Nemesis At Alton Towers

If there was ever an example of B&M’s ability to create truly jaw dropping rides, this is it. Simply put, there is no other ride like Nemesis (although Black Mamba attempts to masquerade as a more modern version, but no-one’s fooled!). The thrills come thick and fast, with huge forces and a great sense of speed battering you this way and that throughout your forty-one second rush from atop the suspenseful chain-lift until you slam into the final break run.

I first rode this ride when I was not yet coaster addicted and, well, it scared me half to death! But I realised, once I had got off, just how much I had enjoyed the ride, so much so that I ran back round to re-join the 2-hour queue. I was much too young at that point to appreciate the magnitude and the sheer off brilliance of the ride. The way the ride is laid out gives you no time to pause and catch your breath before the next element wrenches your guts from their very foundations, each element even more forceful than the previous.

What stands out to me now every time I revisit Alton Towers, is just how incredible the ride looks, sunken into the ground as it is, only half visible to unsuspecting first timers. First timers are also in for a shock once they are released from the apex of the lift hill, as you quickly begin to realise that this ride is a lot fiercer than it looks from more stable vantage point. That is no mean feat either considering it’s one of the fiercest looking rides in the world, as you stand and watch it careen at speed around its twisted course.

 

The start of the ride is surprisingly not the lift hill or first drop, but the entrance to the queue line. The queue is as much a part of the ride as the Vertical Loop of the Zero-G-Roll. It’s one of the only rides that I have ever enjoyed the idea of having to queue for a long time for. This is because long queues mean that they have to open up the top area of the queue, which allows you some spectacular views from above the entire ride. The next bit of the queue brings you underneath the lowest point of the coaster’s first drop, where you also get your first sights of the waterfalls of blood! It is a cool feeling as the train flies over your head as it enters the first corkscrew. However, this is not as cool as the next bit of the queue, which has you standing on a bridge above a lake of blood with the Vertical Loop right in front of you, less than 10ft away. As the train flies around the loop, you are almost blown off your feet by the force of the wind it produces. Then you enter the “beast” themed, darkened station into which the sound of the creatures heartbeat is played through big bazooka Bose base speakers, further building the atmosphere and tension. So as you can imagine, by the time you actually board the ride and the restraint clicks close, you’re pretty pumped up already.

The suspense continues to build as you travel the lift hill. As you begin your rise, you catch a glimpse of what is to come, to your left and right, before disappearing into the trees on top of the hill. You come off the end of the lift with no particular speed as you turn to the left, dropping gradually down through the trees, at this point, it doesn’t feel like you’ve picked up any real speed at all. This, you quickly discover, is far from the truth as you realise just how much speed you’ve picked up by virtue of the fact that you go from being right way up to up-side down faster than it seems humanly possible! This, however, is nothing compared to the next element; the helix. This is the most forceful helix I have ever ridden; your guts feel like they are coming out of your feet as you exit the helix. It also feels like your feet are going to be ripped off by the mesh fencing that is surely too close as you traverse the helix, at least that’s how it feels. You then get pulled up into the Zero-G-Roll, which is surely not zero gravity? I’m not aware of a ride that travels through its Zero-G-Roll at such a speed. It pulls you round in the spiral at what seems to be an insane speed! You then pull up into the horseshoe turn which doesn’t give you a moment to pause from the forces before you’re plunged down to the rides lowest and fastest point at the bottom of the largest pit, before firing back up into the Vertical Loop. You exit the Vertical Loop through a tunnel, which again feels too small to fit through, at great speed, the feeling of which is added to infinitely by your closeness to the walls. You then soar through a floating turn to the left, which has you diving down into the ground once again and through another corkscrew, through more tunnels in the process as you see a pick-up truck fly past your feet! Followed by the final turn into the brakes, which gives you your first chance to think about what has just happened.

In my honest opinion, this is surely among the very top few rides on the planet. No matter how many times I ride it, it still shocks me every time. It is a work, of absolute genius. Credit goes to Gouldy for writing this article.