The Gravity Group are a designer and fabricator of wooden roller coasters, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.
The company has become one of the world’s largest manufacturers of wooden roller coasters,
providing a unique range of designs and styles to its customers.
Today, the Gravity Group is known both for their small scale compact rides, such as Twister
at Grona Lund; as well as their larger, thrilling wooden coasters, which can feature inversions,
like Hades 360 at Mt. Olympus.
The Gravity Group was founded in July of 2002.
Though the company is relatively new compared to other amusement manufacturers, some of
which are over 100 years old, their expertise goes back much further.
Infact, the Gravity Group was created by four engineers of the now defunct Custom Coasters
International, another wooden roller coaster company, who were laid off when the business went bankrupt.
Custom Coasters International began constructing wooden roller coasters in 1991.
Over it’s 11 year existence, the company manufactured 34 wooden rides, across several
countries around the globe.
Sadly, in 2002, they filed for bankruptcy.
It was at this point that four designers for Custom Coasters International, Korey Kiepert,
Chad Miller, Michael Graham, Lawrance Bill, went on to found their own company, the Gravity Group.
Between them, the four founders had been involved in over 40 wooden roller coaster projects
at the time, including rides like the Legend and Raven at Holiday World, as well as Cornball
Express at Indiana Beach.
The Gravity Group say they have ‘more experience designing wooden roller coasters than any
other company in existence today’.
Upon their debut, the Gravity Group offered roller coaster design and engineering services,
with their specialization in wooden ride development and design.
Their goal was to bring the wooden roller coaster into the 21st century, by offering
unique designs that stood up against more popular steel roller coaster attractions.
Fortunately, it wasn’t long before they saw their first project, signed on the 12th
November 2002 with Holiday World.
The Gravity Group would act as a consultant for the park’s two wooden roller coasters,
built by Custom Coasters International.
This also included updating Raven to operate with two trains instead of one.
Three years later, in 2005, the company would take on their first roller coaster project.
The Gravity Group designed Hades, an all new wooden roller coaster for Mt. Olympus.
Though, Hades wasn’t all wooden.
The ride was built with a wooden track, supported by a steel structure, which has been designed
to emulate the lattice-style look of a wooden supports.
Upon opening, Hades broke several records too.
It featured the world’s longest underground tunnel, measuring 244m 800ft in length, and
became the first modern day wooden coaster to feature a piece of track banked to 90 degrees.
Prior to this, wooden roller coasters remained relatively traditional, with minimum amounts of banking.
From this moment, the Gravity Group began to change the game.
Hades used heavier banking than normal, and even featured track sections banked in the
opposite direction to convention for added excitement.
Just a single year later, the manufacturer continued to change the game by designing
the Voyage at Holiday World.
The Voyage became the company’s longest, tallest and fastest roller coaster yet.
It built on the ideology first used on Hades by featuring multiple tunnels and three distinct
moments of 90 degree banking.
Throughout the terrain based layout, riders are also subjected to 24.2 seconds of airtime,
the most on any wooden roller coaster around the globe.
In 2007, the company went on to design Boardwalk Bullet for Kemah Boardwalk.
With only a small plot of land available, Kemah Boardwalk wanted their wooden roller
coaster to fit into a single acre of land.
As a result, the Gravity Group designed a compact wooden roller coaster with multiple
cross-over sections, cramming close 1000m 3300ft of track into the small space.
A single year later, they designed Ravine Flyer II at Waldameer.
Ravine Flyer II followed the reigns of the original Ravine Flyer, which operated between 1922 and 1938.
The Gravity Group were tasked with developing a way to have the roller coaster successfully
cross a four lane highway.
To do this, they developed a bridge which would support the ride’s track without obstructing the road below.
Like many of the company’s other attractions, it also features a multitude of tunnels and
moments of airtime.
2009 also marked a huge step for the Gravity Group and for the Chinese theme park industry as a whole.
The business designed Fireball for Happy Valley Shanghai, a ride which became China’s first
modern day wooden roller coaster.
But, the year prior, the Gravity Group began working on something special.
In 2008, they founded Gravitykraft, a sister company to the Gravity Group, which had two main purposes.
