Day 14 - Michigan's Adventure

The Park

Michigan's Adventure is a bit of an oddity. It's in the middle of nowhere, out of reach of most places of population, although there is one city nearby in the shape of Grand Rapids. It's also quite a small and bland park. It's one complete open space with the various rides organised on a sort of grid-pattern, and there is no shade anywhere so it's difficult to escape the sun. I remember being horribly sunburned here on the first day of the 1999 trip, Keith still refers to the "pink patches" on my "lily-white legs"! The day we visited on this trip was a Sunday, and the park was not busy at all. It was Father's Day, I don't know if that made a difference, but if a Sunday in the middle of June isn't busy then I can't imagine how this park makes any money. It has a water park at the far end of the park, reached by a rather long walk along the lakeside, and at that other end you'll also find a skycoaster and a giant splash ride. But there is no decoration or landscaping to be seen - the giant splash is the barest ride you're ever likely to see. There are a few leafy patches and flower beds dotted around, but mostly it's all concrete.

Having said all that, it has several major advantages. Staff are pleasant and friendly and we were given a very warm welcome. They also do the most delicious lemonade I've ever tasted. A stall opposite Shivering Timbers makes the lemonade while you wait - they squeeze a lemon while you're watching, mix it together with water and sugar, and then hand it to you complete with the lemon in the bottom. It is so refreshing and looks so simple - I must try it sometime! And of course, there's Shivering Timbers itself...

The Coasters

[Wolverine Wildcat] Wolverine Wildcat. Summers/Dinn woodie. I enjoyed this a lot more today than in 1999! It seemed to be running rough then, but today it was a really enjoyable ride. A couple of airtime moments, and a rather unique element in the form of a double-up followed by a double-down. You can just see this element on the picture, directly behind where the train is one the first drop. (by the way, the coaster in the background is Shivering Timbers...)


[Mad Mouse] Mad Mouse. Arrow Wild Mouse. An OK ride, but I do get the feeling that the Arrow mouse coasters are the most gentile of the steel mouse genre, even the trick-track section doesn't really do anything for me.


Zach's Zoomer. CCI junior woodie. This is a really fun ride, with a couple of airtime moments. The cars are a bit small for adults though!

[Zach's Zoomer #1]  [Zach's Zoomer #2]  [Zach's Zoomer #3] 

Big Dipper. Chance junior steelie. I didn't get to ride this today (to tell you the truth I never saw anybody waiting for it and I was too embarrassed to go on it on my own!).

Corkscrew. Arrow corkscrew. Well, this has to be the blandest corkscrewing ride in existence! One major drop followed by a swooping drop into a double corkscrew and then into the brakes. It must have been one of the early designs! The second picture below shows you why I don't like the way Arrow/Vekoma coasters make their entry into a corkscrew. The bottom of the drop is taken with the train on its side, therefore you are slammed into the right hand side of the train, and you never really recover during the corkscrew itself and you are continually rattling around inside the restraints. I've noticed that B&M and Intamin manage to make their entry from the side rather than headlong, so there's no need for the train to suddenly lurch to one side to enter the curved element. It makes for a much smoother ride. And the last picture shows some rather obvious welding, a peculiarly bent backbone, and a slight kink in one of the running rails!

[Corkscrew: from a distance]  [Corkscrew: entry into corkscrew element]  [Corkscrew: welding] 

Shivering Timbers. CCI out-and-back woodie. Are there any other coasters in the park? Finally, at the end of the two week USA trip, we come to the world's best wooden coaster. (In my opinion anyway!). I was completely knocked out by it in 1999, in the nicest possible way of course, and was thrilled to bits to be returning. The ride was walk-on all day. I couldn't believe how deserted the ride was during the day, particularly in the afternoon, even members of our own group seemed to prefer the water park to this. A TV crew came towards the end of the afternoon, and of course everyone turned up then! Anyway, I reckon I managed between 40 and 50 rides during the day. And I still wanted more.

It's very difficult to describe a machine that is at the top of my woodie list by a long way. Just like Nemesis is way out of reach at the top of my steelie chart. This coaster features 12 hills in succession, broken in the middle by a turn-around, and punctuated at the end by a fast and furious helix. Whereas most other coasters might give you an airtime hill or two (maybe four at the maximum), Shivering Timbers gives you massive floating airtime on all 12 hills, coming in quick succession. I read somewhere that it has 30 seconds of airtime in total. Considering the ride lasts something like 80 seconds, you are out of your seat almost as long as you are in it! And it's a very smooth ride too, what else would you expect from CCI? I must admit, it wasn't running quite as smooth as in 1999, in particular the green train had some bumpiness at the bottom of the drops, but it was brand new then! It's also amazing how long the ride is and how it manages to keep its speed. It's only 122ft high, but it just keeps on going and going. You can't imagine what it feels like to just keep going up-and-down for so long! The helix at the end as I've said before is fast and furious (in fact, probably getting a bit too fast and a bit rough by the end of the day) and it still hits the final brakes at speed. A masterpiece of design.

