Benzin said:
The problem is that the Intamin ones are just, well, bland...
Colossos felt more like a Steel coaster than a wood coaster, and I think that's probably why I look at the RMC ones and go 'meh'...
To get a real look at modern wooden coasters, GCIs need to be experienced...
I certainly wouldn't describe Balder as being bland, every single hill attempts to send you into orbit!
I don't understand why people give Intamin such a hard time for producing smooth wooden coasters. Wood is simply a building material, you can do a lot of things with it. Why should we constrain ourselves solely to a construction technique that's over 100 years old when we have new and exciting technologies that allow us to use wood in other ways? I love traditionally constructed wooden coasters too, the work that GCI does is brilliant but I think the market's large enough to accommodate both styles of construction.
In Europe, we don't have anything like as much expertise as the US when it comes to traditional wooden coasters so it makes a lot of sense for Intamin to go about things differently. They used to produce pretty average to poor woodies before they moved onto their pre-fabricated system.
At least now if nothing else, they have a product with its own unique identity that offers a completely different type of ride experience to any of their rivals and deals with many of the inherent maintenance problems of traditional woodies. It overall broadens the wooden coaster market, which is a good thing.
I don't accept that Intamin woodies ride like steel coasters either because I don't think they do. There is a certain feel that you can only get from an organic material and it's present on Intamin woodies. Due to the limited agility of the trains and track system, the elements have a much more geometric quality yet somehow they still manage to flow nicely. There's also no steel coaster that I know of that delivers airtime in quite the same way as Balder. It's very abrupt, very powerful and utterly relentless. It puts me more in mind of the final run of hills on Boulder Dash or Phoenix than anything on a steel coaster. In addition to this, there's everything that happens in the peripheral such as structural head-choppers and the sound of the up-stops when cresting an airtime hill.
I just think that the mentality that a wooden coaster must be a certain way because tradition dictates it is an unhealthy one. It seems that many put the importance of the coaster's construction before the overall quality of the ride experience. If the ride is good, what's the point in getting hung up on how it was made?