The Other Ups and Downs of Coaster Enthusiasm
 By Matt Biront
  June 6th, 2008

 For most of us posting on forums, our coaster enthusiasm is as strong as  ever. But there is a typical pattern that a good percentage of coaster enthusiasts go through. Most of our interest is sparked at a fairly young age usually around 12 or 13 and for some, we find forums. Forums turn that spark of interest into a whole forest fire of coaster obsession. Now instead of just memorizing stats off the Six Flags website, you're now learning about the thousands of other coasters around the planet. You gain knowledge from sites like RCDB.com, ScreamScape and reading other more experienced member's posts. Once your a full member on a coaster forum you usually pick some specialty to feed into that fire. Could be making signatures, could be making RCT parks or maybe making videos of your adventures. That is usually the peak of your enthusiasm where you are usually on the forums a few hours a night checking all the updates and posting it up.

Now for the downfall. The point where going on forums isn't too much fun anymore, you've lost touch with alot of your coaster buddies and coasters just aren't doing much for you anymore. This varies from person to person. Some people will never log onto another coaster forum for the rest of their life, others may just stay and post in the non-coaster related topics. Nothing is guaranteed obviously and I've seen people post for 8-9 years strong. I guess interest varies with where your priorities in life are at the moment.

For me, it hit me as soon as the season concluded last summer. Great Adventure wasn't planning any huge rides, I went only twice to Fright Fest and my coaster season peaked in early July with my three day trip to Virginia. Now I'm certainly not done with coasters. I'm going to study engineering next year in Connecticut. Six Flags New England and Lake Compounce are an hour away and I'll be home next summer to go to Great Adventure. In fact, I plan to come out stronger this year then I was last year. I have a trip planned to go to Hersheypark and Knoebels in one day, several trips to Great Adventure already planned and I'm getting a very nice camera for graduation. So here's to a great summer, hope to see you all at Great Adventure sometime this summer.