Blue Streak offers a classic John Allen ride experience, at least from the perspective of how the train plies the course. It is well-paced, has some nice bunny-hops and fun moments of air-time. However, there is something very wrong with this ride, and I do not feel it is completely due to the loss of the buzzbars as shag9004 pointed out. While this does restrict any liberal amount of space to enjoy the rides rolling air, the real criminal here are those hard molded rubber seatbacks with the 80s Volvo-style headrests. First off, headrests do absolutely nothing other than appease liability insurers, keep their actuaries busy and obscure a riders view.
But where PTCs customary cushioned seatbacks offer some comfort during a rides more body-shaking events, these made me feel like I was body-slammed on the floor. Where I should have been anticipating the next fun moment of airtime, I instead kept asking myself what the hell is wrong with my back? I originally was going to rate this a 7, but the ratchet lapbar/hard seatback combo dumps the score to a modest 6. There is a really good ride out there, if you can tolerate being slapped in the back by a hard piece of rubber. If CP insists on keeping headrests, at least mount them to the car and put some padding back where it belongs. That would potentially push my score to an 8, but not until the BS is removed from Blue Streak.
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