UK coaster fans, it’s time to put the kettle on, make a cup of tea and settle in for one of the maddest adventures in UK coaster history.
In August 2025, Dean Stokes, better known as Dean Rides, set out to ride every roller coaster in the UK and Ireland in just 16 days. That meant visiting 32 parks, tackling more than 100 coasters and clocking up over 2,000 miles on the road, all with his mate Simon, who doesn't even like roller coasters!
And if that wasn’t mad enough, Dean had to contend with ride closures, a huge storm threatening to derail the trip, the physical demands of countless inversions and the challenge of filming/editing videos along the way.
But somewhere between the road miles, the rides and the chaos, the adventure took an unexpected turn: Guinness World Records came calling.
We caught up with Dean to hear how the whole thing came about, what went wrong, which rides stood out and how an ambitious coaster challenge turned into a record-breaking adventure.
So Dean, take us back to the moment you first had the idea for this insane challenge!
I wanted to start sharing more about theme parks and roller coasters online. I already have a YouTube channel about technology with tutorials, and I thought riding every roller coaster would be a fun way to get started. The more I thought about it, the more I realised it was also a really fun way to celebrate something I love, and I hoped it might inspire people to go out there and do more of what they enjoy, just for the joy of it. I never imagined it would snowball into the huge thing it did!
You did the whole thing with your mate Simon, who isn't actually a fan of roller coasters! How did you persuade him to come along?
He actually didn't take a lot of persuading, even though he hates roller coasters. He's always up for a random adventure. I was on the phone with him one day and just dropped into conversation that I was planning this, and he said he'd always wanted to see more of the UK. He's lived here a little while, so driving all that distance, pretty much around the perimeter of the country, was really exciting for him. He loved it! I did get him on a few rides during the challenge, but no roller coasters.
The trip was last August, right? But the Youtube video has just dropped...
Yes, it started on 2nd August 2025 and took two weeks. I was uploading daily videos each night while on the road, and editing them every night made me realise I'd never have been able to do this on my own. It was delusional to think that would have been possible! Having Simon there was a real help.
But it's only in the last month that I've released the long-form version of the story, and Theme Park Daily featured me as Video of the Week, of course.
You rode 108 coasters in total. We saw you on rides we’d not even heard of: Ziggy's Blast Quest, Black Bull Run, Pinball X as well as all the big coasters we all love. Which most surprised you the most?
Probably Odyssey. It's crazy to me that there's this huge SLC just sat there in Skegness. It's not a smooth ride by any stretch, but the roughness is actually fun rather than just painful.
And what was the one absolute hidden gem you discovered?
Paultons Park. I know it gets a lot of attention in the UK enthusiast community now, but just in terms of how that park looks. I was there before Valgard was built at all, and rode Cobra, which is now Raven, before anything else was there. It was impeccably tidy, beautifully presented and you can clearly see it's really well looked after.
You've spoken really positively about places like Adventure Island and Crealy. What did those parks have that perhaps surprised you?
At both of them, the staff are a huge credit. That's true at most parks, but there's something about the way people are trained at Adventure Island, for example. Before dispatching a coaster, every ride host in the station gets everyone to cheer and makes it exciting.
Crealy was similar with the staff. Everyone was chatty, friendly and really supportive of the challenge, and the park just has this lovely friendly vibe.
Your challenge included Alpine Coasters, for someone who has never experienced one, what exactly is an alpine coaster, and is it worth making a special trip?
An alpine coaster is basically a downhill coaster with a car on tracks. You usually ride one or two people per car and you brake yourself on the way down if you want to. The challenge was the first time I'd ever ridden one, and I do think it's worth giving one a go. I'd recommend either the one at Zip World in North Wales, or the alpine coaster in Scotland, which has amazing views out to Edinburgh and the sea.
Was there one coaster that you finished riding and immediately thought, "I need to do that again"?
Hyperia! It was my last roller coaster of the challenge, and I immediately went round and did a victory lap.