Firstly, it would supply wooden roller coaster components, eventually allowing the business
as a whole to construct wooden rides from the ground-up; and secondly, it would be tasked
with designing, testing and eventually fabricating trains for future Gravity Group roller coasters.
Previously, wooden roller coasters designed by Gravity Group used trains built by a different
company, Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters.
These were traditional, box-like, wooden roller coaster trains, found on many wooden rides
prior to the 2000s.
Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters trains had been used on all rides designed by the Gravity
Group before 2011, but that was set to change.
Gravitykraft began development of their own unique wooden roller coaster train, named the Timberliner.
The Timberliner train was created lighter than most other trains, reducing the amount
of stress placed on the track.
They also became the world’s first wooden coaster trains to feature pivoting wheel assemblies.
This allowed the trains to steer themselves round corners, giving them the ability to
smoothly follow the profile of the track.
Additionally, the wheel assemblies feature two wheels on each side, helping to spread
the stress on the track, further helping to create a smoother experience.
Each car of the Timberliner train was also shorter, allowing more to occupy the same
space compared to a traditional car.
On top of this, the train was designed with a lap bar restraint, one which is pulled horizontally across riders’ laps.
This enables faster loading times, and a more comfortable experience for guests.
Overall, the Timberliner train was designed to reduce maintenance, increase capacity,
and be more comfortable.
Not only did Gravity Group succeed in their goal of being able to supply their own trains
to theme parks, they also brought the wooden roller coaster train into the 21st century.
Initially, the new Timberliner trains were tested on Raven at Holiday World, with the
intention being to introduce them on the Voyage for the 2010 season.
The president of Holiday World, stated the transition was happening to not only benefit
the ride experience, but preserve the ride better because the trains produce less wear
and tear on the track.
However, the Voyage wouldn’t become the first roller coaster to feature Gravitykraft’s
new Timberliner trains.
After three years of testing, in 2013 Holiday World eventually decided to continue to use
Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters trains on their roller coasters, instead of debuting the new Timberliner train.
Instead, Wooden Warrior at Quassy Amusement Park became the first ride to use Timberliners
in April of 2011, quickly followed by Twister at Gröna Lund in May.
Both of these roller coasters were built to take full advantage of the new train design.
Although they were more family orientated rides, featuring modest heights and top speeds,
the agility of the Timberliner train allowed for a compact layout, which was just as thrilling
as previous designs.
On top of being one of the first roller coasters to utilise the new train, Twister at Gröna
Lund also became the first roller coaster to be built by GravityKraft.
Prior to this, the Gravity Group’s main service was the design of wooden roller coasters.
They would produce the layout and plans for the ride, which would then be fabricated and
constructed by a different company.
Some of their earlier rides were built in-house by the parks themselves, such as Hades at
Mt. Olympus and Ravine Flyer II at Waldameer.
Many of the others were constructed by a separate company, Martin & Vleminckx Rides, such as
Boardwalk bullet at Kemah Boardwalk and Fireball at Happy Valley Shanghai.
Twister became the first ride to be designed and fabricated by Gravity Group as a whole,
with Gravitykraft providing the trains and materials required to construct the actual
wooden roller coaster.
As a result, since 2011, the Gravity Group have offered a complete project delivery service,
which allows them to work with parks throughout the whole process, to see their initial idea become reality.
After the successful debut of the Timberliner train, the Gravity Group went on to construct
another first for China.
In 2012, Happy Valley Wuhan debuted Dauling Dragon, a pair of racing wooden roller coasters
- the first racing wooden roller coasters to be built in China.
The ride marked a first for Gravity Group too, becoming their first racing design, and
the first wooden coaster to feature a ‘high five’ element, which sees the two sides
bank 90 degrees towards each other.
2013 also saw another huge leap for the company.
Hades, their first roller coaster, was reimagined into Hades 360.
Mt. Olympus together with the Gravity Group, removed the attraction’s 2nd hill and replaced
it with an inversion, a corkscrew.
Because of this, Hades 360 became one of the first wooden roller coasters to go upside down.
