The first wooden roller coaster in China has now had its first runs and first riders!  Congratulations to the teams at The Gravity Group and Martin & Vleminckx for this spectacular work of art.
Chad said, “Rode it. awesome. smooth. WAY FUN!”  He went on saying it was fantastic with tons of airtime particularly on the [...]

[I tried publishing this back in March, but had some problems with the feed/itunes.  With Larry and Chad currently in China and just days away from testing the ride, I thought I would try posting it again.]
Chad and I recently got back from a trip to Shanghai to check out the work on the wooden [...]

The brand-new ride at Happy Valley in Shanghai is about to start testing.  The structure, track, track steel, trains, … everything’s done!  Chad and Larry will soon be on-site to assist with the testing.  Here are some beautiful shots from the M&V crew.
A little refresher stats on this twisted wonder wouldn’t hurt.

108 feet (33m) tall
first [...]

A while back we got word from the folks at Martin & Vleminckx that the structure is now complete for the Shanghai wooden coaster. Now all that remains is some track work. China is just months away from having its very own operational wooden coaster.
Chad and I were on site back in February [...]

The FireBall at Happy Valley in Sheshan, Songjiang, Shanghai is coming along nicely.  The new photos we received from M&V show much progress since the last update.
The construction crew from Martin & Vleminckx set the last bent (cross-section frame) in the far turnaround which connects the second drop to the climb up into the turnaround.
Typically, [...]