#gravity group

Photo Sources: All photos are mine

Mine Blower at Fun Spot Kissimmee!

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Opened: 2017 Manufacturer: Gravity Group Height: 83 ft (25 m) Speed: 48.5 mph (78.1 kph) Length: 2,290 ft (700 m) My most recent ride: 2021

If there is one word I would use to describe Mine Blower at Fun Spot Kissimmee, it would be aggressive. This is easily one of the most fast-paced and aggressive rides I've ever done, especially for a wooden coaster. That is both a good thing and a bad thing, for reasons I'll get into, but Mine Blower is non-stop from start to finish.

Mine Blower is not that big in the grand scheme of things, at only just over 80 feet tall and about 2,300 ft long, but this thing is relentless. It's a pretty compact layout all piled on top of itself, and is also one of only eight wooden coasters in the world to go upside down. That's right, a wooden coaster with an inversion! In this case, it's a corkscrew that is perfectly placed over the ride's station.

Now, I've only been to Fun Spot Kissimmee once, and as you can tell by the pictures above, that was at night. I think the fact that it was at night actually worked to the ride's benefit, making it feel even more out of control and crazy with it being dark out. But with Mine Blower's layout, it's full of very fast paced and sharp airtime hills, crazy overbanked turns and of course that iconic corkscrew, along with a lot of sections that weave through the ride's structure. Like for a lot of wooden coasters, sections that take place within the structure offer some great moments with an increased sense of speed along with lots of great head/handchopper moments.

I got two rides on Mine Blower during my visit in November of 2021, and when I got off of it, I thought it immediately reminded me of two other wooden coasters. One was El Toro, with it's crazy airtime, super fast paced layout and banked turns. But what Mine Blower reminded me even more of was Boardwalk Bullet at Kemah Boardwalk in Texas. Both rides are super compact, fast paced, relentless and feel super out of control. We'll be getting to Boardwalk Bullet in a few days here, but I immediately thought of that ride when I got off Mine Blower for the first time.

You know how I said at the start of the post that how aggressive the ride is acts as both a pro and a con? Well, unfortunately, Mine Blower does have a rather significant downside, and that's the roughness. From what I've heard, this thing can be absolutely BRUTAL in terms of roughness. It wasn't the roughest wooden coaster I had ever done, but I don't know if I could have done much more than the two laps I got. It was definitely a grind. From what I've heard, Mine Blower had a roughness problem from the day it opened, which is definitely unusual. But then I imagine running this thing every day in the Florida heat didn't do it any favors either.

Recently, parts of the ride have gotten RMC's 208-ReTrak, which is meant to keep the essence of the wooden coaster, but improve ride maintenance and rider comfort. I of course haven't gotten the chance to try it with the new track myself, and I actually really haven't heard anyone talk about whether or not it improved the ride experience at all. Hopefully it has made an impact, but if the ride is still really rough or if the 208-ReTrak doesn't help it, maybe the Gravity Group can come in and install their pre-cut track on it, which I've heard is really good on other rides they've put it on.

But anyways, if you can get past the roughness, Mine Blower is a fantastic ride. There are only six other wooden coasters I have ranked above it in my list, so that layout and how crazy the ride is really goes a long way in my ranks lol. If this is any indication of what the Gravity Group can do (since the only two other Gravity Group coasters I've done are Switchback and Boardwalk Bullet), I am very eager to try more of them haha. Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, Hades 360, Zippin Pippin, I will get to u all someday mark my worms

the really late 25 days of coasters finale / 7. the voyage, holiday world # of rides: 73 / last ridden: fall 2023

Photo Sources: All photos are mine

Boardwalk Bullet at Kemah Boardwalk!

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Opened: 2007 Manufacturer: Gravity Group Height: 96 ft (29 m) Speed: 51 mph (82 kph) Length: 3,236 ft (986 m) My most recent ride: 2017

I alluded to this in my post about Mine Blower the other day, but Boardwalk Bullet is easily the most out of control feeling wooden coaster I've ever ridden. Mine Blower and El Toro are not far behind in that regard, but Boardwalk Bullet is just something else entirely.

I've been describing rides as a combination of two other rides a lot lately and I'm gonna do it again here lol. Boardwalk Bullet feels like a halfway point between Mine Blower and something like Twister at Knoebels. With the extremely fast and aggressive pace of Mine Blower and the scale, twisted layout and lateral forces of Twister. Boardwalk Bullet is not quite as long or as tall as Twister, but the ride experiences are pretty similar.

But Boardwalk Bullet might very well be the most compact major coaster in the world. Some other rides like Smiler at Alton Towers might have it beat, I'm not totally sure, but Boardwalk Bullet is definitely up there by that metric. The Gravity Group crammed over 3,200 feet of track in to less than one acre of land. That is absolutely ridiculous. According to Kemah Boardwalk, the ride also crosses over or under itself a record breaking 42 times! Judging by the ride experience and just looking at the thing, I believe that number lol. Boardwalk Bullet is made up almost entirely of flying through the ride's structure. Think of something like the second half of Steel Vengeance, that's like all of Boardwalk Bullet and it's fantastic.

