Here's what you do when you have lots of extra wood laying around on a large, empty piece of land.


A guy named Jeremy Reid decided to put the spare space in his "back yard" to better use, but what to do with it? Plant a garden? Nope. Build a mini-golf course? Nope. Build a working wooden roller coast you can actually ride? Yep!

The coaster is an out-and-back style with a maximum drop of 20 feet and a blazing speed of 20mph. The structure consists of 9,500 pounds of lumber and cost $5,500 dollars to build, which is actually less than I was expecting (I guess I buy wood at the wrong place).

There are various aspects from real coasters such as a motorized chain lift, lift-hill safety ratchet, and locking wheels to keep the car on the track. Watching one of the videos, it appears that the car probably doesn't have enough energy to completely circle the track, which is a bummer, but is probably easily fixed if that's the case.

There are more photos and some videos showing the roller coaster in operation at Jeremy's Backyard Coaster site.