"Nitro" has become my shorthand for the path modern roller coasters are taking away from the rough and tumble lumber heaps of yore to the towering steel giants, smoother than egg whites on polished marble, that anchor many themeparks today. Personally, I dont welcome this trend, but I will try to rate Nitro on its own merits, rather than treating it as yet another nail in the coffin of the traditional roller coaster experience.
Judged in isolation, this ride is hopelessly enjoyable. My biggest complaint is with its Fisher-Price my-first-roller-coaster aesthetic (big, bulky, brightly-colored, kind of synthetic-looking). The ride quality, however, has to be experienced to be believed; it is a reminder that while humanity still remains, on many levels, little more than a collection of shaved apes, it is also capable of manipulating the world around it in amazing ways. This is as close as were likely to get to capturing the feeling of a magic carpet: smooth, swoopy, open, quiet. Ride Nitro at night, and you will feel like youre flying. I hate to lapse into cliches like that, but trust me, its an accurate description.
Yet while most hypers these days are fast and smooth, Nitro ups the ante with a layout that deftly exploits its strengths. The first hill may not be the steepest in absolute terms, but its profiling creates a rarely equaled impression of steepness. Viewed from the front seat of the comfy trains with the relatively minimalist clam-shell restraints, the first drop actually seems to bow inward. Hill number two gracefully transitions into the second act, which goes soaring through the woods over a couple of mammoth hills and through the sort of heeling, overbanked turnaround that is a now a staple on these types of coasters. The ride then enters an upward helix, and for the first time, its passengers are treated to a hint of intensity from the mild positive Gs. After the obligatory brake block, Nitro brings it home over a series of bunny hops (although that term is perhaps misleading on a coaster of this size) which briefly offer some mild weightlessness. What airtime exists on this coaster strikes me more as a gentle manipulation of gravity. At times you will feel heavier (as in the helix) and at times you will seem momentarily to float. What you will not feel is launched sharply in one direction or another.
Now comes the difficult part: summing up the Nitro experience. Subjectively, I view Nitro as TOO refined for my personal tastes, like a magazine model whose characterizing features are treated as blemishes and airbrushed away. Nitros most recognizable trait is, in fact, an overall sublimity that I find strangely alienating. If it were a record, I would say it was overproduced. I like to feel some heart, a little grit, in my roller coasters. Nitro, however, seems to exist above the fray. It will treat you to quite a show, but its a notably passive experience. Your eyes water from the wind and your hair gets a bit mussed, but otherise, youre as serene and comfortable as a first class passenger on a jumbo jet cruising calm skies.
Yet this, of course, is among the keys to Nitros popularity. Whatever else I say about Nitro, the handwriting is on the wall: this is the roller coaster for the modern park-goer. Whether that makes it something worth celebrating is, for this critic at least, still up for debate.
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