It may have taken a few years, but we in Europe finally have a great stash of B&M coasters to be very proud of. Well, we're about to get another one - a Floorless. The recipient is something of a surprise though - Tivoli Gardens (Copenhagen, Denmark).

It is surprising because it is a very compact park, and space is at something of a premium. The park is in the centre of Copenhagen, and completely landlocked, so any new rides would always need to be custom designed to fit, and with Golden Lion, this is just what the park has got.

The design is incredibly compact, but manages some interesting design flourishes into its layout. Starting with the high helix, reminiscent of the Great Bear at Hershey Park (Hershey, Pennsylvania), it dives down into a loop, then very quickly into an inclined immelmann, before a zero g roll and a helix leading into the brakes.

On the face of it, it's not that big a coaster, but when you compare something like Alton's Nemesis against Busch Gardens Williamsburg's Alpengeist, the same can also be said for Nemesis. But, and I firmly believe this, Nemesis is the best thing B&M has ever done. They seem to work their special magic when presented with a challenge of space and/or terrain. Give them an empty flat slab of land, and they'll give you a good ride. Make it impossible to build above some trees, throw in some natural terrain and force them to fit it into a tight odd-shaped space, and they'll give you a great ride.

"It isn't very long" is something I hear a lot around Nemesis though, especially from people who have been over to Florida and ridden Busch Gardens Tampa's Montu. I always reply, "ride Nemesis twice, then it's longer". I have never been a huge fan of coaster statistics.

Anyway, so what about Golden Lion? Well it will be in the space currently occupied by Slangen, their Zierer Comet coaster. Incidentally, Zierer actually call their smaller coasters "Tivoli's" because the junior steel coaster Karavanen is the first one they built. Currently the park hopes to sell Slangen on to another park - it would be a shame to see it disappear as it is a great little ride.

The ride is located tight against the North West wall, with the station above some shops already along there. The high helix after the first drop will be very close to Det gyldne Tarn, the park's S&S Space Shot. Drawings prepared by the park, some of which are shown here, see the ride blending pretty well into the park. This is saying something when you consider that Tivoli is one of the most beautiful looking of all the traditional parks.

Golden Lion is due to open for the 2004 season - ten years after Nemesis, Europe's first B&M coincidentally. I really am looking forward to this ride as it seems to me that Tivoli, much like Europa Park, really know how to make the most of their rides. As they say, it's not how big it is, but how you use it that counts. 2004 looks like it'll prove that saying right… Again!