Mean Streak 2010

Do you know what train it was and where you sat?

Break Trims said:
Oww...I was at the park on Tuesday, and Mean Streak delivered some jackhammering worthy of SOB's rose bowl. The bottom of every hill delivered nothing but pain. I woke up this morning with upper-back pain, and honestly can't think of anything else to which it could be attributed.

I'd have to say that it was the worst ride I've ever had on that thing, and the lengthy wait (30+ minutes) only added insult to injury.

I 100% agree. I went from talking up Mean Streak to putting it on the "do not ride" list with one ride. I meant to warn all of you.

We were in the Gold Train, 2nd row. It. Was. Amful. The girl behind us was screaming and crying. I had to put my arm around my wife to cushion the blows. Everyone got off stretching and complaining. When the ride op asked "how was your ride" the whole train boo'd

For 2 Bench PTC's, "Even Numbered" rows are sitting on the axles which amplify any vibration you are going to feel. You should always sit in an "Odd Numbered" row.

Yeah, I sat in the second seat of the car. It was near the middle of the train, and the gold train, perhaps? The line was so long that when we got up to the station, grabbing the shortest line seemed intuitive.

Mean Streak benefits from this idea that, as long as you're all the way back in the park where there are relatively few attractions, you just might as well go on it.

I'll give it another shot in an odd row. That's it, though.

The farther back you sit can be a factor too. The trains can get a whip action going on causing more shaking at the back than the front.

If you're going to give it another shot. Wait the extra few minutes for a front seat ride. I actually enjoyed my ride a few weeks ago.

On opening day, I sat in the front seat of the red train and got delt a beating like no other. I may be done with mean streak this year.

The only other suggestion I can give for a better wood coaster experience is to lean forward away from the seat. This will eliminate more transfer of vibration from the train to your body.

Ugh. Thanks everyone for talking me into giving Mean Streak ONE more try this year next time we visit the park.

I go through this every year. :) When will the madness stop?

One thing I noticed from my ride this week is that the MCBR didn't grab very hard. On the second half of the ride, rough and uncomfortable as it was, I felt some uplift that was kind of approaching airtime. I kid you not.

I've been on Mean Streak a few times this year. Each time I rode in the front seat and each time I have NOT been disappointed. I find nothing wrong with this ride at all and enjoy it each time.I guess it's all just preference.

Here is some trivia according to rcdb.com:

• Dinn Corp built 12 wooden coasters between 1986 - 1991.
• Of the 12, only 6 are currently operating. Making their average life expectancy less than 20 years.
• One is being rehabbed (Texas Giant)
• Of the 6 still operating, I believe all 6 either have additional trims installed or had a reprofile at some point (although I am unsure about Wolverine Wildcat at MiA).

Now, I know that some of the 12 closed for non-mechanical reasons (SFKK, GL). The enthusiast in me wishes that at least 1 of these would "get it right", but my mind tells me that they will all be gone in another 20 years.

Those Dinn coasters are a cautionary tale, showing how the coaster wars negatively affected judgment of parks and designers. The problem as I see it was twofold: First, the company assumed that height and speed could be increased on woodies (using basically the same old technology) at the same rate that the size of steel coasters was increasing. MS's trim brakes and reprofiled track is a testament to this folly. Second, height and speed were seen as the sole means to make woodies more exciting or to advance them. With the rise of CCI and its progeny, the lie was put to this idea as well.

We now all accept that an 80-foot wood coaster, if designed efficiently, can be among the most thrilling of its breed, but I guess it wasn't apparent prior to the mid-90s. What we're left with are these massive hulks that offer little airtime and other thrills, and have made many people of a generation think that these characteristics exemplify the wood coaster. In almost all other cases, the loss of a woodie is a terrible thing, but I'm starting to think that the future evolution of wooden coasters would be aided by the extinction of the Dinns.

