Apparently 0 – 100 kph in 2.5 seconds.
I went on it twice yesterday and benefitting from small queues, took the front seat option.
I now have a bit more respect for F1 drivers!!!!!!

Even morally wrong ones!?

Ahh, not been to Alton Towers for aaages! Since the year they opened Rita in fact, whenever that was. Didn’t get to go on it cos queues.

How much is it these days? When do the sprogs break up for summer? Should go before then.

My favourite at Alton Towers. Last visit was in October. Must have done that 15 times back to back. If you notice, after that initial launch, there’s no more driving force applied for the rest of the ride. I think it’s a compressed air catapult that does it.

I quite fancy a go on the ‘Ferrari Rossa’ in Abu Dhabi, same thing but moar speedz 🙂

The Ferrari one is insane. IIRC it doesn’t actually accelerate as fast as Rita, but just when you think it surely has to start slowing down it just keeps accelerating. It’s mad.

There’s a brilliant video of Fernando Alonso riding it; his face suggests he’s not a fan…

Watch the contents of his pocket get forcibly ejected at 150mph 🙂

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijuQwnfBBZw[/video]

I had a two for one ticket off a box of cereal so it limited the damage to £54 for two of us, including the parking.
I’d not been for ages and Rita was fantastic.
Also loved the new Smiler (that vertical climb halfway through is very very unsettling).
Air was smooth but Nemesis steals the show for out and out speed and violence.
Definately a place to go out of season. We got straight on nemeis and air, waited maybe 20minutes for the front seats on Rita and Oblivion had no queue whatsoever.
When you see there is capacity for 2.5 hours queueing time on the big rides, holidays are clearly to be avoided*

*unless your hand over yet more money for a fastpass**

*which only works on certain rides, differant fastpasses for diffferant themes of rides

Air was smooth but Nemesis steals the show for out and out speed and violence.

I’m a bit of a coaster nut. I’ve been on rides claiming to be the biggest / fastest / longest / tallest / loudest / greenest / whatever other superlatives they can think of. And you know, Nemesis is hard to beat.

It doesn’t carry many accolades (other than being B&M’s first UK coaster I suppose) but there’s just something unique and very special about it. Even just the sound of it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, you could drop it in the middle of Busch Gardens and you’d still know it a mile off. Lovely, lovely thing that everyone should have a go on, it’s the little coaster that could.

Agree with Cougar, Nemesis is epic.
Still Busch Gardens wins out as it has better food and Cheetah…which is like a 2 mile long Nemesis…Amazing.
We were there two years ago and did Sheikra 5 times back to back!

never going again to Alton Towers…only because the last visit was the best its ever likely to be;
There was a huge power cut to the whole site unbeknown to us and no idea of when it was likely to come back on. Loads of people were walking back to their cars and going home! Had Sun tickets (from Ebay) so only valid on that day – went in, walked over to Nemesis just as power came back on, rode it 3 or 4 times in a row! Got off-ran back round got back onto same car/carriage! Operators wouldn’t let us stay on.

Did Air 4 times. Twice in the morning then twice before closing time.

‘Smiler’ – was freaked out by the vertical lift – and its also quite a ‘bumpy’ track so generally not as nice to ride as the others.

Rita is great – but only for the launch -after that its nothing brilliant – still cant do the launch no handed though! Its theming doesn’t fit in with the area of the park though.

Nemesis is still my favourite though for the shear power, scale and smoothness of the thing.

I’d love to try and US version of Stealth… twice as high apparently

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN8nv4tVFuA[/video]

It’s well worth waiting for the front seats on Nemesis too. Agreed as above, it isn’t the fastest and tallest or anything, but it does what it does so well it’s unreal. It just never lets up, there’s nowhere to relax. On the front is awesome as you can see the cliffs and ravines right in front of you as you go hurtling towards or into them.

I think it’s so good as it is set into the landscape perfectly, it uses the closeness of the terrain to multiply the terror rather than just adding more speed and height. Never been to any of the USA coasters but I watch the programmes about them and they are generally stuck on what appears to be a flat landscape so they have to make them big and fast.

My favourite is the runaway mine train at Alton though, not frightening at all but so much fun, feels completely different on the back than on the front too, I love it!

CHB , I couldn’t agree more ,we went to Busch last year for the 5 time is as many , straight on Cheetah hunt on the front ,when the ride finished we just climbed on the back , must have been less than 1000 people in the park , right after spring break , Florida was dead , fantastic 3 weeks

Id love to try Rita but I hate Alton Towers , never a quiet day

Yep, front seats on nemesis are great. Imminent death by quarry face at every turn!
Again, it was really quiet and we went on three times, the first a few rows back to acclimatise my daughter, then twice on the front row.

Rita is great fun, love the acceleration at the start. Have to agree that Nemesis is the best ride at Alton Towers. Also liked Nemesis Sub-terra, not a thrill ride but still scared the crap out of my son the first time he went in.
My first time on a roller coaster was on the old corkscrew ride there many years ago.

Runaway Minetrain FTW! (can’t believe no one mentioned it yet 😀 )