Magic Mountain Awaits Response to Its ‘Riddler’

What can you do on your feet, upside down, at 65 mph?

Ride the Riddler’s Revenge, the answer for thrill-seekers who wondered what Magic Mountain would do to top last summer’s Superman ride.

Executives of the amusement park near Valencia say that although Riddler’s Revenge won’t match the speed of the Superman ride--at 100 mph the world’s fastest roller coaster--it will be the world’s fastest roller coaster in which passengers stand up instead of sit down.

The ride, scheduled to open this spring, is almost a mile long and reaches a height of 156 feet. Riders will hang upside down six times and do a 124-foot vertical loop.

Inspiration for Riddler’s Revenge came in part from a much milder stand-up roller coaster Magic Mountain had in the 1980s.

“We did away with it in the late ‘80s, but in all our focus groups people asked about a stand-up coaster,” said Jim Blackie, Magic Mountain’s vice president of design maintenance.

The ride takes its theme from the diabolical “Riddler” character in Batman comics and movies.

Magic Mountain executives won’t say what the ride cost, but “It’s the most we’ve ever spent on that park,” said Six Flags theme parks executive Larry Bouts.

The park’s Batman roller coaster cost $11 million to build in 1994 and Superman was estimated to cost between $20 million and $25 million.