Sky Ride Cable

I just happened to glance at the webcam and it looks like they may be pulling a new cable for the Sky Ride. Crane in place and camera 2 shows only one side of the cable actually going up to the tower.

I thought it was replaced just a few yeas ago.

It looks like they are. Camera 2 live stream isn't working for me.

I bet the Sky Ride needs a cable replacement more often than a typical ski lift because it is a short lift when compared to something that goes up a mountain. From what I understand, going around the bullwheel is hard on the cable and since the Sky Ride is short, the cable has many bullwheel revolutions.

Looking at camera 2 now, they're definitely putting up a cable

I wonder what a cable like that costs. I wonder what the scrap value of the old cable is.

I wonder why the synthetic fibers on my CP messenger bag tear-up my shirts after a day of rubbing against them.

I wa wa wa wa wonder....why. May 8th needs to get here soon.

Pete, a cable on a detachable lift will go about 10 years, It stretches. but it has to do with total run time in hours, not how many seasons. The length of the lift has nothing to do with its' lifespan. Think about beginner lifts at a ski area, they are very short and run the same duration as other ski lifts and have the same cable lifespan. They may have had an issue with the cable needing it to be replaced early or they could have been re-splicing it, effectively shortening it after it has stretched over time.

Well, maybe. I found a PDF article on calculating the life of running wire rope and a big factor is the number of bending cycles. Trips around the bull wheel is certainly a bending cycle. If your interested in the technical information, the PDF is here:

http://tinyurl.com/pnqelxy

They replace the cable on Skyride every year, Millennium Force's every 2 years, and Dragster's twice a year.

CoasterFreak94 said:

They replace the cable on Skyride every year, Millennium Force's every 2 years, and Dragster's twice a year.

I'd assume they get sold for scrap. Might be cool to be able to buy a few inches.

CoasterFreak94 said:

They replace the cable on Skyride every year.

You are incorrect sir.

^ Like YOU would know anything about that. ;)

I am "Moderately Thrilled" about this new development... ;)

Pete, that article is based on wire rope for cranes. Think about how small the sheaves are on a crane, and how many 180 degree turns that rope makes on a crane. on a ski lift (for all intents and purposes skyride is) there is only one turn at the top and one at the bottom. The real difference I think is the bull wheel is roughly 12 feet in diameter (this can very quite a bit with each lift). The bend is not as dramatic as say the crane with a 1 foot sheave. The core of a ski lift cable is also Nylon, to help with this stretching and bending.

Coaster freak, the cable is not replaced every year on skyride. Not only does it not need it at all, one of the hardest parts of putting on a new rope is the splicing. There are only 5-6 companies that do ski lift cable splicing. The Knight family from Aspen is one of them. This is really specialized work!

On camera 2, it looks like the new cable is already up and ready to go.

Yeah, I was always amazed at the splicing process. I learned how to splice a loop in a nylon rope used as a boat line years ago in a seamanship course I took. To think that something like this is done on a much larger scale using wire rope is truly amazing to me. The people who do it are really masters at that art!

Yeah, let's hope.

I love Sky Ride, but it's the ride at CP that scares me more than any other. It's really the only ride I can think of that does not have some sort of fail-safe device. Think about it... if that cable snaps during the ride, pretty much every rider in every bucket dies within seconds.

As much as I love the ride, I always feel like I'm lucky when I make it to the other end.

I understand where your coming from, but that is a highly unlikely structural failure of the cable. The cables are inspected frequently just like the coasters are. Most ski lift cable failures were the result of aircraft hitting them, not a problem with the cable itself.

Are there any documented cases of something like that just happening out of the blue? I found an incident in Italy, but it was caused by a plane hitting the cable.