When I went to Kemah in August of 2017, I got I think five rides in on Boardwalk Bullet. It had rained earlier in the day, so the park was deserted and I got a bunch of zen rides on it. For context, zen rides are when you're the only person on the train for a coaster lol. I rode in the front, in the back and all over the train. I don't remember preferring one over the other, the ride was awesome no matter where you sat. With it having rained earlier in the day, the ride may have been running a bit slower. I can't say for sure since I haven't ridden it at any other time or in different conditions, but if it was running slow, I imagine it's even better when it's running at full speed haha. The ride was also running very smoothly, at least for a wooden coaster, especially a wooden coaster as fast paced and aggressive as this one.

Boardwalk Bullet is also easily one of the most underrated rides I've done, but not necessarily because most people who ride it don't like it. From what I've seen, this ride is (rightfully) praised by everyone who's done it, it's just the "getting on it" part that's the issue lol. Kemah Boardwalk is pretty far removed from the major parks in Texas, which are mostly clustered around DFW or San Antonio. Kemah being all the way out past Houston means it's not usually on peoples' coaster road trips. But if my opinion has any impact on you: find your way here and ride Boardwalk Bullet, you will not be disappointed.

Photo Sources: First two photos are mine / x

Switchback at ZDT's Amusement Park!

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Opened: 2015 Closed: 2025 Manufacturer: Gravity Group Height: 65 ft (20 m) Speed: 40 mph (65 kph) Length: 1,196 ft (364.5 m) My most recent ride: 2017

Here we have another unfortunate casualty of the recent trends of ride closures across the amusement industry over the last year or so. But this one is not Six Flags' fault for once actually. That doesn't make the ride's closure, which actually only happened a few days ago (as of writing this) on August 17th, any less sad though because this was a really awesome and unique little ride. ZDT's shutting down completely is a real bummer as well, because during my one visit there in 2017, I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would going in! Who knew such an awesome coaster could have been at this little family entertainment center in Texas.

But this post isn't about ZDT's as a whole, it's about Switchback, which was easily what put them on the map. Switchback is, or I guess was at this point, the world's only wooden shuttle coaster. This meant the track was not a full circuit and the layout had a vertical spike halfway through to send the train backwards through the layout. And this layout was awesome. Despite the ride not being very big at all, this thing felt really out of control all the way through. A big factor in that was just how ZDT's and the Gravity Group managed to cram this thing in here.

If you ever went to ZDT's, you know how small of a park it was. The fact that Switchback fit in here at all is nothing short of a miracle of engineering. The ride had some of the tightest turns I've ever seen on a coaster, especially a wooden one, passed though a pre-existing building at two separate points, featured some great airtime pops, and a really fast, low to the ground overbanked turn. I can absolutely see why the spike and shuttle layout was done here, because there is no way the space they had to work with would have allowed for a full circuit layout.

During my visit to ZDT's in 2017, I think I got 5 or 6 laps in on it because there was basically no line all day, which was great. The ride was running very smoothly and super fast. I'd heard the ride developed a bit of a rattle or shuffle later in its life, but for me I didn't notice anything egregious in that regard at all. The forward pass on the layout is fast, powerful and full of blink-and-you'll-miss-it moments, like the overbank or the passes through the building. Going up the spike was also always a really cool moment and offered some good airtime, especially in the front row. The backwards pass, while not as fast as going forward, still felt out of control and more disorienting since you couldn't tell what element was coming next.

In hindsight looking back on Switchback, I can definitely see the similarities between Switchback and the other two Gravity Group wooden coasters I've ridden since then. Those being Boardwalk Bullet at Kemah Boardwalk (which I rode during the same Texas trip where I rode Swtichback), and Mine Blower at Fun Spot Kissimmee, which I rode in 2021. They all have a similar fast-paced, relentless feel to them, which makes me want to ride more of the Gravity Group's coasters all the more. Voyage at Holiday World and Ravine Flyer II at Waldameer in particular hehe.

But as for Switchback, it is sad to see that it shut down with its park earlier this week. On the bright side though, this might not be the end for the ride! ZDT's released a post recently saying that there were at least 4 parties interested in buying Switchback! Hopefully it will go to someone who will commit to taking care of it, especially since it's a relatively new ride at only 10 years old. I'm kind of surprised it got this possible second chance, because like I've said before, wooden coasters just aren't relocated very much, if at all, in this day and age. I mean, just look at the fact that Wild One will probably die with Six Flags America at the end of the year, but I digress. Hopefully we will be able to see Switchback reverse course again and come back to life somewhere else in the next year or two.

☀️

25 days of coasters / 19. ravine flyer II, waldameer # of rides: 20 / last ridden: summer 2024

i've pretty much ran out of good photos i have of this .. so here's a full 4 shot of the same angle (ish) on this blog already! either way...