News Alpine Bobsled Closing September 4th, 2023

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Zachary

Zachary

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Sep 23, 2009
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Ugh, this is sad. Six Flags Great Escape announced today that their ultra-rare Intamin bobsled would be closing this September.

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I know this thing was probably a ton of trouble on the maintenance and uptime side of things, but it's always sad to see a rare coaster model become even more endangered.
 
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Makes me sad, my home park is great America and this coaster was just barely before my time, my parents loved it, it was a bucket list coaster for me and was planning on going to great escape for it. Sad I won't get a chance to ride it now
 
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Thinking this is specifically for a water park expansion, along with the removal of the Go Karts. It's right next to the park's wave pool, and would add more acreage for kiddie slide complex and lounge chairs. (SFA just got new lounge chairs and SFFT added a Proslide kiddie complex this year). Sadly, that's probably more marketable than another ride right now.
 
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Reptillian was flying early in the season. Not sure about now. Definitely the best ride I have had on it. Though I like Flying Turns more due to how it goes down the track, which is not mostly in the center. The cars go way up high on the turns and back down. But I do have to say that ride I had earlier this year on Reptilian was closer to that. I guess because of the higher speed? I don't know.
 
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Though I have not had the chance to ride Alpine Bobsled at SFGE (and likely never will with the announced 9/4 closing), just a couple of weeks ago I did ride La Vibora at SFOT, and was blown away by how different the Intamin bobsled is from the Mack Rides version (e.g. Avalanche/Reptilian that most of us are familiar with).

With the long 7 car train (seating up to 14), the Mack bobsled is almost smooth and fluid compared to the Intamin single car design (seating between 3 to 6); where following is a photo I took of the SFOT version:
IMG_4443.jpg

When riding La Vibora, at times I could have sworn the car was going to flip on its side as it literally careened down the track. It's a fairly intense experience.

So anyone who enjoys the uniqueness of a good Intamin coaster (as I do), I would strongly recommend that you add the model to your bucket list (as I believe La Vibora at SFOT will be the last remaining one come September).
 
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outhikn said:
When riding La Vibora, at times I could have sworn the car was going to flip on its side as it literally careened down the track. It's a fairly intense experience.

So anyone who enjoys the uniqueness of a good Intamin coaster (as I do), I would strongly recommend that you add the model to your bucket list (as I believe La Vibora at SFOT will be the last remaining one come September).
Click to expand...
You also get that effect on Flying Turns at Knoebels. Well, I don't know that it's the same as I've never ridden an Intamin bobsled, but you definitely fly up and down the turns and at times it feels like you're going to flip. Even though Flying Turns is substantially slower, it's a more thrilling ride IMHO. Though I like the Mack ones too. Would love to try one of these some day.
 
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