With the opening of Banshee at Kings Island this year and the launch of Fury 325 at Carowinds and Thunderbird at Holiday World next year, Bolliger & Mabillard (B&M) has shown they are at the top of their game and still the premier roller coaster manufacturer. They’ve expanded their product offering and their impressive portfolio now includes giga, family, and launch coasters. Still, many roller coaster enthusiasts are not fans of B&M, which is fine, but it’s their reasoning about why they don’t like them that I don’t understand. Here are my arguments against five common coaster enthusiast complaints about B&M:
B&M Common Complaint #1: They’re too loud
One well known feature of a B&M coaster is the “B&M roar”, a distinctive sound some people like while others complain is too loud. At Universal Orlando, you can hear the Incredible Hulk’s roar all the way from INSIDE the Royal Pacific Hotel. What is the B&M roar? When a train with a certain type of wheel rolls down the rails of B&M’s unique box-like track, it creates an unforgettable roaring sound unique to this style of track design. The most efficient way to reduce the noise is to fill the hollow spine and rails of the track and columns with very fine sand, pea gravel, or foam. This decision is up to the theme park the ride is being installed at, not B&M. Sometimes there are noise restrictions and the park has to keep it as quiet as possible. Filling the track adds weight to the structure that must be accounted for during the design process. It’s a solvable problem that is up to the park to decide. The screams of the riders are often as loud as the coaster itself.
B&M Common Complaint #2: They don’t innovate
Another complaint heard in enthusiast circles is B&M never innovates or invents anything new. Have we forgotten they created the world’s first inverted , floorless, and dive coasters? B&M are also ahead of everyone else in restraint design. They’ve perfected the lapbar restraint as seen on their hyper coasters and recently perfected the OTSR, as I stated in our Banshee review. B&M may innovate at a slower pace but their safety record is still perfect.
B&M Complaint #3: They’re force-less or they lack force
“B&Ms are forceless” is a phrase you’ll see on coaster boy forums all over the internet. Saying a B&M coaster, or any coaster for that matter, “lacks force” makes zero sense. Even kiddie coasters exert force on the passeners. Have you ever ridden a B&M hyper coaster, like Diamondback? You float the entire way over the third hill of Diamondback. And if you think Banshee is forceless or is not intense, maybe you should just skip roller coasters altogether and become a fighter pilot or astronaut. You can argue B&M coasters are less intense than other rides but calling them forceless is just plain silly.
B&M Common Complaint #4: They’re generic, all the same
I also don’t get the complaints that all B&Ms are the same. You can argue almost ALL roller coasters are the same! They’re all limited by the same constraints: physics, safety standards, and cash. There’s only so much you can do. A 600 foot tall roller coaster will feel the same as a 200 foot because the forces on the rider have to be kept at the same limit. B&M are throwing in new maneuvers all the time. They’ve just recently built their first invert coasters without a pre-drop dip. Banshee has a new type of inversion for an invert. There’s a crazy new inversion on the flying coaster, Sky Scraper. They offer not one or two, but three different sizes of dive coaster trains with the additional option of being floorless or not.
B&M Common Complaint #5: They never take risks
The last big complaint against B&M is they never take risks. Wasn’t it a risk to design a wing coaster? Intamin built one in 2007 and didn’t build another one (until recently). Why? Maybe there wasn’t a market for it? They updated their inverted coaster car design for Banshee, even though the prospect of selling more isn’t good, as most parks that can afford an invert already have one. Isn’t taking on a project the size of a giga coaster a risk? Or having to design five major roller coasters in one year risky? Or designing trains for a ride you didn’t design or build?
Fun Fact: Bolliger & Mabillard is located in the French speaking part of Switzerland
With B&M’s expanded product offering, recent successes, and future projects, they’ve shown they’re on top of the coaster world and will only keep getting better. Do you agree with my thoughts?
Nice article! The people that are complaining confuse me.
Great article. Enjoyed reading it!
Totally agree. I do like Intamin better though!
Great arguments!
Well said!
Yes we totally agree
B&M is easily one of my all-time favorite companies, and Goliath at over Georgia is ANYTHING but forceless, I got tunnel-vision during the helix. and being a MAJOR fan of roller coasters from the golden age (Airplane, Riverview Bobs, any P&C coaster and many more) roller coasters looked the same, only Harry Traver with the madness that was the Oaks Park Zip and the infamous triplets did anything to that, and that didn’t even stick, and this was from different companies and builders. sure there’s the Williams Grove Cyclone (please let someone save that ride, it’s a criminal offence in my book to abandon a HISTORIC roller coaster like that) but they were all very similar, and if you look at the praised P&C coasters there wasn’t that much risk in them as once you hit that winning formula it’s hard not to leave it.
