RCDay — Jim Winslett

OK, officially it’s still “National Rollercoaster Day” but there’s a movement afoot to get the name changed. Everyone’s just using #RollerCoasterDay hashtag anyway, since it’s a worldwide celebration now.
“National” is too narrow.
Most years, I’m in Calgary on this day, which celebrates the Aug 16, 1898 patent to Edwin Prescott for a looping roller coaster.

Reminder, you can click an image to see the whole thing at once on your screen

I have some issues with this, since LaMarcus Thompson patented a non-looping coaster years before this in 1885

So why go with the second one?
Thompson’s patent was granted in December. Most parks are closed then. Kinda hard to ride a coaster to celebrate that one, I guess.

Whatever.
Back to Tivoli!

Went to the red coaster Dæmonen (Demon) first, since that line goes really slow and it’s long all day. By heading there first, I was able to get two front-seat rides in before it got crowded. I like this ride a lot in the front row, but not much at all farther back in the train.

Then it was time to test out Tik Tak (Tick Tock) a new spinning ride that’s truly evil and hard to describe, but I’ll try. You’re probably familiar with a “Scrambler” fairground ride. They’re very common.

OK, now take that ride and give it a time travel theme. Then make the cars able to flip over upside-down randomly when the motion is right… yeah.

I can’t really describe it other than to say it’s OMFG and it was crazy fun and intense but the ride cycle needs to be AT LEAST a full minute shorter. I have an app called “Ride Forces” that I launched before I rode it and it said I went past the 90 degree mark 83 times during the ride. Not sure how many complete flips there were, since I had no clue which way was up most of the time.

Fun? Hell yeah.
Do it again? Not this trip.

I needed a coaster ride to get my senses back in order after that. Luckily, Rutschebanen was right around the corner! None of the regular crew was working today, so it was a bunch of drivers I didn’t know. I did get to know the bossman Stefan a bit better, though. He’s been driving the coaster for 20 yrs now. Nice guy.

And yes, the decorated headphones are his trademark. (All the drivers wear ear protection during the ride)

Some folks don’t understand how such a tame coaster could possibly be my favourite in the world, and I get why it’s confusing for them.
But I’m well beyond the point where I need bigger, faster, taller, loopier. I’m jaded. Those things are fun, but they’re not as important as how the ride makes me feel.
And Rutschebanen makes me happy. Not just warm-n-fuzzy happy, but giddy happy. Every time.
Proof: I snapped some selfies during my 20th ride on it today. Yes, twentieth. You’d think that they’d mostly show a bit of boredom after that many rides in such a short time.
Nope.

When I try to decide what my top ten (or however many) coasters are, it can be really difficult because coasters are so very different. How do you compare a 100+ year old wood coaster to, say, a modern coaster with loops and spirals and cars that hang below the track?

I just imagine there are two coasters to choose from and I only have time to ride one of them. The one I choose gets ranked higher. Simple.

And if you put Rutschebanen up against ANY of the other 900+ coasters I’ve ridden and say I can choose just one ride, it’s going to be Rutschebanen every time. I won’t even have to think about it.

Look at my face in those pics. You can tell.

After a full morning of riding, we headed back to the hotel for a bit and were serenaded by a throng of Turkish soccer fans doing a pep rally before the big playoff game vs Copenhagen tonight.

I was going to google and see whether or not they won, but then I remembered that I don’t care.

Back to the park around 7pm for a couple more spins on the coaster and a ride on the Ferris wheel to get this shot of the coaster:

Then dinner was a Fransk Hot Dog, which we saw on the menu at a fast food joint near the Ferris wheel. We thought it was going to be a hot dog wrapped in some dough and cooked that way - that’s what the drawing on the sign looked like. Turns out, it’s just a weiner shoved into a baguette with an aioli sauce inside. Disappointing.

After that, we parked ourselves on a bench near the lake (which is actually left over from the moat that used to be around the walled city back in medieval times) for the “Illuminations” show.

It’s short, but pretty neat. They start out with fog machines to cover the water in mist, then they have lasers and fountains and such set to music. It was pretty (and nearly impossible to photograph)