Comments on: World's scariest zip-line

By: Bharat Golchha

Bharat Golchha — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 18:08:00 +0000

Well.. you dont get the sense of speed in the video because you are 1000 feet off the ground…

By: Bharat Golchha

Bharat Golchha — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 18:08:00 +0000

Helmet cam

By: CLamb

CLamb — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 16:16:00 +0000

I’d like a zipline with a harness that lets me lie on my stomach so I could feel like Superman flying.

By: Justin Guild

Justin Guild — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 10:43:00 +0000

The description did oversell it. I expected an almost vertical drop with screaming and flailing. “Shocker Bro.”

By: David L Rattigan

David L Rattigan — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 10:39:00 +0000

“Safe” is good. “Safe-ish” is worrying. At “relatively safe-ish,” just give the zip-line a miss.

By: Ladyfingers

Ladyfingers — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 09:55:00 +0000

Although we call them “foefie slides”, which is more fun.

By: petz79

petz79 — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 08:16:00 +0000

55 km/h seems right to me. It’s not that fast (driving around town speed) and can be decelerated easy enough.

By: francoisroux

francoisroux — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 07:57:00 +0000

Of course we’ve had one like that here in South Africa for many years…

http://www.zip2000.co.za/

By: Paul Johnson

Paul Johnson — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 06:48:00 +0000

well what do you expect?

By: Palomino

Palomino — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 06:44:00 +0000

Exactly: with a goat, maybe groceries or fruits & vegetables to sale at the not-so-local market. Oh, and a wood stick for slowing down/breaking.

http://youtu.be/7x8yuLu57aA

By: voiceinthedistance

voiceinthedistance — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 04:10:00 +0000

Beats bacon ipsum by a country mile! Saved for a later date.

By: freshacconci

freshacconci — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 03:15:00 +0000

The scary is the height, not the speed.

By: Justin Winokur

Justin Winokur — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 03:04:00 +0000

I was so sure this was a spam post for a second. Then, I looked carefully at the URL and say that you were linking to the same thing I was talking about.

Let’s hope they are more careful with safety than site building

By: talby0

talby0 — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 02:59:00 +0000

Not nearly as scary as the one in Columbia that children had to take to school every day using only a stick for a break!

By: Jardine

Jardine — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 01:59:00 +0000

When I was a kid there was a summer camp nearby with a zip line. No helmets, no safety harness, no soft landing. It wasn’t all that long of a line but you held onto a pair of bicycle handlebars, pushed off the platform, then hit a tire at the end. That seemed more exciting than this video. I think they took it away one year though, probably worried about lawsuits.

By: aimee whitcroft

aimee whitcroft — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 01:14:00 +0000

And then there’s Gravity Canyon here in New Zealand – it’s not as big a drop, but apparently it goes between 160-200 kph. I’ve seen people zip by on it – it’s FAST :)

http://www.gravitycanyon.co.nz/activities/fox/photos

By: Hugh Johnson

Hugh Johnson — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 00:23:00 +0000

160 km/h = 99.4193908 mph
There, that’s better.

By: chgoliz

chgoliz — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 00:03:00 +0000

The scariest part of a zipline is calculating how well-set-up and -maintained the equipment is. When you’re at ease about that, you can enjoy the ride a lot more.
In the video above, I saw no evidence of a backup system the way you have with a conventional zipline.

The ride itself didn’t seem all that interesting. I think much of the fun is having the ride be over too soon. You just start enjoying the scenery and darn-it-anyway, it’s time to brake.

Yeah, great idea in theory, but I’d probably pass….and I normally seek out ziplines when I travel.

By: oldtaku

oldtaku — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 23:02:00 +0000

Canopy lines are far scarier, with things whipping by and under you at high speed. That’s too high up, and sitting position makes it even less scary. Yeah, I’d ride it, but there are much worse!

By: ideator

ideator — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 22:42:00 +0000

That’s what happens with a cable hanging between two points. It hangs in a curve called a catenary, so you naturally slow down because the cable levels off (and may even climb a little) at the end.

By: Petzl

Petzl — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 22:38:00 +0000

Saw polecat than took bankrupt good hillbilly stew, crazy, fancy and hillbilly heap rodeo, pappy. Thar range saw me him sherrif nothin' shiney dirt, pigs sheep city-slickers everlastin' shotgun driveway. Promenade catfight fart fiddle jiggly gonna tarnation, fence, what quarrel dirty, if. Pot grandma crop kinfolk jezebel diesel coonskin hoosegow wirey fixin' shack good roped in. Reckon stew tax-collectors, grandpa tobaccee hayseed good wash tired caboodle burnin' landlord.

I would argue whatever points they lost for bad music and Wadsworthing, they make back up with the Hatfield-McCoy lorem ipsum filler.

By: doug rogers

doug rogers — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 22:22:00 +0000

Don’t go all false dilemma black and white on me.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 22:09:00 +0000

The most heavily touristed areas have the highest standards of living. You think that they’d prefer to return to a subsistence economy?

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 21:48:00 +0000

Bus accidents in the mountains in Nepal are really common and deadly. You should be worrying about the ride up, not the ride down.

By: Zak Steltz

Zak Steltz — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 21:45:00 +0000

The Mokai Gravity Canyon in New Zealand offers a similar zip-line that also goes a claimed 160 kph. The difference being that you are going down face first:
http://www.gravitycanyon.co.nz/activities/fox

I’m planning on riding that when I go to NZ later this year.

By: splashu

splashu — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 21:41:00 +0000

I would have but I’m just so excited that I can buy a small table for $10 or a candleabra for $3 as souvenirs (????)

http://www.highgroundnepal.com/product.html

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 21:41:00 +0000

Not in the least bit scary compared to the rope bridges in Nepal.

By: doug rogers

doug rogers — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 21:13:00 +0000

When you walk up the mountainside through villages destroyed by landslides, when 50 year old farmers who look 80 invite you into their home for milk tea, passed by a troupe of schoolgirls skipping, skipping like mountain goats home from school in the early afternoon, knowing they were up at 5 am just go there, and tourists have spent pretty much that farmers annual income on one hang glider ride over an azure Fewa Lake outside Pokhara, I am a bucket of sorrowful mixed emotions over something like this. Hardly wonderful.

By: Boundegar

Boundegar — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 20:58:00 +0000

Inflationary universe, bro.

By: Shawn Goldwater

Shawn Goldwater — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 20:29:00 +0000

I sent that Chile link to some south american video game designers that I know and they flipped over it.