When you rode your now-#1 for the first time, what did you think of it?

[Rob Coasters]

I had a look at the history of my favourite roller coaster and deciphered a bit of a pattern going on.

Icon -> Olympia Looping -> Megafobia -> Cú Chulainn -> Ride to Happiness -> Untamed -> Taron -> Hyperion -> Stardust Racers (Yellow).

So why are two of them bold?
Out of my nine #1 coasters, only two coasters immediately became my favourite after a singular ride. Which means that for the other seven, it took at least a few rides for it to be declared as worthy of the top spot.
Hyperion was an extreme case where I only decided that it beat Taron a few weeks after I came home from Energylandia and deeply reflected on how much I truly enjoyed it. Other cases like Megafobia and Untamed, it took me 5-6 rides in order for me to say "yup, nothing beats this".

Icon - 1 ride before I declared it my new #1
Olympia Looping - around 8 rides (which means it became my #1 over the course of a couple years)
Megafobia - 4 rides
Cú Chulainn - 5 rides
Ride to Happiness - 1 ride
Untamed - 5 rides
Taron - 6 rides
Hyperion - 5 rides
Stardust Racers (Yellow) - 2 rides

With a lot of these rides, they initially fell a little short of the top spot, but by the end of the day, I realised just how good they really were...

With Olympia Looping, I realised how much I enjoyed lapping it.
With Megafobia, I found a smoother seat nearer the middle of the train.
With Cú Chulainn, I realised it's just a bigger Megafobia.
With Untamed, it had to warm up through the day.
With Taron, I wanted the Wintertraum night rides.
With Hyperion, the front row night rides sealed the deal.
With Stardust Racers (Yellow), I got a night ride in the fronr with working audio.

You can view the story on how the yellow side of Stardust Racers became my #1 here.

I am interested to see how similarly people feel. Was your favourite coaster an absolute slam-dunk "this is it" moment from the first lap, or did you need a few rides in order to adjust to what it was trying to go for? Perhaps, like with Untamed and Taron, it had to warm up during the day or it peaked at night? Maybe like Hyperion, a specific row is the star of the show? What's your story with riding your #1 coaster for the first time?

 

[Matt N]

This is an interesting thread, Rob!

My current #1 is VelociCoaster… and I have to say that back in 2023, I wasn’t instantly sold when I first got off. I loved it and thought it was amazing, but was it an instant #1 smash? No, it wasn’t. My second ride really put the ride into perspective for me and made it shoot a lot higher… but even then, it took a couple of years of reflection and some soul searching for me to realise that it was totally my overall #1 and that I’ve never gotten off a ride feeling like I did getting off either ride on VelociCoaster! I only got to ride it twice, but when I saw it for what it was on the second ride rather than judging it against the religious experience I wanted it to be on the first, it did make me appreciate it a lot more. To a lesser extent, the same was also true with Iron Gwazi on the same trip (though that one is in #6).

I thought for ages that to be your #1, a ride had to instantly sell you. And that is partly why Mako stayed on top for me for so long; when I first rode that ride in 2016, it instantly sold me and instantly made it very clear that it was my #1 coaster, and that stuck with me. On that 2023 Florida trip, riding rides like VelociCoaster and Iron Gwazi, I think I was looking for a repeat of that instant sale from 2016 and rated VelociCoaster in particular lower (although also Gwazi to a lesser extent) than it deserved because I didn’t get it. Do you know what the closest to an instant sale was on that trip? It was actually Hagrid’s, and after initially riding both, I actually had Hagrid’s sat above VelociCoaster. It took the second ride on each for me to realise that I definitely preferred VelociCoaster, and I was slightly less impressed with Hagrid’s on the second go.

Do you also know what one of the closest things to an instant sale I ever had post-Mako was? It was actually my first ride on Icon back in 2018. After the first go, I was genuinely questioning whether it might have topped Mako, and while I settled on #2 after the second ride later in the day impressed me marginally less, I genuinely thought there was still a chance that it could have usurped Mako and I was being overly harsh. But many more rides on Icon (and 5 more on Mako, and many more on many other coasters) later, Mako still sits at #3 while Icon is on the cusp of getting turfed out of my top 10 (and I wouldn’t be surprised if Toutatis delivers the fatal blow on my France trip later in the month). And yet again, I only hit my 50th coaster at Blackpool that day and was relatively new to the whole ranking thing, so I think I was less analytical about coaster rating than I am now.

