Flamingo Land in North Yorkshire is best known as a zoo with a serious coaster habit, and Sik is the most extreme expression of it. Opened on 2 July 2022, the bright-green Intamin machine turns riders upside down ten times per circuit – matching Colossus at Thorpe Park for the most inversions of any coaster in the UK.
Globally, only The Smiler’s fourteen flips beat it. That puts Sik in a tie for second place on our list of the roller coasters with the most inversions in the world, alongside its sibling rides in Italy, China and Russia.
Key Stats
| Height | 108.3 ft (33 m) |
| Speed | 52.8 mph (85 km/h) |
| Length | 2,870.8 ft (875 m) |
| Inversions | 10 |
| Lift | Cable lift hill |
| Designed capacity | 1,250 riders per hour |
| Trains | 24 riders per train |
| Manufacturer | Intamin (Multi Inversion Coaster) |
| Opened at Flamingo Land | 2 July 2022 |
A Well-Travelled Coaster
Sik took the scenic route to Yorkshire. The hardware is an Intamin Multi Inversion Coaster – the revised version of Thorpe Park’s record-breaking Colossus layout – that was previously allocated to Hopi Hari in Brazil and then Movie Animation Park Studios in Malaysia before Flamingo Land acquired it. It finally opened to riders, for the first time anywhere, on 2 July 2022.
The name has a story too: ‘Sik’ references the SikSilk fashion label, whose founders are long-standing friends of Flamingo Land’s owner, Gordon Gibb. It’s part naming deal, part inside joke – and it gave the UK’s most-inverting new coaster in twenty years a suitably brash identity.
The Ride Experience
From the 108-foot cable lift, Sik drops into a vertical loop, doubles up with a cobra roll, and corkscrews twice in quick succession – five inversions inside the first minute. The layout then straightens out for the element this design is famous for: a quad heartline roll, four slow barrel rolls in a row that hang riders against their restraints, before one final heartline roll completes the set of ten.
It’s the same sequence that made Colossus a world record holder in 2002, delivered with the newer model’s extra ten feet of height and 8 mph of speed. As designed the ride runs two 24-seat trains, though in practice Flamingo Land has operated it with a reduced fleet.
Sik and the UK Inversion Crown
For two decades Colossus stood alone as Britain’s ten-inversion coaster. Sik’s arrival in 2022 doubled the club’s UK membership and gave the north of England a genuine statistical heavyweight – Flamingo Land’s ride is taller and faster than the Thorpe Park original, even if the inversion count is a dead heat. Alongside Kumali and Mumbo Jumbo, it anchors one of the UK’s most underrated coaster line-ups.
FAQ
How many inversions does Sik at Flamingo Land have?
Ten – a vertical loop, cobra roll, double corkscrew, quad heartline roll and final heartline roll. That ties Colossus at Thorpe Park for the UK record and sits second worldwide behind The Smiler’s fourteen.
Why is it called Sik?
The name references the SikSilk clothing brand – its founders are long-time friends of Flamingo Land owner Gordon Gibb.
Is Sik a new roller coaster?
The ride first carried passengers at Flamingo Land in July 2022, but the hardware had previously been allocated to parks in Brazil and Malaysia without opening at either.
Photo: Lachlan via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)