The section of track after the corkscrew was also improved with the addition of an overbanked
turn, and the ride’s train was replaced with a new Timberliner by Gravitykraft.
Since the development of Hades 360, the Gravity Group have continued to produce increasingly
modern wooden roller coasters.
In 2015 they built The Cú Chulainn Coaster at Tayto Park, the first modern day large
scale roller coaster to be built in Ireland, and the first wooden coaster in Europe to
feature an overbanked turn.
This was followed by the debut of Switchback at ZDT’s Amusement Park, the company’s
and world’s first modern day wooden shuttle coaster.
Guests complete the layout forwards before climbing a large 90 degree spike, which in
turn causes them to traverse the entire layout backwards.
2016 saw the Gravity Group design three roller coasters in China, all named Jungle Trailblazer;
while 2017 saw the debut of Mine Blower at Fun Spot America, a compact roller coaster
featuring a zero-g roll across the ride’s station.
More recently, the company has continued to construct smaller, compact wooden coasters
for a range of theme parks.
Oscar’s Wacky Taxi, a family roller coaster, opened at Sesame Place in 2018; and in 2019,
Kentucky Kingdom built the Kentucky Flyer, a similar small scale wooden ride.
2021 will also see the debut of Leviathan at Sea World in Australia, a larger scale
wooden roller coaster, featuring a train with a reversed last row!
Most, if not all of the company’s newest rides outside of China are also being designed
and constructed by the Gravity Group and Gravitykraft respectively.
With that being said, the Gravity Group continues to see success in China too.
Since 2015 they’ve designed 7 different roller coasters for the country, with another
set to debut in 2021 too.
All of these rides continue to be built by a separate company, Martin & Vleminckx Rides.
Additional Services Today, the Gravity Group does more than just
wooden roller coaster design and construction.
Firstly, the company offers a smoothing and re-profiling service to enhance the experience
of older wooden rides.
This includes redeveloping parts of the track to make the attraction smoother, as well as
adding new elements to the layout, as seen with Hades 360.
The service aims to breath life back into classic wooden roller coasters and improve
their longevity, so they continue to be a major part of the thrill landscape.
Secondly, the Gravity Group can retrofit their Timberliner trains onto standard wooden roller coasters.
With minimal to no changes to the ride, theme parks can choose to upgrade their trains to
Timberliners, which can help to reduce maintenance whilst also increasing the lifespan of the track itself.
On top of this, the trains will enhance the ride’s capacity, comfort and agility.
Different types of wooden coaster designs The Gravity Group have tried to set themselves
apart from other amusements manufacturers offering wooden roller coasters, through their
unique designs and elements.
Most of their designs incorporate many moments of airtime, from small pops, to large hills
that push guests out of their seats.
On top of this, the company utilises heavy banking and inversions, to make their rides
more thrilling, and in some cases, squeeze them into a smaller footprint.
Overall, their roller coasters show the business has no hesitation when it comes to designing
rides that break the mould of traditional wooden coaster designs.
With that being said, the Gravity Group is flexible and offers a range of different ride styles.
They produce larger out and back wooden roller coasters, more compact twister rides, attractions
that hug and utilise the terrain, racing and duelling wooden rides, and even dark roller coasters.
On top of this, the company can design attractions with a traditional wooden support structure,
a steel one, or a combination of the two.
Since their founding in 2002, the Gravity Group has quickly become one of the go-to
companies for wooden roller coasters.
Their attractions are generally well received by guests for providing well paced, aggressive
rides, whilst still maintaining the balance between intensity and re-rideability.
More and more theme parks are choosing the Gravity Group for their new wooden roller
coasters due to their ability to provide truly unique and flexible rides that suit all needs.
The company is often selected over its competitors when providing compact, quirky rides that
have unusual requirements, like a small plot of land.
Furthermore, their Timberliner trains help to enhance the experience by providing a smooth
ride, whilst reducing the amount of maintenance required both on the track and trains.
Having designed over 26 rides, and constructed more than 9 of them; together the Gravity
Group and Gravitykraft have both shown their ability to push the classic wooden ride into the 21st century.
Hopefully, in the future, we see them continue to think outside the box.
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