Roller coasters are getting better, here's why

If you enjoyed this video it would mean a lot to subscribe to my channel! We're slowly making our way to 100k 🤯

You should look at the old rollercoasters that still made the top 100 and make a video about why they are so special.

Could recency bias be a part of this too? While I do think it's possible that people are swayed by recency bias, my top 3 is Steel Vengeance, Iron Gwazi and Velocicoaster as well.

I think manufacturers are really focusing on restraints, and forces/elements that are fun, and not just numbers. The 90s and 2000s were height and speed records pushers. Then the 2008 crash probably slowed down things a ton, where a resurgence in spending allowed parks to start buying new rides. And the engineers and companies were ready to show them what they had.

I used to think you needed some record breaker to impress, then I rode Velocicoaster and Iron Gwazi, and I can completely understand when you say they are getting 'better'

Alan Schilke seems to have thought that RMC's amazing ride, that combination of smoothness and intensity, comes to some extent from their I-Box track design--the ability to make a track with a cross-section shaped more like wooden coaster track, wheels rolling on flat surfaces, do the kinds of twists in three dimensions that used to only be possible with tubular rails. That is absolutely a technological innovation, the result of computer-controlled fabrication of the track.

I think roller coasters getting smoother and more comfortable have made coasters better. Getting beaten up and pushed around doesn't have to be apart of the roller coaster experience anymore. I think this trend started with B&M. That's why Kumba is still standing and Drachen Fire is not anymore.

The coaster wars brought a lot of rides that felt super grand in scale, taking up huge areas of parks and having towering elements. I think a major shift came from Cedar Point though: after debuting Top Thrill Dragster as the world's tallest in 2003 (and then getting one-upped in 2005 by Kingda Ka) the park decided to build Maverick next. The pivot to a ground-hugging coaster with smaller trains and more focus on forces than speed worked out really well for them, and the entire post-coaster war industry can be summed up by its original marketing tagline: "It doesn't have to be the biggest to be the baddest"

Gotta say, I'm happy to see the netherlands being represented on this list. Quite a few shots from Walibi Holland and the Efteling. I definitly didn't expect the last park to be mentioned. Because if your biggest rollercoaster is a vekoma looping coaster from the 80's, you're generally not really a big player on the market of coaster enthousiasts. But as you said, you can't beat the Eftelings theming.

It's good some new supporting coasters are being built. The emphasis has been one new top rides, and I support that personally, but the result was that the "mild" rides were often the janky ones.

You could have mentioned the OLDEST coaster in that top 50 list which is 76 years old (1947,1985) and that is the famous Phoenix coaster at Knoebels. Good old fashion maintenance works just as good as total transformations like RMC does.💪

Glad somethings are getting better in these tough times

I would say it has a lot to do with pacing and just fitting more "stuff' into the same amount of track. For example, where a coaster before might have had an overbanked turn where the rider feels constant positive gs, nowadays that element would probably be a wave turn where you get some positive gs then there is a moment of negative g then back to positive gs. The average track length of coasters may be the same but I'd bet the average number of elements within that same length of track has increased.

Awesome poll and analysis. I'm endlessly fascinated by coaster polling. I would love to see a poll using the same methods asking people to rank the parks with the best coaster collections - maybe something to think about?

This video could have been much better. You should have mentioned that coasters are now made on computers which can calculate gforces, speeds etc. Trying to do this on paper was primitive before modern software resulting in rides that don't push the boundaries for what is possible. Other improvements you should have mentioned are propulsion systems and brake systems.

shoutout to the new guardians ride cosmic rewind in epcot. that was quite an experience and gave epcot a desperately needed ride that makes Epcot a must visit IMO (when visiting disney).

Great look! I’m a massive RMC fan because of their wild coaster style, but they don’t typically go for big records, it’s all about ride quality. Even their original, the wonderful New Texas Giant at my home park is an absolute blast, though it doesn’t come close to comparing to their new rides. When I went last year to 11 new parks I finally understood that record breaking isn’t always best. Riding Phoenix and having some of the same insane airtime experiences that new coasters have showed several things. People love airtime, good maintenance is important, and just because something is small doesn’t mean it can’t be intense. Twisted Cyclone at SF Over Georgia is another example, it’s smaller than I think a lot of RMCs are so I expected it to pack less of a punch, but it was insane. Truly the design is more important than just the records a ride holds

In a world where Instagram and TikTok have become the most effective marketing tools and word of mouth is more powerful than ever, impressive numbers as the main gimmick of your ride just aren't as effective crowd attracters anymore. Especially since physics kinda puts a hard limit to how high and fast you can go. Parks are spending their budget way smarter these days, and the lower speeds and stats they now aim for make it possible to have all these crazy new elements that have been popping up everywhere.

Great job on this video. I would say for the future I’m seeing a pattern with Roller Coasters having a elaborate theming. There are roller coasters in the past that have theming but not to the extent of Velocicoaster which sparked a new wave of how to experience a roller coaster through story telling.

I think another part of this is how few roller coasters most people have ridden. If it's your first visit to Busch Gardens Tampa, of course the newest and smoothest ride will blow you away the most. And if you haven't ridden any RMC's, it'll feel especially life changing. Duplicate that experience for a lot of people, and even with the pairwise Mitch Hawker method of comparing coasters you're still gonna see popularity of certain parks (especially from the US) with their most fresh and exciting rides bubble up to the top of these polls. I do think it's more interesting to see which of these rides will stand the test of time, though. Even once they become rough, there are some rides that would completely change their character if they ever got reprofiled; Magnum XL-200 being a good example (they better not ever take away those triangular airtime hills). Phoenix at Knoebels is another good example of what types of "great ride experiences" have been lost over time. But it's hard to appreciate those aspects of older rides if you're just starting out as an enthusiast and a local park gets the latest and greatest thing. So lots of new rides bubble up to the top of small ranking lists, and big ranking lists tend to have more older rides closer to the top. Checking the numbers on your site, it looks like the average ranking list size was 50, which seems small to me? IDK, this is just my hypothesis as someone with a list too big to manage (and I don't have half as many credits as you, I think). But Big Dipper at Camden Park is legit more brilliant and terrifying than Iron Rattler, to me, and I don't think any polls will ever be able to capture or appreciate what older rides like it bring to the table. Which is where curators that make an effort to spotlight small and unique rides come in.