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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: Icon - 2018 Mack Double Launch Coaster

AstroDan said:
Gosh. Comments seem to have gone down like a lead balloon with some people.

I am absolutely certain it will be a brilliant ride, one of the best coasters in the UK. It is an excellent ride for the park. I am an absolute Mack fanboy so can't wait to see it open.

I just hope that die-hard BPB fans, who like these rough and ready coasters, like it too! I am only basing my thoughts on occasional scanning of BPB forums over many years and gauging that one of the things that isn't liked is the smoothness of many coasters at other parks. This will be silky smooth.

:)
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I like a lot of 'rough and ready' coasters and can take most of what the woodies throw at me, though I'm not crazy about Infusion's headbanging.

I think it's high time BPB got a smooth coaster. Would people really complain that a coaster is 'too smooth' ?
 
Dipper_Dave said:
Would people really complain that a coaster is 'too smooth' ?
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I think the answer to that is, yes. It's a complaint I've seen numerous times, particularly about newer B&M's. I mean, Baco is a favourite of many BPB frequenters which tells you all you need to know about their preference for ride comfort ;)
 
Rides that throw you about a bit tend to be more interesting IMO. Bluefire is a good example, I find it incredibly forceless, slow and dull. Yet the clone at IMG in Dubai was pretty rough, and therefore made it more interesting/better.

That's not saying that I prefer rough coasters, El Toro is my no.1 and that' pretty smooth, albeit violent XD

Nemesis is smooth, but it's hella forceful.

Smooth and forceless = dull
Rough and forceless = a bit more interesting

Obvs there are limits, like I do love Baco, but my god that back row can be a bit too much. Yet on the flip side, I find Dragon Khan too much pretty much every time, it just grinds along it's track and I find it really unpleasant. Same for Kumba and the (old) Hulk.
 
Well, if we want to give the diehard BPB fans some sort of reassurance, then some of these new Macks apparently have a slight rattle to them when they first open. Or is that an enthusiast fantasy? I got that from some enthusiasts who say that Helix and DC Rivals have slight rattles to them and Andy Rumney on the Coaster Crazy YouTube channel, who says that "these new Mack coasters are really rough. They ride like shopping trolleys". The only new Mack I've ridden is Cobra's Curse, and even though I'm not sure whether you guys would really class Cobra's Curse as a new Mack so to speak, I had no problems with its smoothness.
 
Don't listen to Andy Rumney, he's an idiot. He was talking about Lost Gravity which is really smooth and is most certainly not like riding a shopping trolley.

Helix is my number 1 and every so often it gets the "Mack Rattle" but it's purely superficial and does not affect the smoothness.
 
Other than Velociraptor, I'd say all the Big Mack coasters I've done have been incredibly smooth. A bit on the tame side (with the exception of Lost Gravity which does throw you around a bit) but smooth none the less.

And this Andy guy also claimed that Wipeout at Pleasurewood Hills was the roughest coaster he had ever been on. I must say I was pleasantly surprised when I tried Wipeout, had one bad jolt but other than it was great.
 
I have just come out of a meeting where we talked about 'slow running' for users across our IT estate and the key conclusion is that the term means different things to different people and unless there is a definition somewhere, it'll always be utterly subjective. One person's slow, is another's lightning fast.

There are smooth rides that throw you about with, there are rides that bounce around the track and there are rides that are almost always silky smooth. The worst thing for me is a constant vibration - that never used to bother me, but its now my most hated thing about rides.

Plus, it's even trickier with coasters when an individual's experience can be down to weather, rolling stock - even down to row or a dodgy wheel on the day. Plus, when you rode it is incredibly important.

Some coasters age well, others do not and unless someone qualifies when they rode it, the confusion is only more widespread. If you rode Kingda Ka in its early years, you probably experience a much 'smoother' ride than you did if you rode it in a later season.
 
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Temleh said:
Don't listen to Andy Rumney, he's an idiot. He was talking about Lost Gravity which is really smooth and is most certainly not like riding a shopping trolley.
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In the video I was watching, he was actually talking about Cobra's Curse at Busch Gardens Tampa. Which I found to be perfectly smooth when I rode. In fact, I think Cheetah Hunt in the same park is a more accurate depiction of a shopping trolley!
 
I posted a comment about enjoying Lost Gravity and I kid you not he sent me a page long rant about why I was wrong and how it was like a shopping trolley. Enough about him anyway, moving back to Icon...

The entire second half of the layout is now complete, I assume the top hat will be next to go up.
 
Temleh said:
I posted a comment about enjoying Lost Gravity and I kid you not he sent me a page long rant about why I was wrong and how it was like a shopping trolley. Enough about him anyway, moving back to Icon...

The entire second half of the layout is now complete, I assume the top hat will be next to go up.
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I have to say that this ride is springing up very quickly! Should be done very, very soon! I think this will be testing and open much earlier than anyone originally anticipated!
 
Matt N said:
In the video I was watching, he was actually talking about Cobra's Curse at Busch Gardens Tampa. Which I found to be perfectly smooth when I rode. In fact, I think Cheetah Hunt in the same park is a more accurate depiction of a shopping trolley!
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Seems you had a bad ride, Cheetah Hunt was silky smooth when I rode it.
 
The lastest round of promotional emails from BPB state that Icon will open in Spring 2018, after the end of wow weekends (the last of which is the 25th March) on a date to be announced. Presumably they'll be aiming for Easter weekend.
 
BPB seem very hit and miss with their promotional emails. I don't seem to be getting anything from them of late. I'm not even sure I got email confirmation when I ordered my season pass renewal. I think I wrote the reference number down and obviously its gone out of my bank, but I can go ages without getting emails from them, strange considering I've been a pass holder for 2 seasons now
 
Dipper_Dave said:
BPB seem very hit and miss with their promotional emails. I don't seem to be getting anything from them of late. I'm not even sure I got email confirmation when I ordered my season pass renewal. I think I wrote the reference number down and obviously its gone out of my bank, but I can go ages without getting emails from them, strange considering I've been a pass holder for 2 seasons now
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I agree with this, I have signed up to their promotional emails via their website multiple times yet receive nothing from them. Madness really, they're missing out on promotion!
 
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