Nemesis at Alton Towers is considered by many to be the best roller coaster in England and
the best inverted roller coaster in the world.
And it’s not hard to see why.
This legendary Bolliger and Mabillard inverted roller coaster combines powerful forces with
a unique setting.
And that setting is really what makes Nemesis special.
Those familiar with Alton Towers know that this park cannot build above the treeline.
Most parks would consider this a dealbraker.
But Alton Towers has shown their creativity over the years to provide thrills while remaining
compliant with local regulations.
And Nemesis is the best example of this.
Nemesis has an official height of just 42 feet or 13 meters, but it has a change in
elevation of 104 feet or 32 meters.
How does Nemesis do this?
It goes underground.
And if diving underground wasn’t enough, the ride also has some extensive theming.
In the center of the ride is a massive alien wrapped around the station.
And many of the trenches are filled with water.
Originally these trenches had blood colored water, but over the past decade the water
is now clear.
And as crazy as it may be to imagine a world without Nemesis, this coaster almost didn’t
happen.
Nemesis was the first of Alton Towers’s famous Secret Weapon projects to be fully
realized.
Despite this, it was known as Secret Weapon 3.
So you may ask, what were Secret Weapons 1 and 2?
That would be the Arrow Pipeline Coaster that never made its way to any park.
However, Alton Towers creative director John Wardley rode the prototype pipeline roller
coaster at Arrow’s facility in Utah and he was not impressed.
He found the ride slow, boring, and rough.
That was the final nail in the coffin for an Arrow Pipeline coaster coming to Alton
Towers.
So John Wardley and Alton Towers started looking into alternative ride systems.
Shortly thereafter, Wardley learned of Batman the Ride, the world’s first inverted coaster
being built at Six Flags Great America by Bolliger and Mabillard.
Wardley rode Batman the Ride shortly before it opened to the public in 1992 and immediately
knew that was the type of ride he wanted at Alton Towers.
It wasn’t going to be easy with the park’s height restriction, but B&M and Alton Towers
found a way to build Nemesis.
And just two years later in 1994, Nemesis opened to rave reviews.
25 years later, Nemesis still finds its way atop many roller coaster polls.
Nemesis was so successful that it spawned a few spinoff rides, but like many sequels
they weren’t as good as the original.
Thorpe Park received Nemesis Inferno in 2003, a decent B&M invert, but it lacked the unique
setting nor forces of the original.
And Alton Towers opened Nemesis Sub-Terra in 2012, a highly themed indoor drop tower.
But this attraction was short-lived and closed midway through the 2015 season.
Back to Nemesis, this coaster had been near the top of my bucket list for quite some time.
It’s exceedingly rare to find a thrill ride as well themed as Nemesis.
And for those of us in America, Nemesis sort of has a mythological status to it.
It’s the invert many of us hear about but rarely get to experience for ourselves.
And seemingly everyone who rides Nemesis has glowing remarks about it.
So it would have been easy to be let down by the coaster after hyping it up so much.
I had the opportunity to ride Nemesis in 2017 and I’m glad to say the coaster did not
disappoint.
Nemesis was a complete walk-on the day I visited, so I got nearly a dozen rides on this B&M
invert.
While the back had slightly better forces, I much preferred the front row on Nemesis
for the visuals.
The terrain use and near-misses are what makes Nemesis a world-class ride in my opinion.
Nemesis begins with a fairly short lift.
Remember, the ride has a posted height of just 42 feet tall.
Now Nemesis doesn’t really have a true first drop.
After cresting the lift, you bank to the left and travel down this short dip.
If you look at this dip in a vacuum, you could say Nemesis has a cruddy first drop.
But I look at this drop a little bit differently.
As a whole, Nemesis feels like one continuous drop.
Each element gradually plunges you deeper and deeper into the ground.
This allows the ride to keep building up speed as it goes and maintain its intensity.
I’d equate the start of Nemesis to the start of a Mack launch coaster.
Much like the launch on a Mack launch coaster, the turn and dip on Nemesis isn’t meant
to be forceful.
Rather, it exists solely to supply the speed necessary for the elements that follow.
And the elements following that turn and dip are exceptional.
