I had been longing to visit "America's Roller Coast" ever since they built that 200+ foot tall beast Magnum XL-200. With my crew consisting of the camera-wielding Tina Demasi and Dennis Brouse, we traveled past majestic Lake Erie to arrive at a coaster-enthusiast's wet dream. From the get-go, Cedar Point marketing director Robin Innes was daring me to leap 150 feet off of the park's new Ripcord attraction, which he obligingly tagged along for. After taking him up on the offer and doing the hellacious dive, he proudly introduced me to the park's latest steel baby, Mantis.

"From start to finish, there's no letting up on the Mantis," he said, watching me as I followed the train with my eyes while it negotiated a loop big enough to fly a F-15 through.

Bolliger & Mabillard are two really mean guys.

They delight in pushing riders to the brink of insanity, and their latest accomplishment gives new meaning to the phrase, "knee-buckling". Here you'll see the lift hill and the first few amazing elements of Mantis, the new world-record setting stand-up coaster at Cedar Point. There was no time to get acclimated to the CP way of doing coasters. No briefing run on the Gemini or a chance to feel the breeze batter my face on Mean Streak. It was directly over to this imposing structure in the center of the park. While shooting some footage directly in front of the 137-foot tall loop, I couldn't help but notice that riders were sort of growing silent as they hit the apex of the loop. A lot of anxiety happenin' up there--I eyed Robin warily.

"Alright, let's ride this monster of yours." I said.

Unlike a lot of stand-up coasters that peter out after the first drop and loop, this one keeps kicking along at speeds of 60 m.p.h. and stands 145 feet high. The world's tallest and steepest stand-up coaster, Mantis first took my breath away with a vicious speed bump just before hitting the 52-degree drop and shooting into that huge loop. From there, riders enter an Immelman that sends you spiraling around and into a series of incredible flat spins and ingenious negative-G inducing moves. After stepping off of this coaster, I felt like I had been doing leg-lifts with heavy weights for about twenty minutes. With tears streaming from my the corners of my eyes, I stepped onto the station platform and took a look at what the wind had done to Robin's coiffure. "Mantis hair, an affliction now sweeping the country," I observed. Leave the dentures with a designated non-rider, I tell you directly--the ride don't play.

With a wild paint job, Mantis stands out in the crowd of world class coasters here at Cedar Point. The B&M guys outdo themselves with every new creation, and if this is indication of where the future of coasters is heading, then we're in mighty fine hands.

We dug CP so much, we hung around for two days. Robin and the park staff were incredibly accomodating to us and even the influx of muffleheads didn't spoil our time there. These were annoying little insects that got haplessly blown down across Lake Erie from Canada by southern-bound drafts. The clouds of insects hang around for three weeks and then suddenly get blown back to whence they came. All I can say is, keep your mouth closed on the coasters.

It was time to move along, on the second leg of the tour--there was yet another stop....