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Defensive Riding: Does it hurt a coaster?

Jarrett

Jarrett

Most Obnoxious Member 2016
I've always been a pro at riding Beast. Its wonky hidden layout and underbanked turns almost requires you to do that trick where you lean into them to augment the banking. Same with Maverick. I quickly found a trick to keep your head from being whacked into the restraint on those snappy transitions. However, when I first rode Voyage, it was unlike anything I had prepared for. It throws you around like crazy and I quickly learned I was going to have to keep the ride from being too rough myself, and once I did it solidly took my number one spot. This past season, the crown was taken by Fury and again by Skyrush. With Fury, one thing that gave it the edge over Voyage was the fact that while it is a pretty ballsy ride full of force and surprises, I didn't have to brace on it like I did Voyage. I could just leave my hands up and enjoy the ride, and that combined with a few other things ultimately convinced me that it was better than Voyage by a nose. Less than a month later, I rode Skyrush, and one of the things I liked about it was that you did have to learn to handle those transitions and pull your bar up at times to keep the ride from being painful. It was a ride I didn't even feel would ever be possible on a coaster and I loved having to tame the machine to give me a good ride on it.

So, my question here is, does having to defensively ride a coaster help or hurt it, if it affects it at all? There are plenty of coasters ranging in quality from Skyrush to boomerangs that I feel should be ridden defensively, but do you think it affects the ride at all? Points I assume we would touch on would be types of defensive riding, good coasters that do (and don't) need to be ridden defensively, and just how much violence is too much in a ride.
 
In my opinion it doesn't hurt a coaster because its quite common that I have to do it. I would be in the "Saw is vile and gross" camp if I didn't lean forward to protect my ears. On Dragon Khan, the acclaimed classic B&M looper, it is imperative that you keep your head forward because the restraints are as hard as concrete and you'd get a horrific ear bashing (it may be a B&M but its 20 years old)

Furius Baco... I came to the conclusion that if you lean forward after the launch its a bit headache inducing but otherwise an exhilerating and awesomely intense experience. I tried the ride without leaning forward and whilst the recently added head pads are pretty good, you can still get slightly sore ears by the end of the ride. Fingers crossed that maybe one day PA will be like "its too rough, lets get some standard trains" or better yet- Skyrush style trains with lap bars!
 
I think Grand National and the Alton Corkscrew need/needed an amount of defensive riding to prevent being bashed around too much that you didn't enjoy them.
Maybe the Blackpool Mouse and Infusion (and possibly slcs in general along with the corkscrews) too.

I also think launch coasters require certain positions when you launch to avoid whiplash. I haven't ridden that many launch coasters but so far I'm not much of a fan of them in part because I don't think I've mastered the right position to enjoy the launches in yet. Also some personal preference too.

Interesting thread.
 
If you have to "defensively ride" to enjoy a coaster, it's due to poor design and isn't something to be celebrated.
 
For your first ride on any coaster, let yourself free and enjoy the ride(as you said with Fury). If it's rough/painful, find a way to make it a better ride. If not, sit back, and enjoy.

However, one thing I kind of have to defend myself on is Viper at SFGAm. In the back row, you(or at least I do) get insane standing floater airtime on some of the hills. I have to cross my legs to prevent myself from flying out(the restraints have a high location for it's lowest point), I have to counter myself on some of the unbanked turns, and have to hold onto my bar to prevent myself from getting cut in half at the brake run. Otherwise, it's a fab ride.
 
There's plenty of great coaster experiences that I enjoy at least in part because they aren't objectively good, though. Sometimes feeling like you have to ride with the transitions is exciting in its own right. That's what I like about Maverick and I305's finale.

The default riding position for a coaster is defensive if you think about it.Tensed up, sitting back and holding on. If that doesn't provide the best ride experience then the ride is falling short by design standards, I guess. How few coasters manage this though, really? Being relaxed is not a normal way to ride and an argument could and often does get made against coasters that are "soulless". There's a fine line.

I guess I would say its less about riding defensively and more about riding with prior knowledge. If you have to brace in a specific way for upcoming transitions that you can only know about from experience, that's a real problem.
 
It all depends on the coaster type and the knowledge we have before we ride.

For example, before I rode the new boomerang thing at Movieland in Italy, I knew it would be vile. Therefore I rode defensive by holding on, bracing my head firstly on the right side of the restraint and tenses up. By doing this I feel I enjoyed (loosely speaking) the coaster a lot more if I rod it naturally, otherwise it would have detached my spine.

If a coaster involves riding defensively, then I won't re-ride it. There are certain ways you can sit on a coaster to get the best out of it, like shoving your arse forward when the lap bars are being checked, or raising your arms as the train crests over an airtime hill. But I get no enjoyment from a coaster when I have to brace myself unnaturally all of the way round.
 
