Hershey, Pennsylvania – Thursday, July 19th, 2012
Another look at the Immelmann.
The zero G roll is third.
The fast inline rotation represents the apex of this coaster's intensity.
Inline roll and vertical loop, two staple inversions of diametrically opposite geometry.
The last part of Great Bear tries to be interesting but more or less fails. It does an extended race over the river's surface with a corkscrew thrown it, but the dynamics are so flat and listless that they make the nearby SooperDooperLooper look exciting by comparison.
But that's fine. You do you, Great Bear.
Great Bear returns to the station. By the way, even though the ride is shoehorned rather awkwardly into the park, I really admire the name and color scheme. Sophisticated without being boring, perfect for a Beemer.
I've never seen this warning on any other inverted coaster. Was there an incident when this was a problem that it had to be spelled out in huge block letters?
Great Bear overview.
Something looms over the horizon...
Skyrush, Hershey's new for 2012 thrill machine from Intamin and a top priority of this trip.
Admittedly I'm not sure what message this name and logo is trying to communicate about the prospective ride experience.
Early in the day Skyrush had a nearly full queue, which thanks to the eight row trains and rapid cycle resets between dispatches, it ate through in less than an hour.
Of course for my first ride I stayed to the left. I can ride a coaster many times, but I can only ride it for the first time once...
Anticipation was high at getting to experience this much lauded new attraction that had many fans claiming as their new favorite steel coaster.
It's been a number of years since Intamin produced such a pure example of a megacoaster, which are often the top rated coaster style in the world.
Somehow, Skyrush makes 200 feet look a lot taller than it really is.
About ready to board Skyrush's unique winged hypercoaster trains.
And away we go...
So, how was my first ride on Skyrush?
Ehhh... not that great, actually.
As we pulled out of the bottom of the first drop, my lapbar suddenly gouged into my upper thigh. I had know this was an issue for some people and approached it defensively, but it still caught me off-guard. The rest of the ride was mostly an exercise in pain management until the lapbar could be released back in the station.
On further inspection, the issue appears to be a harness bar that's about 1-2 inches too long. As you can see, only an anorexic could sit with this restraint flat against their lap. For the rest of us, when you pull the restraint down the point where it makes contact with your body isn't flat and in against your tummy, it's bulged out further and sitting against your upper leg at an angle. When you encounter any airtime (or even hard laterals) all of that pressure is concentrated right at the corner against your femur, which frankly hurts. Quite a bit.
Now, anything to do with coaster ergonomics usually doesn't affect all riders equally; for example, some riders take issue with the Intamin horsecollar restraints like on Storm Runner or Maverick, but I'm of a stature that it doesn't bother me, just as there are some with a BMI index that makes the restraints on Skyrush no big deal. But clearly I was not in the minority on this. Look at the picture here. This was taken later in the afternoon, after the morning rush to the new ride had cycled everyone through. Extremely few people are coming back. The line is down to less than ten minutes, possibly the shortest of any roller coaster in the park at this time.
Of course, with queues that short, I still found plenty of opportunities to try riding Skyrush again.
Skyrush provides fairly convenient loose article storage bins. Although you'll probably get some weird looks when you stuff all your clothes and everything else not chemically bonded to your skin in one of them, as the sign would seemingly command...
While certain coaster people undoubtedly appreciate coasters that require signs like this, given Hershey's family-oriented demographics this might not be such good news for many people.
I really like this writeup for Hershey… Had the opportunity to visit two years ago and found it to be a really enjoyable park, and Lightning Racer turned out to be a family favorite.
However, the reason why I’m commenting here is not because of Hesheypark, its because your main post on the main page offers no place to respond hahaha. A couple of thoughts here. Glad to hear that you totally haven’t abandoned the site, as I find it fascinating. If I could put in my 2 cents, I’d greatly enjoy writeups for Maverick and Magnum XL-200.
When I visited Cedar Point last year (my second trip), obviously Maverick was on of my favorites, and most roller coaster enthusiasts agree. And the ride holds consistently to your concepts of roller coaster “story progression” in intensity. However, from my previous visit I wanted to avoid Magnum because I remembered it being very painful. My friend dragged me on it and after a couple laps I found that it wasn’t as painful as I imagined, but nonetheless it was still fairly lackluster for me. Would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Also, as kind of a tandem, I think it would be unique if you did a writeup for Rocky Mountain Constuction as a company. They, all by themselves, I think have changed the roller coaster industry more than any other company in a very long time. I know you appreciate Alan Shilke’s designs (X2 is just awesome), and it’s clear to me that he cares more than most about element pacing, progression, and finales (the double barrel-roll on Outlaw Run, the mini airtime hops on Wicked Cyclone, and the twisty switchback section on Wildfire, just to name a few stand-out finales). I’m not sure of how many RMC coasters you’ve ridden, but if its more than a few, I’d be interested in hearing what you have to say about them.
Anyways, sorry that was kinda long-winded, I’ve been meaning to comment for a while now. Keep it up and I’ll look forward to hearing from you!
As per JetstreamCoasters, commenting here because I can’t comment elsewhere.
Just wanted to say thank you for your years of intelligent commentary on rides & parks. Your words became a bit of a narrative to my first experiences of parks all over the world after I conquered my fear of coasters back in 2011 at the not-so-tender age of 36! The next three years were spent in whatever parks I could find on RCDB and reading your commentary for your unique insight prior to my visits.
Oh, and thanks to your site, I can no longer ride the Universal Studio’s Rip Ride Rocket without activating the secret track #112 – Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird – this must be the best coaster soundtrack ever!
Like you, life has since moved on. I have a 2 year old boy now, and visits to parks are few and far between. But I’m encouraging him to eat all his food so he can grow to reach the magic 0.9 & 1.4m heights so I can go venturing the world of coasters with him too. And whatever you decide to do with this site, I look forward to seeing more of your writing, in whatever form into the future.
PS. I rode Sky Rush (also known non-affectionally as ‘Thigh Crush’) back in 2013. I rate it as one of the most terrifying coasters I’ve ever been on, mainly because if those damn restraints break my femurs, I’m toast! Did you notice the ever-so-slight release of the restraints on the holding brake at the end? So Intamin/Hershey know about the problem then!
Thanks for the kind words, Ty. As I said in my last update (already more than half a year ago) there will be more updates coming, and hopefully one fairly soon which I’ve made some progress on recently.
It makes me realize just how long I’ve been putting this on hold; 2011 was when things first started slowing down for me, and in that time you’ve had your entire coaster riding career begin and end! (But hopefully will begin again soon!) Time really does get away from us…