Conversely, was there one where you were very happy to tick it off the list and move on?
Infusion. I think it's the roughest roller coaster in the UK, and I really struggle to find any redeeming qualities about it, which is unusual for me. But I'll still ride it every time I go to Blackpool Pleasure Beach!
We saw bad weather, Storm Floris threatened the challenge. You know things are bad when a storm gets its own name! What happened?
Storm Floris seemingly came out of the blue, and it was really frustrating because if I'd started a week later we probably would never have had that issue.
It really scuppered the first few days because parks just couldn't operate rides because of the rain or wind. That meant turning up at places like Brean and finding the whole park closed.
I've since been back and ridden all their rides, and it's a fun little park! But in those moments all you can think is "should I actually just give up?" because straight off the bat I'd missed multiple roller coasters. But that's the name of the game, isn't it! It was never going to be a perfect run.
At any point, did you genuinely think the whole challenge might be in trouble?
Yes, literally from around day two and three. I just thought if this carries on and the weather doesn't improve, we may as well give up! But then we had some amazing wins the other way too, like Rita, which had been shut for most of the year, but reopened about a week before I hit the road.
We heard you actually got a Guinness World Record during the trip, is that true?!
It's true! And it was never part of the plan. Guinness World Records actually got in touch with me after seeing what I was doing on social media, on the second day, and then worked with me to get an application in and submit all the evidence while I was still on the road during the first week.
The record is most roller coasters ridden in a week, with 55.
Each morning of the trip I was recording a voice note from a roller coaster that was played on national radio on Heart Breakfast. They invited me into the studio the day after the challenge finished and presented me with the certificate, with a proper adjudicator and everything! It was just mind blowing. I never expected that level of support.
There's been a lot of chatter that 55 isn't much of a record and is easily beatable, and I can absolutely see that, but no one had applied for it before, so it seemed like a no-brainer. And since then, no one has officially gone and done it.
Shout out to Ride Comparisons though, who did a trip to get more! If no one else is going to go for it, I might just have to go and prove I can do a lot more than that in a week!
It's very difficult when it's only the UK though, which is why Ben and Jacob went into Europe, and that makes sense. So if I was going to truly double the record, I'd have to decide where it would be. Stay tuned on that one...
What was the hardest part of the challenge?
The early mornings, travel between parks, and the energy of doing it whilst creating and editing videos at the same time was tough, but honestly it's the logistics that's the hardest thing.
Figuring out all the park opening times, emailing every park to ask permission to film on ride, booking all the hotels. We were away for 15 nights, and that's a different hotel every night because we were moving around so much. Then there were the flights over to Ireland.
Other than that, just the tiredness from early starts, sometimes with radio interviews in the morning, and late finishes after driving hundreds of miles between parks.
How long after the challenge till you got on another coaster? We saw you having to miss out Spinosaurus, did you ever get back to it?
Not long at all! It was a couple of weeks, and I went to Coney Island in New York because I was there for a conference, so I managed a little trip over to ride all their coasters.I haven't been back to ride Spinosaurus in Hastings though. I need to go back and get that at some point!
What's next for Dean Rides? Could we see you attempt something even more ridiculous, like visiting every balti house in Birmingham with a mate who doesn't even like curry?
I really love doing challenges like this because it's such a fun way to do something you might otherwise do gradually over a lifetime.While the logistics are tiring and difficult, I really love the planning and thinking up the crazy idea. The most obvious next step would be to break this record on another level, but I've got lots of other ideas bubbling away. The challenge is finding the time and the funding to do them!
What's next for Dean Rides, and where can everyone follow you?
There's lots more to come! I've done a couple of trips to Orlando this year, and I'm about to share plenty of Halloween content from events like Halloween Horror Nights, as well as Tulleys, Fright Nights and more.
To follow along, search for Dean Rides on YouTube, or find me as Dean Stokes on TikTok.
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