It begins with a corkscrew.
It’s extremely weird to start an invert with this inversion, but that’s what Nemesis
does.
This bizarre layout is another reason why I love Nemesis so much.
And since this is one of the early B&M inverts, you are whipped through this corkscrew.
It feels like one of the corkscrews on the Batman the Ride clones.
That’s immediately followed by a 270 degree downwards helix and this is easily the most
intense element on Nemesis and one of the most intense elements of any roller coaster
for that matter.
B&M inverts are known for having intense helixes where the blood rushes to your feet.
But the helix on Nemesis is on a completely different level.
The forces are so strong that it felt like my legs were going to explode.
And those leg-numbing forces were accompanied by an unavoidable greyout.
This turn felt like a stronger version of Silver Bullet’s helix combined with Intimidator
305’s first turn.
This helix is otherworldly.
You then rocket over the station through a zero-G roll.
And this is definitely one of the best zero-G rolls in the world.
This element combines hangtime with a ferocious whip.
And if that’s not enough, you also have a crazy footchopper with the tentacles of
the alien creature embedded into the station.
That’s followed by a speedy overbank.
This overbank isn’t super forceful, but it will cause your legs to tingle a bit.
But what I really like about this overbank is that the second half dives into the ravine.
It’s at this point that I believe Nemesis reaches its top speed of 50 mph or 80 kpm.
It’s also worth noting that this element can cause you to hang your head if you aren’t
careful.
But outside of that overbank, Nemesis is glass smooth, which is incredible considering this
coaster is over 25 years old.
That overbank is followed by a forceful vertical loop.
The train did slow down a bit more than I expected at the apex of the loop, but the
pullout really packed on the Gs.
You then whiz through a tunnel and navigate another overbanked turn.
This overbanked turn is the ride’s one dead spot, as Nemesis sort of crawled through this
element.
But Nemesis quickly regains its speed as it dives back into another trench and emerges
into one of the best corkscrews in the world.
The train hauls through this corkscrew and offers a whip that most old-school B&M inverts
can’t even match.
Plus, it’s an extremely cool visual from the midway seeing that the top of the corkscrew
is level with the pathway.
After this corkscrew, Nemesis dives through another trench and rockets around a banked
turn, offering one last bit of leg-numbing forces, before hitting the brake run.
One criticism I often hear about Nemesis is that it’s short.
With just 2349 feet (or 716 meters) of track, it’s hard to argue against that.
Nemesis definitely is one of the shortest inverts.
But this doesn’t bother me too much since Nemesis doesn’t have much filler.
Most of the B&M inverts have a throwaway Immelmann or mid-course brake run that hurts the ride’s
pacing.
Meanwhile, Nemesis goes pedal to the metal from that first corkscrew onward.
The only dead spot is the second overbanked turn, but that element is over so quickly
that it doesn’t really impact the pacing in my opinion.
So what would I rate Nemesis?
I’d give it a 9.5 out of 10.
Most of my favorite coasters focus on airtime, but Nemesis is one of the highest inversion-based
coasters.
The ride’s top-notch pacing, forceful inversions, and countless near-misses make it worthy of
all the praise it receives.
Now I wouldn’t quite call it the most intense invert in the world.
I honestly think the Batman the Ride clones are more forceful start to finish, but Nemesis
isn’t far behind and has a major advantage with its unique layout, terrain use, and theming.
The only reason I don’t give Nemesis a perfect score is the absence of a good drop and short
length, but Nemesis is pretty darn flawless, especially when you consider the restrictions
Alton Towers had to deal with to build this world-class coaster.
Is Nemesis my favorite invert?
When I rode Nemesis in 2017, it was.
The forces and theming was hard to top.
I later rode Montu that year and went back and forth which coaster I preferred since
Montu was a longer ride with comparable forces.
But then I rode OzIris at Parc Asterix in 2019 and that coaster became my unquestioned
favorite invert.
It reminded me of Montu with about a half dozen airtime moments sprinkled into the usual
inversion-focused inverted coaster layout.
So those are my thoughts on Nemesis, the legendary B&M invert at Alton Towers.
Have you been on Nemesis?
Or is this a bucket list coaster for you?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments down below.
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