Doctor Q, you show yourself in the "speed" position - I'm curious as to if it's something where you'd want to go slower to enjoy the views, or if you need to go faster (or at least a certain speed) to maintain momentum and/or not get run over by someone else coming down.
I tried it both ways, fast for fun and slow for siteseeing. But if you slow down too much you may not make it all the way to the platform at the end, and you'd be stuck hanging there until they "towed you" in. One member of my zip-line group made that mistake and had to be throw a rope and pulled the rest of the way.
Overall, I liked the view but preferred the speed, so I stayed in "speed" position unless the guides gave me the hand signal to slow myself down at arrival.
How much spacing is there? Are you kind of on your own out there, or are others pretty close?
You don't start until the person before you is completely off the line, so you have the zip-line to yourself. However, the various zip-line companies offer single, 2-line, 3-line, or even 4-line parallel lines, so you and other people can go simultaneously, side-by-side, and even race if you want to.
Here's a course with 2 parallel zip-lines. I'm the dot shown by the arrow and my ride-mate is a dot just to the left (my right). If we stretched our arms out we couldn't quite reach each other.
As I land I'm either raising my arm in victory or shaking my fist in anger that the ride is over.
It took me about 30 seconds to descend the 2800-foot line so I think that's about 60 miles per hour average or 100 kilometers per hour. Presumably you're going a little faster than that at your peak speed.
