Alright, hate to do this, but it looks like I am going to be the one who brings this ".great". ride back down to earth. Ravine Flyer II is a ride that I haven'.t ".gotten". ever since I first saw concept art of it. It looked cool, but a little short, a little too much turn-based, and the hills looked a little ".not-steep". to provide that great, ass-in-the-air, ejector airtime I crave.
After I glanced over some good reviews, I actually was expecting very big things from this ride. As you can tell, I really liked the ride, and gave it an 8, but it found no place on my relatively lame top 10, and I find it shocking that it has graced the top 10 lists of many better-traveled enthusiasts than myself.
The ride is fast and aggressive. Good things, I think. It worked for this ride, but not as well as it works for others. The turns are border line brutal already however, and I can only imagine how horribly they may track after another few years of dosing out hundreds of cycles per day. I can only hope that the people at a small park like Waldameer will have the brains and money to give their beloved ride they supposedly took years getting approved, the care it deserves.
This was my first Gravity Group coaster, and as expected, it rode quite a bit differently than any other wooden coaster I have encountered. The sounds it made, the sensations it gave were all a bit different than old school wood, or even modern coasters made by CCI, GCI, and Intamin.
So anyways, good steep first drop, followed by a fairly large ".floater airtime". style hill. Then came some intense, ".rough". turns, and the only slow part of the ride: the drop back over the road. I can'.t believe that after 12 laps I still can'.t completely remember the layout, but the rest of the ride continued the trend of small hills, and some killer turns, all taken at EXTREMELY fast speeds. There was air on just about every hill, and finally some ".relaxing". air over two small consecutive hills towards the end. Overall, Ravine Flyer II was a good wooden coaster with a good view that never let up. It provided decent air time and an out of control ride.
So, I liked it, but even after 12 rides, many at night during the rain, I still can'.t justify giving it a nine or ten. Perhaps this ride was even too much for me! I am a self-confessed wooden coaster geek, and without wild woodens, I probably wouldn'.t be a coaster enthusiast in the first place. But the turns were just rough enough to make the whole process a bit uncomfortable and even unenjoyable at parts. My only other gripe is the airtime provided was NOT stand-up, ejector air like on Boulder Dash, Phoenix, or even a few hills of Silver Comet. I did ride on occasion un-stapled, but I didn'.t get that off-my-butt, I'.m going to be thrown into Lake Erie type feeling I love. So, hold on tight and enjoy your ride on Ravine Flyer II. Get up there while it is still rideable…….
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