A NEW ride is set to open later this year as part of a new leisure attraction currently being constructed in the UK. What will be Scotland 's first "alpine coaster" is being finished at the Midlothian Snowsports Centre in the Pentland Hills Regional Park, which sits in Hillend, a small Hamlet not far from Edinburgh. Alpine coasters are rides that use both the natural elevation of the land and gravity to take riders down the side of a steep hill or mountain.
However, unlike more commonly seen rollercoasters, they also have manual brakes, allowing riders to control their speed on the way down. When it is finished, the track will be 3215ft in length, and will have its own 550ft vertical drop, as well as a helix, a type of turn on a rollercoaster that forms a radius of more than 360-degrees. Its maximum speed will be 28mph.
Read More on UK Attractions Work on the ride is ongoing, with video footage available of people testing out the new track. However, despite it looking almost finished, Midlothian Council is yet to announce an opening date for the new attraction. In an update on its website, the council said: "Work continues on the coaster to ready it for opening.
"We have not released an opening date yet, with several aspects of the ride still to be completed before this is announced." Most read in Family The centre is also set for further development to "safeguard its future ". The council is also in the process of building what it describes as "a year-round, family-orientate.