B&M on the other hand has innovated a lot, sure they’ve toned the forces down so that the rides are more accessible to the more timid riders, plus you can’t beat how smooth their riders are, sure Scorcher and Goliath were a little rough, but when compared to Scream Machine, Zeus or Hellcat (Timber Falls) it was nothing that ruined the rides for me (the helix did kind of do that for me on Goliath, but not by that much). My only real ‘problem’ with B&M is the copy-and-paste rides (Medusa, Superman, Batman) that are only more common with the likes of Vekoma and Zamperla, although after riding Batman I kind of understand why it’s been copied across most Six Flags parks with how intense and forceful it was so it’s a more general thing than an actual problem with B&M, I’m just a fan of major rides that are the same as one in a park somewhere else.
Sorry if I dragged this out, I had had a lot to say,
Do people really say they’re forceless? I think Tatsu at Magic Mountain is the ride that makes me almost blackout (or actually blackout) the most. The bottom of the pretzel loop is about as forceful as it gets.
All those complaints sound surprising to me since B&M rides I rode in Europe are at the exact opposite:
Too loud: On Black Mamba you can only hear the wind blowing to your face and people screaming to your ears. That feeling is incredible
No innovation: inverted, wing etc made in a very wise way are full of innovation. Short and wide trains as well
Forceless: Stats on RCDB will just state the contrary. Silver Star will demonstrate it
All the same: Compare Black Mamba, Katun and Oziris, same base, completely different expériences
No risk: innovation is a risk on its own
Just my 2 eurocents of course.
I’ve never actually heard anyone complain about them being too loud. Even people who don’t like B&M’s enjoy their noise.
Oh Boy, B&M Fanboy post B&M love thread but instead attacks peoples views.
I find almost all Beemers, of almost any style to be “SIMILAR” So lets go to Great Adventure where any one of the coasters would be Great, But they have 5 of them. Whats all the talk about at Great Adventure??????
El Toro and KK.
I also find restraints that never let you actually get the negative G’s a ride is designed to give. Quite irritating.
I don’t hate B&M but like the Arrow loopers, With very few exceptions, You’ve ridden one, You’ve kinda ridden em all.
I am the #1fan of B&M coasters.i know Walter Bolliger personally.the man and his company is a mastermind in the coaster world.people need to do their research of the engineering of the coaster companies.Intamin is a joke.they are plain as you get.everyone wants to much too fast,instead of enjoying what is out there.walter has the most styles and elements than any other companies.lsm launches are nice but the challenge is gravity fed.the goliath in Georgia is not rough.any sitting and standing coaster you need know how to ride them.b&m don’t need to prove or impress they do it all the time.the way they twist and roar that track.no one can.Do The Research!!!&m are good friends to me and I Love That Company!!! All of those coaster club are bunch of cry babies
I am a HUGE fan of B&M and really admire their innovation, with first inverted ride (Batman at my home park of Six Flags Great America) and I believe the first flying ride and first hyper coaster (all at Six Flags Great America). I also love the theming and the seats and restraints. PLUS their rides are extremely enjoyable and RE-RIDEABLE! I could NOT imagine doing a reride on something like Kingda Ka or Top Thrill Dragster. I am looking forward to one day trying out B&M rides at other parks, like Carowinds, Kings Island and Magic Mountain.
Keep up the great work B&M!
CoDAce I agree with you. Save the Williams Grove Cyclone. Its an ACE Coaster Classic and Oscar Bitler’s last surviving design!
B&M’s CAN be relatively weak in the G forces – you’re never going to ride a B&M that jacks you into the restraints like say, Magnum XL 200, but honestly that’s fine with me. I would take consistent smoothness over raw power. I do think the wing rider coasters by design are big and slow and rough and not very fun to ride, but I think they’re a fad that will die out soon just like stand-ups did. I haven’t ridden a single wing rider that impressed me. The biggest problem I have with B&M right now is that their new train/restraint design really sucks. They are far too chattery and bumpy. You go ride an old Batman clone or any of the other old school B&M inverts and then compare that to Banshee at KI – totally different. While Batman is an intense ride, it is still enjoyable and doesn’t cause any headaches as long as you brace for the corks. With Banshee, there is not a single comfortable seat on the train (including the front), because the damn thing chatters on the track like nothing else. It’s so chattery and rough that it gives me a mild headache by the end. Banshee is an intense ride force-wise, but the trains and restraints suck so bad I can only ride it a few times a day before I’m sick of it. I have been very unimpressed by all of the B&M’s in the last few years, but everything before that was golden to me – Except for the trim break on Raging Bull, because everyone hates that. I do like some of the innovation they’re doing, such as batman backwards, rougarou conversion, launched coaster, etc. but they need to improve on their train and restraint design in a big way because the new technology is much worse.
