first ride after it had been closed for about 6 hours). I could see that everyone else was in extreme pain judging from what was being said. I mean, it's just awful. Ninja at SFSL may have been a worse experience, but it was at least unique in many ways. It wasn't a once good, now relocated boomerang. It's amazing how awful bad trains can be. It's just awful.
 

TilenB

Strata Poster
My new number one worst is Goliath at SFNE. Just, wow, that was horrendous. My ride was so bad that they literally closed the ride after (we were the first ride after it had been closed for about 6 hours). I could see that everyone else was in extreme pain judging from what was being said. I mean, it's just awful. Ninja at SFSL may have been a worse experience, but it was at least unique in many ways. It wasn't a once good, now relocated boomerang. It's amazing how awful bad trains can be. It's just awful.
Jesus, this coaster is still amongst my favorite Vekomas (from when it was in SFMM). So sad to hear they've butchered it this heavily... :(
 
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