Rollercoaster Season - The Ultimate
...And I've just realised that I've miscalculated, and today is actually the 11th day of a 10-day season. What have I learned? Mostly that I'm more of an obsessive than I thought. Still, the research is done, so look on today as a bonus day and tomorrow you'll be returned to your normal diet of music videos, fluffy animals and the occasional nugget of educational goodness.
Out of all the coasters I've ever ridden or merely salivated over, The Ultimate is the one most deeply engraved upon my memory. Yes, every time I try to blow-dry my hair and after about 90 seconds the shoulder pain moves from nagging to unbearable, my mind wanders and I find myself back at Lightwater Valley in darkest Yorkshire.
The year was 1996, and I was deeply in love with an Irish lad I'd met on the net. True, his habit of wearing denim hotpants over lycra cycling shorts was something of a cause for concern. I was 19, though, and he was charming, and we both had immense overdrafts - life was ours for the taking. On one of his monthly visits I decided I was jonesing for some coasterly action, so off we went for fun, frolics and the like.
The day was largely unremarkable. We rode, shopped, missed the bus and abjectly failed to pay for our transport home. I was grateful to the taxi driver who took us as far as the railway station for the cash we had in our pockets, and to the railway inspectors who didn't patrol as far as our carriage and thus didn't notice the fact that we hadn't purchased tickets.
Nostalgia's a wonderful thing, isn't it? Still, I'd probably have forgotten all about it if it hadn't been for the Ultimate. At the time it was the world's longest rollercoaster at over two and a quarter miles; these days there are still only two longer. Not unnaturally, it had been my main reason for visiting the park in the first place.
Maybe, just maybe, if I'd known that it had been largely constructed by British Rail, a few warning bells might have gone off. On balance, though, this seems unlikely. It looks so innocent in the photo, doesn't it? Couple of big hills and a leisurely jaunt around the countryside. For the most part that's what you get, too. The first drop is exhilarating. So's the second, in fact, especially if you doze off as the train spends half a minute or so ambling across to it.
As with all the best fairytales, however, it's only once you enter the woods that things get scary. I really would love to show you a photo, but the dense undergrowth and relative remoteness of the location mean that none exist. Instead, therefore, I'll simply have to explain to you about the rabbit warren of high-speed curves built by people who'd obviously never seen a rollercoaster... nor, quite possibly, a human being.
Now, I have no objections to coasters being a bit rough. If I've acquired a bit of a limp by the end of the day, y'see, for a brief, glorious period of time I can just about convince myself that I'm hard. Doesn't last long, admittedly, but there's still a certain pleasure in swanning about bragging and pretending to be a battle-hardened combat vet. Besides, when the wind's whipping your face and the speed's welding your back to the seat, even a cowering wuss like me can find it hard to distinguish pain from ecstasy.
Except for on The Ultimate. You can tell you're in pain on The Ultimate because it hurts so bloody much. Blame the layout, blame the lap-bars, blame an unfavourable deity for giving you the idea to ride it in the first place... personally I blame myself for refusing to believe it first time round and promptly hopping on for a second go. And the third time? Well, the back seat was free and a bad trip's still a trip, right?
The following day my knees were purple and my right shoulderblade was outlined perfectly in jet-black bruising. Important lessons had also been learned: never again would I ride a rollercoaster without the supportive caress of a damned good bra.
Still determined to get one more back-seat ride in before they close it in 2009, though.