I partly think in hindsight that those instant sales on Mako and Icon may have been caused by a relatively lacking coaster count at the time, as well as me generally overthinking things a lot less than I do now, and that when you become more analytical about rating coasters and ride more things, it becomes harder to ever attain that sort of instant sale again. I’m not sure I’ve had those Mako or Icon style instant sales on much I’ve ridden post-2020, and increasingly, it is taking me a couple of rides to really warm to things, particularly when there’s been heavy hype or expectation beforehand. I first properly felt this with VelociCoaster and Gwazi in 2023, I later felt it with Hyperia in 2024, and even Shambhala, for all my B&M hyper love, took me a second ride to properly warm to. I loved the rides first time, but it took me at least a second go for me to realise how truly brilliant they were, and with Hyperia (I can’t verify this as much with the others, as I’ve only visited once), I loved it and appreciated it more on my second visit riding it in 2025 than on my first in 2024. For a period, I think that did make me rank things lower than they perhaps deserved… but with time, I’ve grown to realise that sometimes, it’s the best rides that grow on you, and don’t necessarily wow you the first time. I’ve definitely learned with time that one ride is no longer sufficient for me to fully judge a top tier ride!

 

[James F]

Out of the number one coasters I have had throughout the years, none of them were an instant hit. I guess the same can be said about my favourite music or food. Perhaps it's because most of us, as human beings, naturally prioritise what's familiar and anything that deviates from that we often lend a more skeptical eye.

Steel Vengeance didn't shoot up to number one until the 4th or 5th ride which was a back row night ride. If I had only had my first ride, then it would probably rank about #5 or #6

As my prior favourites Helix and Hyperion both went way beyond my expectations. I expected Helix to feel like Cheetah Hunt, so you can imagine my surprise, still I was somehow stubborn enough to have Sheikra ranked ahead of it until I got home and realised I was out of my mind. Hyperion only took 2 or 3 rides and I was sold, but I think the low expectations also helped.

 

[The_bullgod]

My (former) number ones, all became number one after just one ride.
Wildfire at Kolmarden is my current number one.

Nemesis in 2008
Shambhala in 2017
Helix in 2018
Wildfire in 2018

 

[Flash Shift]

Nemesis was an instant number 1 because I was 13 and barely rode anything before then except some stuff at Drayton and Great Yarmouth.

Helix has been my number 1 ever since I rode it in 2023, it was the first coaster to raise the bar since Nemesis 20 years before that since I had a credit count of less than 60. I'm now on 131 and it's still up there. It wasn't an instant number 1 for certain on the first ride, but after a couple more, it definitely dethroned Nemesis.

 

[kristalic]

I wasn't really much into coasters until 2020, but my #1s have gone:

Shambhala (2017) -> Icon (2018) -> Smiler (2020) -> Hollywood Dream (2022) -> Hakugei (3 weeks later) -> Eejanaika (3 days later)

When I first rode Eejanaika, I said that nothing could ever beat it unless a bigger better 4D coaster was built. I had absolutely no right to say that, because I only had like 90 credits at the time, but now with 563 credits I can confidently say I was absolutely right. No future extreme spinner or S&S axis or intamin launch coaster could ever beat it for me. Only a bigger better 4D.

 

[Changa]

My #1 was firmly Top Thrill Dragster for numerous reasons that have built up over years of getting into the hobby. Nothing had ever challenged it as there were so many different reasons why I adored it.

When I rode Stardust Racers. I INSTANTLY knew it was my new #1, my early morning, mid-row ride was already enough to know. My repeated rides, ending with a back-row night ride, only further confirmed it, and pushed it far away from 2nd place below it. It really threw me off just how immediately it had cemented itself at the top for me, but it did everything right for me, including things I had never thought I cared about on a ride. It's just amazing.