Generally lapbar coasters do not need any sort of "defensive riding" meaning thats most woodies, mine trains, hypers, some launched. I find most other coasters, excluding the majority of B&Ms, require some kind of effort in order to avoid pain. Personally, I can still enjoy a ride if I have to brace, although it is nice to be able to relax and just put 100% of your brainpower to enjoying the ride.
 
Don't put your lap bar down all the way if you want to feel airtime. Put your hands up for an out of control feel. Lean forward on wooden coasters to reduce roughness.

These are simple things we learn while riding roller coasters, and defensive riding is a natural part of the experience. Do most intentionally seek out rough roller coasters? Probably not. But are there certain defensive moves we make as riders to add comfort to roller coasters? Absolutely. And this is not something which causes an immediate skip of a ride.

Simple roughness is what can detract from a ride, and not necessarily the need to lean into a specific turn, lean forward, etc.
 
A few minor issues won't necessarily hurt my opinion of a ride, particularly if they're easily learned and avoided, but some rides, usually Intamin ones in my experience are ruined by being extremely uncomfortable and unpleasant if you don't take an extremely defensive approach to riding.

iSpeed is probably the worst example of this I've ever experienced. The layout and forces are amazing, and with better train design it'd probably be a top 20 ride easily. As it is, I got a load of arm, ear and neck bashing, an uncomfortable barrel roll with an inadequately padded bar digging into my legs, and came away thinking that the ride was on balance an extremely unpleasant experience. There's no recovering from that. The battering I took from that ride ruined everything positive that the ride had to offer.
 
^ Shame to hear your experience on iSpeed was less than stellar, if Im ever lucky to ride it I'll make sure I ride defensively.

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I really think these restraints need to be default on all Intamin accelerators from now on and I'd love to see existing ones get them. If Furius Baco did I'd actually be so happy because you might actually be able to have consecutive rerides without getting an awful headache.
 
I don't like it. It ruined Intimidator 305 and Maverick for me. The quick rolling is too much.

Intamin did that with Skyrush, too. After three brilliant hills, it started feeling a bit more like I was my dogs' toy being thrown around than I was flying through central PA. I've kept my hands up since I was six, yet I had to hold on to keep my upper body from being thrown back and forth. The air is ridiculous on that ride, so I really didn't want to hold on.

^Where is Furious Baco rough? I had to watch the POV after I saw your sig, and nothing looked anywhere near as snappy as Maverick or I305.
 
BigBad said:
I don't like it. It ruined Intimidator 305 and Maverick for me. The quick rolling is too much.

Intamin did that with Skyrush, too. After three brilliant hills, it started feeling a bit more like I was my dogs' toy being thrown around than I was flying through central PA. I've kept my hands up since I was six, yet I had to hold on to keep my upper body from being thrown back and forth. The air is ridiculous on that ride, so I really didn't want to hold on.

^Where is Furious Baco rough? I had to watch the POV after I saw your sig, and nothing looked anywhere near as snappy as Maverick or I305.
Click to expand...

Furius Baco is different... Maverick and I305 have snappy transitions but they track smoothly whilst Baco does not have snappy transitions but tracks very roughly because the seats are both to the side and over the track causing bone jarring vibrations (its a little more tolerable near the front). The first 3 turns are the worst offenders, the launch is perfectly fine unlike King da Ka for example and the quite literal barrel roll and turn by the lake aren't so bad either.
 
^ B&M Wing Riders can have the same shuffling action, due to vibration from the sheer fact riders are sitting further away from the track. Gratefully it only seems apparently during slower turns/portions of the track.
 
cjbrandy said:
Furius Baco is different... Maverick and I305 have snappy transitions but they track smoothly whilst Baco does not have snappy transitions but tracks very roughly because the seats are both to the side and over the track causing bone jarring vibrations (its a little more tolerable near the front). The first 3 turns are the worst offenders, the launch is perfectly fine unlike King da Ka for example and the quite literal barrel roll and turn by the lake aren't so bad either.
Click to expand...

I don't follow why having the seats out further is an issue. Is it vibration like an Arrow coaster during straight track? I can see that happening, as Hyde said about the wing coasters (though I don't recall this on Gate Keeper, and I recall Skyrush being pretty smooth in that regard). The seats are hanging without support like in the middle; the material will rattle just a little bit (or a lot) more than if the wheels were underneath.

It sounds more like you mean an issue with pretty routine physics, almost like the heartline value doesn't work for the outside seats. That sounds plausible, though B&M doesn't seem to have issues with four-across seats.
 
For me, if you have to brace yourself to ride a coaster that defeats the object, I sit limp in a coaster, I might occasionally hold on and see how I enjoy it. I will brace myself for some tedious rough rides but I'd never consider those to be high in my rankings.
 
When I rode it I had no idea that it would be as awful as it was so yeah, I sat back and enjoyed it, I nearly died but it made number 1 so yeah, why defend? ;)
 
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