Sky Rides today?

So, I now assume the Sky Rides only operate every other day?

Sky Rides? I thought there was only one Sky Ride at Cedar Point. Two terminals but the same ride. Where is the second Sky Ride?

I was wondering that myself.

Oh, I am having flashbacks of the Frontier Lift which was totally awesome.

The first one was pretty good. The second one was a bit flat. But you’ve really found your stride on the third sky ride post. I look forward to the fourth one.

While not quite as inspiring as the Blimp posts or as intriguing as the Drone Pilot posts, at least the sky ride posts are CP relevant….

^Yes XS, those SkyRide posts are very relevant indeed. Without them that cable would have to strtch from station to station and have a great amount of slack. Sort of like the clothes-line in my yard.

I happened to catch a ride-op as he was hanging the closed sign on Sky Ride today.
He told me they close the ride any time a storm is in the area, even if the weather in the park is clear.
He said yesterday's closure was weather related too.

Kind of a bummer, but always best to error on the side of caution when it comes to safety.

Proven because being lakefront the wind can come in quickly at the park. So if there is a storm in the area that makes sense. It takes a while to clear all the gondolas.

it’s fortunate CP still had this rare ride.

Does anyone know why one tower is much shorter than the other two? Usually towers are symmetrical and the two outer towers would be the same size. Was this ride ever shortened or lengthened?

It’s always been like that and I’m not sure why.
In honor of Kings Island’s 50th there have been a lot of historical and vintage videos popping up and their now-defunct Sky Ride is visible.
It came from Coney where it ran down the center of the main midway, just like CP’s. It had four piles with the first and last of the trip being the shortest. There was a Bavarian-looking station that made the trip to KI and anchored the Oktoberfest end of the ride. A sign was painted on it that said “Slip the Bonds of Earth and Climb Skyward”. After the ride closed after 1979 it stayed around, but was razed to make room for King Cobra. The station at the other end is still with us, but now houses a Snoopy store.

^^One interesting thing that I noticed is that there are actually only three supports on CP’s skyride, with the extra support on the north/Corkscrew station side. Now, Von Roll skyrides have a “drive” station which contains the motor for the cable, and a “tension” station, which has the weight necessary to keep the cable taut across the towers. (Compare this to chairlifts at ski resorts, which usually have the drive motor and tension weight blocks both at the base station, and only an unload bull wheel at the top. At Boston Mills/Brandywine, for example, their lifts’ weight blocks are massive blocks of concrete attached via cables and pulleys to the base station.) Since the north/Corkscrew station of CP’s skyride is the tension station, I would assume that the short support tower helps to distribute the tension more evenly across all towers and each span of cable. Without that support tower, there could be too much tension at one span and not enough on the other cable spans between the towers.

Coasterhawk would be happy to know that they had every single cabin on Sky Ride running yesterday, although he probably saw it on the camera. Anyway hats off to the Sky Ride Crew yesterday as they were hustling all day.

Sky Ride was down all day yesterday, as was the entire park after 4PM.

Not had a soaking like that in a long time. That storm was brutal.

Did they close early? I saw on the web cam that everyone appeared to be headed to the front of the park way before closing time.

They didn't "officially" close, that I know of. Rides shut down shortly before 4:00 and never reopened. Live entertainment continued until about 5:00 or so, though we went to Red Garter to catch the advertised show, and it didn't happen so I'm not sure if the sign was wrong or what, there.

We hung out in the arcade for a bit, waiting to see if anything would happen. The park was EMPTY by 5:30, and we enjoyed using up our tickets at the remaining open spots at Frontier Festival in a light rain. At about 6:30, we headed for the exit, and the storms were following us down the midway. Lots of lighting, and you could tell the real rain was right behind us. As soon as we hit the space between the sky ride and carousel, it caught up to us. I've been in storms on point before, and we were prepared with rain jackets and waterproof shoes - the jackets held up nicely, but the parking lot was so flooded, that the water level was above our ankles, so the shoes were useless at that point. People using umbrellas were in for a treat when they turned inside-out.

Driving through the parking lot was a bit hairy, because the water was really deep in some parts. It was so deep over by the exit that they had the pylons up and directed us over to the Chausee instead.