LAKESIDE’S NEW RIDE
Just in time for summer fun, visitors to Lakeside Amusement Park will be able to ride its new roller coaster.
Lakeside Amusement Park, a mainstay of Denver summer fun for more than a century, will debut a new roller coaster this season, and judging by early reactions online, a line may already be forming.
The so-far unnamed ride is under construction now at the park, which sits southwest of the junction of Interstate 70 and Sheridan Boulevard next to Lake Rhoda. Lakeside, located in a city of the same name, first opened as White City in 1908.
The coaster will be all metal and is on pace to open sometime in June, Lakeside marketing director Bill Koller said this week. It will be roughly a third the size of park’s marquee coaster — the bone-shaking, all-wood 1940s classic Cyclone — and located on the south end of the park, near the old race track.
Reddit user firetyrtle snapped a picture of the ride over the weekend and posted it to a roller coaster specific page on the popular website. By midday Monday, the picture had been clicked on more than 850 times.
“I pulled in the parking lot and almost died of excitement,” firetyrtle wrote on the post. “It’s not running yet but I can’t wait!” Other users shared in the enthusiasm. “I thought I saw a crane from I-70 the other day! Coasters are so limited here that this is big news,” wrote user AlbericGrunnion.
In addition to the new coaster, Lakeside is undergoing restoration work and repairs right now, Koller said. It suffered damage, particularly to its many lights, in last May’s record-setting hailstorm. That came after a driver attempting to elude police crashed into the park’s covered car port in March 2017, knocking part of it down.
The park, which is located at 4601 Sheridan Blvd., had a soft opening over the weekend, primarily to get staff members out for training, Koller said.
It will officially kick off the 2018 summer season on May 25. Basic admission is $4. Ride tickets are 50 cents apiece. Rides can cost up to six tickets, according to the park website.
Elitch Gardens Theme and Water Park, Denver’s largest and oldest amusement park, launched its 2018 season April 28. Plans are in the works to redevelop some of the surface parking lots around that park, but its owners say Elitch’s itself is not moving and will stay right where it is near downtown Denver for the foreseeable future.