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Alabama’s Rampage and Wales’ Megafobia

MestnyiGeroi

Giga Poster
The layout of Alabama’s Rampage was said to be modeled after Oakwood’s Megafobia. But while I’ve always heard high praise for Megafobia, people *really* rave about Rampage, so it’s a little bit of a puzzler to think the one was modeled on the other — and I don’t know if the word “clone” is appropriate in this case.

I haven’t ridden either yet, so I wanted to ask those who have: is the actual ride experience similar?
 

CanobieFan

Strata Poster
good like finding someone who has ridden both
Funny, I live a state away from Rampage and it's the only Non-French CCI left for me to ride.....
but I've been on Megafobia.

Also, back in the day, people most certainly raved about Megafobia. I think it has to do with it not being in America that it's now not as known (although Alabama isn't exactly Coaster Central itself)
 

Peet

Giga Poster
Rampage ranked #14 in the World in the 2018 Ello coaster poll so some people must be raving about it:

And yeah Megafobia is great.
 

Ben

CF Legend
good like finding someone who has ridden both. Megafobia is good though.

Meeeee, I’ve ridden both!

It’s a very clear case of why maintenance is so important with Wooden Coasters - Rampage is maintained well by people who understand what they’re doing and give it the proper care it needs.

Megafobia is rotting in a field in Wales, abandoned in a ****ty park who don’t give a crap about looking after it.

Suffice to say Rampage is great, and Fobia is trash.
 

Matt N

CF Legend
It might also be worth noting that Rampage is quite a bit bigger than Megafobia; it's 120ft tall with a 102ft drop, a 56mph top speed and a 3500ft track length, according to RCDB: https://rcdb.com/475.htm

Whereas Megafobia is only 85ft tall with a 48mph top speed and a 2956ft track length: https://rcdb.com/756.htm

I'm sure that this difference in stats does probably have some effect on the ride experiences.

I've only ridden Megafobia, and I do actually really like it! It felt like it had had a bit of track work done when I rode it last May, as it felt a bit smoother in the front. The back, however, was still a bit too rough for me, although that first drop and the drop out of the first turnaround give some absolutely unbelievable ejector in the back!

As for why Megafobia isn't mentioned as much as Rampage, Oakwood is a rather out-of-the-way park that I'd imagine relatively few foreign enthusiasts have been to or make plans to visit when coming to the UK; even when I was staying only 10 minutes away from the park when I last visited, getting to the park was quite an adventure in itself!
 

emoo

Hyper Poster
Rampage is a huge fantastic ride in an otherwise un-noteworthy park (unless you like water parks) (a previous owner sold most the good/big stuff for profit and a middle finger to the community and new owners) (the experienced mechanic had to go in 2018, a park tour in a golf cart with management told me so, so perhaps its not as good as in the past). I Live 4,100 miles closer to Oakwood and it still feels more inaccessible. Current restrictions have made no impact to my non existent plans to visit and not even the non-aptly named Speed or renamed Drenched will change that unless someone wants to take me.
 

Tomatron

Giga Poster
Meeeee, I’ve ridden both!

It’s a very clear case of why maintenance is so important with Wooden Coasters - Rampage is maintained well by people who understand what they’re doing and give it the proper care it needs.

Megafobia is rotting in a field in Wales, abandoned in a ****ty park who don’t give a crap about looking after it.

Suffice to say Rampage is great, and Fobia is trash.
I honestly thought Rampage was going to be pretty rough when we rode it, but it was utterly joyous and a lesson in how to maintain and look after a wooden coaster. Especially one that had sat SBNO for 3 years.

Look after your rides or they’ll go to s***. Not much more to said here.
 

Matt N

CF Legend
Sorry to bump this thread after a good few months, but I thought of something perhaps worth considering as to why Rampage rides a lot more smoothly, according to those who’ve ridden; I don’t know whether I’d be correct or not, but a lot of the profiling looks a lot smoother on Rampage to me. While Megafobia has quite a few sudden jolts in its layout (and this is one of the main things that takes away from it for me, as it makes the back row a bit too brutal for my liking), Rampage looks as though it’s been smoothed out, and it looks to flow a lot more nicely (or at least, it looks to have less skewiff profiling in certain spots than Megafobia).

Here’s the CF-recorded POVs of both rides:

I don’t know whether it’s just me, but I certainly think Rampage’s profiling looks noticeably smoother when you compare those two POVs. What do you guys think?
 
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