#great bear

[nemfrog]

As the ancients saw it. The book of stars. 1920.

Internet Archive

[cocodotgreen]

Great Bear

The realism and detail in the landscaping are extremely impressive! What a beautiful world!

[dragonagegallery]

Bears

[whoisnotmyname]

dragon age bears!! Great, Large, and Bear

[mercury101]

[thrillrid3s]

great bear - hersheypark

[astrollacium15]

Great Bear moodboard 🌌💜

[tacoma-narrows]

Tac Talks Coasters - Post 118: #52

Photo Sources: All photos are mine

Great Bear at Hersheypark!

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Opened: 1998 Manufacturer: Bolliger & Mabillard Height: 90 ft (27 m) Drop: 124 ft (38 m) Speed: 58 mph (93 kph) Length: 2,800 ft (850 m) My most recent ride: 2023

Like how Raging Bull from yesterday was my weakest Hyper, Hersheypark's Great Bear is one of the weaker Inverts on my list and actually shares a lot of the same reasons as Raging Bull as to why it's the among the lower ranked rides of it's model.

Again, I really want to make clear that even though Great Bear is my lowest ranked Invert, that does NOT mean it's a bad ride by any means! If I thought it was a bad ride, I wouldn't have it ranked almost in my top 50 lol. Similar to Raging Bull, Great Bear is super different from other rides of its model, and while I admire the creativity of its design and layout, it doesn't quite stack up to the other inverts for me.

But I want to emphasize what Great Bear does well, because there actually is a lot going for it. Probably the most unique thing about it is its layout. This thing has an incredibly unique and creative layout, especially for an Invert. It starts on top of a hill and before going into its main drop, it has a helix right after the lift hill. That is something you almost never see, especially a helix like this that actually pulls some surprisingly strong forces for its size.

Following that helix, you fly down the ride's biggest drop (which thanks to the park's terrain, Great Bear's drop is taller than its lift hill), and immediately into three back to back to back inversions all in a straight line out through The Hollow section of the park. All of these inversions are great, with the loop and immelmann pulling some super strong Gs, and the zero-g roll along with the immelmann being super whippy.

The ride then flies back over toward SooperDooperLooper, and as it does, you can see another very unique element about Great Bear: it's support structure. Hersheypark was not able build the ride's supports in Spring Creek, which means that B&M had to design supports that jut out from the hill in a really visually interesting way, making for a lot of cool near-misses during the second half of the ride.

The train then whips into a very fast and snappy corkscrew. After the corkscrew though, the ride really dies. Since the station is so much higher in elevation than most of the rest of the ride, the train just slowly glides up there through a drawn out S-bend. This ending is really disappointing after how fast-paced and powerful the first 3/4 of the ride is. The other big downside I have with Great Bear is the length. It really feels like a short ride. It rips through the course so quickly that it feels like it's missing something. I understand why Hershey and B&M couldn't add more elements to it (they could barely fit what they have in the land they had to work with lol) but that doesn't prevent the ride from feeling short in terms of duration.

Overall though, Great Bear does a great job bolstering Hershey ridiculously good coaster lineup. Personally, I have this ranked 7th out of Hershey's coasters on my list, but that's just because of how incredibly stacked the park's lineup is. I could see Great Bear being easily a top 3 coaster at most other parks. I also love how much kinetic energy it brings to The Hollow area. If you're waiting in line for Skyrush or Comet for example, you'll see and hear Great Bear go roaring through its course every few minutes or so. And the name really fits, because this ride has a great roar like a lot of bigger B&Ms. And one final point, I love the ride's logo. The colors are gorgeous and you guys know I'm a sucker for space haha.

Thanks for checking out today's coaster post! Keep an eye out for tomorrow's coaster!