Very well put.

for me this ride wasnt rough AT ALL, but the damn trim brakes ruin this ride!!1

One of the other problems is that these big Summers/Dinn monsters caused was the perpetuation of the myth that there is some magical limit to how tall a wood coaster can be and still be rideable.

Luckily someone chose to ignore that myth. The world's greatest wood coaster is, in fact, slightly taller than Mean Streak, a whole lot faster, and is very rideable. But it DOESN'T have that silly high-banked signature curve element (like Mean Streak's second hill) where the train stalls and falls off the outside rail, setting up an unpleasant oscillation that doesn't let up until the end of the ride.

I'm not certain that the design teams of that era actually understood what their rides were really doing, and I am not convinced that the parks that bought them have quite figured out what's wrong...if they did, I'd think they would not choose to try and fix a ride that runs too slowly to track well by *slowing it down*.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

If they could figure out how to run MS without the trims on the first drop, and not have the coaster be a maintenance nightmare, they'd haven a winner on their hands because the difference between having a ride with the trims off and how it runs currently makes all the difference in the world. You don't have the jack-hammering on the high banked curves at the start of the ride. I love MS period but I love it even more when the trims are open on the first drop. It tracks much better.

I guess it still has problems either way because it was closed almost an entire day last month when I was there. I was surprised they bothered to open it for 2 hours that night. There was a crew working all day on the curve of the second hill before where the photo is taken.

I was going to post a tirp report to discuss this, but my day wasn't all to interesting. So I'll just post my Mean Streak review here.

Was at the park last Saturday (26th) for the opening of Rapids. Was in the back of the park around 9:30 for a night ride on Maverick, but saw a pretty big line so I decided to try out Mean Streak which was sending out empty trains. Got to the station and found a three train wait for the front. So my very smart idea was I'll sit in the back so I can review it to you guys on Pointbuzz. hahah. I get on the Gold train. I started to regret riding before we even got to the lift. The drop trim was hitting really hard and the train with only 2 other people on it nearly stalled around the second hill/turn. You could feel the train smash into the inside rail. We made it around the curve at about 5mph. After that, the ride was just a slow and painful shuffle around curves and I was nearlly killed by the drops. When we arrived back at the station the three people all painfully got off. One guy was having trouble walking and pulled his back.

I was talking to the employee about the ride and he told me I could ride again. At first I was like hell no but then he talked me into it when he explained the whole hold onto the seat infront to keep your back off the seatback. I decided to give it a try and plus I really didn't think I could move to get out.

Second Ride: It was only me and one other person on the train. As we went down the drop with me tightly holding onto the bar infront, it wasn't too bad. Then around the second turn the train felt like it jumped the track as it crashed into the inside rail. I let go of the seatback and my head flung back and hit the headrest really hard. The rest of the ride was horrid. My spine felt as if I was going down a dirt road at 60 mph. The shaking was so bad that my chest started tensing up and I was having trouble breathing. I got back to the station and was seriously considering calling for first aid. Got off the ride and nearly fell. I met up with the family and left the park right away.

I will not be returning to Mean Streak unless it's to watch it be destroyed

^ Im not going to lie, I laughed while I was reading that. I wonder what you think about that employee now that he talked you into another ride.:)

I actually started laughing when we were driving past Mean Streak. I actually started to question my mental health as to why I ever wanted to ride that peice of crap in the first place.

Oh and lets just say the employee saw my face and he didn't leave his little station thing ;)

I rode it on June 30th. Made sure to sit in the front half of the train; made sure to sit in the front seat of the car; and made sure to lean forward and not let my back touch the seat.

The result was the least painful ride I've had on it in years, but the ride itself was only mediocre. Even under the best of circumstances, there's just nothing in the way of exiting elements. The lack of pain only served to highlight what a boring slog around an over-long track that ride is.

My feeling is that if to achieve even a tolerable ride, you have to have what amounts to insider knowledge, and you can only pick from about 25% of the seats on the ride, then the ride is a failure.

I was also there with a friend who is decidedly non-enthusiast. He didn't see anything redeeming in the ride either.