Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

PowerPark | Pitts Special | Gerstlauer Infinity | 2020

VonRolland said:
OFC hardly any of us have ridden it yet but my got BLAND come's to mind
Click to expand...
I rode Pitts Special yesterday after some maintenance and test runs were done. The first drop and the figure-8-thingy were great in my opinion but there was a lot of weird sideways movement which was kinda unpleasant tbh. It was not the usual rattle of roller coasters but more like a slower but bigger shaking movement at the fastest parts of the ride. The same shakiness was also very noticeable during the airtime hills, but not in the wave turn.
I really really hope that this effect can be fixed somehow, since at the moment the ride does not feel as smooth as a brand new coaster should...
 
I must admit that surprises me; I hear that most other new Gersts these days (e.g. Fury at Bobbejaanland, Gold Rush at Slagharen & HangTime at Knott’s Berry Farm, amongst others) are glass smooth!
 
Matt N said:
I must admit that surprises me; I hear that most other new Gersts these days (e.g. Fury at Bobbejaanland, Gold Rush at Slagharen & HangTime at Knott’s Berry Farm, amongst others) are glass smooth!
Click to expand...
Gerst Thrill coaster's are not smooth that does apply to the Family coasters though however. Find there's always a 'twitch' on a gerst where its been rammed together
 
Gerstlauers are often very sensitive to temperature. I believe this is due to the way they build their coasters. They do bend their tracks with fairly large tolerances, and do not use fixed footers with screws, but the supports end directly in the concrete, so they can move the track a little bit to accommodate for the tolerances.
Still, it is not uncommon that the last piece of track on a Gerstlauer requires quite a lot of work to be fitted in.
Due to these tolerances, the expansion (due to temperature) might affect them more than other manufacturers with tighter tolerances.

If you happen to get very close to a Gerstlauer (the Smiler comes into my mind), you can have a closer look at the connections between the tracks. It’s not uncommon for those connections to look crooked, as the track is not flush.
 
Trax said:
Gerstlauers are often very sensitive to temperature. I believe this is due to the way they build their coasters. They do bend their tracks with fairly large tolerances, and do not use fixed footers with screws, but the supports end directly in the concrete, so they can move the track a little bit to accommodate for the tolerances.
Still, it is not uncommon that the last piece of track on a Gerstlauer requires quite a lot of work to be fitted in.
Due to these tolerances, the expansion (due to temperature) might affect them more than other manufacturers with tighter tolerances.

If you happen to get very close to a Gerstlauer (the Smiler comes into my mind), you can have a closer look at the connections between the tracks. It’s not uncommon for those connections to look crooked, as the track is not flush.
Click to expand...

Interesting. It has been (very rare) +30 days here in Finland for almost a week now. When I rode the coaster the temperature was +33.
 
I seem to be in the overwhelming minority who still thinks it looks fine in it's own right?

It's a questionable choice for the park, and it's nowhere near as exciting as we thought it could have been, but the ride still looks fun and enjoyable. It does add to the thrillseeker-end of the park too (makes the park slightly more appealing to me at least!).
 
I think it looks perfectly fun for what it is! While I admit that it doesn’t look like the most mind-blowing layout on Earth, it looks like a nice ride, and the dive coaster-style element should offer a unique novelty for the park’s guests.
 
JoshC. said:
I seem to be in the overwhelming minority who still thinks it looks fine in it's own right?

It's a questionable choice for the park, and it's nowhere near as exciting as we thought it could have been, but the ride still looks fun and enjoyable. It does add to the thrillseeker-end of the park too (makes the park slightly more appealing to me at least!).
Click to expand...

Exactly. Of course there was potential for a better coaster, but at least we got something. A new ride is always a great thing especially in a country with just a couple of parks. I still can’t quite understand the choice of colour scheme or the lack of marketing, but I’m happy to see a new coaster after 5 long years.
The ride has some very unique elements and some proper airtime moments, which I think are enough to make this coaster a good addition.
 
I really hoped a lot for this ride, but this looks really sluggish. And quite rough, you see the train shaking over every single joint.
I'll stick with Junker :)
 
Admittedly I don’t think it looks earth-shatteringly brilliant, and I’d be more excited to ride Junker out of the two Gerstlauers (although I personally feel like I’d enjoy Thunderbird most out of the park’s coasters; gotta love a good GCI!), I still think Pitt’s Special looks like a perfectly nice ride for what it is!

I’m admittedly not sure on the name (sounds more like some fancy brand of gin than a coaster to me, but each to their own; it does actually refer to something, doesn’t it?), and it’s not the longest coaster in the world, but I think what’s there looks perfectly fine! In that POV, I saw a fair few nice pops of airtime; for all their flaws, the Gerstlauer thrill coasters I’ve done do have excellent airtime, so it’s nice to see Gerstlauer do a layout with some nice airtime elements as opposed to loads of inversions, and with their lap bar restraints, it should ride nicely! On the whole, I think it should be perfectly fine; nothing spectacular, but a good addition to PowerPark nonetheless!

Also, with regards to the shaking, that could well be down to the camera; even on rides I’ve found glass smooth, you sometimes see a lot of shaking in POVs.

I must say, though; I was under the impression that Pitt’s Special had a HangTime-style holding brake before the drop, so I must say I was surprised to see that it didn’t! I don’t know why, the shaping of the drop seemed to imply to me that it had one, as I could have sworn it had a bit of a shallow slant after cresting the lift hill like you get on HangTime & Takabisha/TMNT Shellraiser.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top