1. I have never heard anyone complain B&Ms are too loud. Usually people are complaining because the park chose NOT to go with the unfiltered B&M roar.
2. Every coaster company innovates to some degree. The point is B&M innovates less and at a slower pace. They were late to the giga game, late to the launching game, late to the wing coaster game, and now they’re supposedly building Cedar Point a dive machine? Seriously, a park that already has three vertical drops and a beyond vertical drop, and a dive machine is the best they can come up with?
3. Like you said, there’s no such thing as a literally “force-less” ride. People complain that B&Ms are less intense, specifically less intense than older B&Ms. Defend them all you want, but if someone likes crazy, intense rides, modern B&M very rarely delivers.
4. B&M has their bag of tricks, and the layouts of their rides DO tend to be very similar to each other. What people miss is that this is largely true for ALL manufacturers, even RMC. So why does B&M get so much flak for it? Because they’re building the most expensive rides in the world, and yet so many of them are just so. god. damn. boring. Would anyone care that all B&M floorless coasters basically have the same layout if they all had ejector airtime and crazy whippy inversions like the ones on Batman The Ride? Of course not.
5. NO it wasn’t a risk to design a wing coaster after multiple manufacturers had already done it! Duh! Taking a risk is when Arrow built X, or when RMC built New Texas Giant using a completely unproven process, or when Intamin fit an entire giga onto a tiny square plot of land. Updating the trains for Banshee wasn’t a risk, they already had the restraint design, and you can’t tell me slightly redesigning the trains was that big an expenditure for the staggering behemoth that is B&M. None of the things you pointed out are big risks. B&M, when compared to other manufacturers, does not take risks, period. Instead they focus on reliability, safety, and maximizing ROI. Their whole MO is waiting on any given technology to be proven before coming in and “perfecting” it. I bet in another five years we’ll see them start to put cable lift systems on their hypers, and then you’ll say “see, wasn’t that a risk?”
Dr. M got it pretty much right.
As coaster enthusiasts, we owe A LOT to the B&M of the 1990s / early 2000s. That is undeniable. However, the company got set in its ways and eclipsed by other companies who realized that they could build incredible world class rides, with less impressive stats, by focusing on the physics of the rider experience to make the rides really exciting.
As for the “forceless” issue… B&M does positive Gs pretty well (Gatekeeper at CP was almost uncomfortably intense for me), but absolutely SUCKS at negative Gs. That’s my big beef.
I know I’m late to the party on this discussion but I just couldn’t read it and not respond. I’ve always been head over heels for B&M roller coasters. How often do you go to a park and find one of those coasters down from technical difficulties. Some one stated that them making a wing coaster isn’t taking a risk….are you kidding me. When ever you do anything to out shine a previous duplicate, rather in the entertainment industry or with roller coasters. The reception determines the risk factor if it is better than the previous. You could create a demand for something what was already in existence. B&M coasters are like a work of visual art.
I know this is an old post and comment thread, but I’m just coming across this and really enjoyed the read. I love B&M coasters — their smooth ride, comfy restraints, and their signature “roar”! You have excellent responses for the naysayers!
Thanks Courtney!
I see two complaints in here that are not so black and white, however this was a solid read. Issue #1 is the “force-less” thing. It is mostly untrue. However, and going super against popular opinion, riding a B&M Flyer over a Vekoma Flying Dutchman, to me, is a joke. They are WAY more intense and fun. So, yes, sometimes, it’d be nice to have more force. Keep reading, as it adds in the issue of “they are all the same.” If you have a B&M let’s say “Floorless,” you do not need a stand up, sit down, etc, in the same place. Six Flags Great Adventure has a stand up and a floorless, and it’s like riding a not as good version of other (the stand up is a bit rough). However, a dive coaster is definitely not the same, nor are any of their other designs. I will add one more thing: the innovative situation. They didn’t invent the flying coaster, they just made it inverted. What I would love to see, is an inverted diving machine.
Having 2 awesome coaster companies is better for everyone. Think about it, if 1 of these companies went belly up the other one couldn’t handle all of the demand worldwide. Your local theme park would have to wait much longer before it could get a new coaster built and installed for you to ride. Whenever demand outstrips supply, prices go up. I solute both of these companies for being the best of their particular niche within the market and hope to enjoy many more good rides from both of these awesome companies.
How about their policy for employees to NOT go around the wold, wife sniping, and home wrecking. An employee of B and M went to China and had an affair! This company prides itself on innovation? It would be innovative if its policies included mandating the behavior of its employees to reflect the values of the company. Understanding that what eloyees do directly relates to the character of the company particularly when out of country.