Black Mamba

Yes, that is Kobe Bryant’s nickname. No, he doesn’t have anything to do with this ride. In fact, the good people of Brühl, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany probably aren’t huge NBA fans. The developers of Phantasialand theme park are master builders, though.

Black Mamba is an inverted coaster whose snaking nature organically led to the name of the ride. In fact, the name impacted the coaster’s design, as engineers emphasized the snaking style in two ways. First, the coaster features up to 4 Gs of force stemming from the slithering inversions. It also claims the helix with the smallest radius that developer Bolliger & Mabillard has ever built. In other words, it’s the tightest snaking inversion ever, a sensation you have to experience to fully appreciate.

Helix

More than 27 years after their most famous roller coaster debuted, the park planners at Liseberg designed to up the ante. They built a new steel roller coaster with an imaginative ride start. It has a 135-foot tall dual-launch helix. That’s a fancy way of saying that it has two launches, each of which uses Linear Synchronous Motors (LSMs) to launch guests at a high speed.

Due to the novel helix design highlighted through the attraction, it’s the second-longest roller coaster to feature inversions in the entire world. You’ll struggle to catch your breath as you loop in and out repeatedly. There are seven in total during the 135 seconds of the ride, and you’ll be going 62 miles per hour through a couple of them.

PS: Helix and Lisebergbanan actually interact with one another at multiple points. How great is that?

PPS: It also recently added a virtual reality element. Face it. That’s a thing now.

Nemesis

Alton Towers in England is near and dear to the hearts of the owners of Theme Park Tourist as well as many of its writers. One of the best coasters here has been in operation since 1994, and it has won many industry awards over the years due to its clever design.

Nemesis is an inverted roller coaster that stood apart from its peers in the international marketplace for many years. It was the first inverted coaster in Europe to feature inversions, an idea so shocking at the time that Alton Towers had to make future concessions to Six Flags to learn details of the construction.

With a maximum drop of 104 feet and four inversions along the way, Nemesis feels much faster than its top speed of 50 miles per hour in the same manner that Space Mountain does. The structure of the coaster tracks combined with the inversions prevents the rider from feeling comfortable during the experience. It’s a good kind of unsettled, the kind that differentiates the best ride designs from the rest. After almost 25 years in operation, Nemesis still enjoys tremendous repeat value, which is why riders continue to visit from around the world.