We had a 1.5 hour ERS on Shivering Timbers after the park closed and towards the end of the session it was getting quite dark. The park almost qualifies for a Six Flags Moment here, as for the first 15 minutes of the session the 'walk-round' rule was strictly enforced, and Shivering Timbers has a particularly long route from the exit back to the entrance. But there was some 'management' on the platform and he quickly realised how irrelevant this rule was during an exclusive session, so many thanks to him for not being a jobsworth! Also I must mention the operator who of course was doomed to recite the station announcement spiel all the time (this is a Cedar Fair park, so as I explained before on the Worlds of Fun page, Cedar Fair announcements are particularly contrived and long-winded). However, he also seemed to realise how nonsensical it was during an ERS and did his best to liven it up and 'customise' it for Europeans, even though his supervisor was watching!

The ERS itself was magical. In the end, most people settled for a seat and stayed there. I rode the same seat continuously for 45 minutes! No clamouring for the front and back seats like other coasters because the middle of the train is boring - on this coaster every position is fantastic. No clamouring for the front half of the train or the front seat of any car like on other coasters because the back seats or the seats over the rear wheels of any car are too rough - on this coaster every position is silky smooth. And not having to get out of the train and walk round again was fantastic. There were just two trains running continuously, the operators didn't have to do much work checking the restraints, and we were often waiting for the train in front to complete its circuit. An impromptu 'waving' competition developed between the two trains! The lift hill crosses underneath the brake run so the incoming train can wave at the outgoing train, and the waves became increasingly wilder and sillier! Ahh, this is how an ERS should be, just a group of like-minded people having a bloody great time.

Shivering Timbers not only rides wonderfully, it sounds wonderful too. You've heard no greater sound. A classic woodie rumble that seems to be amplied by the location it's in. I'll shut up now and let you enjoy the pictures and video. But I've got a request for Cedar Fair. Please look after and maintain this ride properly so that it remains rideable and doesn't need trim brakes. And don't kill it by installing trim brakes unnecessarily, like you've done with all your other ultra-smooth, non-violent airtime machines. And it should remain a class ride for many years to come.

If I could possibly fault this ride at all, it would be on two minor points. Firstly, one of the drops on the return half of the course is not parabolic, it's just straight down on a shallow gradient. Therefore you get a pop of airtime at the apex, but it's not sustained throughout the entire drop. You can see this rather flat drop in picture 10 below - it's the middle of the three lowest drops on the return leg. Secondly, again on the return leg, there is a section of trick-track. That is where the train tilts, or wobbles, from side-to-side with first one rail dipping down then the other rail dipping down while the other comes up again. It was a novelty the first time, but it gets a bit wearing! It's the only part of the ride where you have to brace yourself and it interrupts the flow. But I'm getting very 'esoteric'!

[Shivering Timbers #1]  [Shivering Timbers #2]  [Shivering Timbers #3]  [Shivering Timbers #4]  [Shivering Timbers #5] 
[Shivering Timbers #6]  [Shivering Timbers #7]  [Shivering Timbers #8]  [Shivering Timbers #9]  [Shivering Timbers #10] 
[Shivering Timbers #11]  [Shivering Timbers video] shivering_timbers.mpg 565K

Other attractions

Elsewhere in the park there is the usual collection of static and spin rides. Below you can see a scenic picture of the skycoaster, and the world's largest pirate ship. Look, it swings higher than Shivering Timbers! ;-)

[Skycoaster]  [Sea Dragon] 

Finally, I must mention the rather bizarre train ride. This is a fairly new attraction, located in the open space to the left of Shivering Timbers. During the 1999 trip, we were all looking longingly at this area on the left as going up the Timbers lift hill and thinking "mmm, steel hyper coaster, mmmm". But what we've now got is a fairly standard scenic train ride that, erm, doesn't actually go anywhere. It goes round in a fairly small circle next to Shivering Timbers, over the wasteland, and there isn't anything interesting to see at all! A few of us went on it to try and get some pictures of Shivering Timbers, and after it turned the corner so that the coaster was behind us, we were expecting some scenic things to appear. But it just went back into the station!

Also visit the official Michigan's Adventure web site.

The End

...of another great overseas trip. Some general thoughts:

[Pegged]