On Conquering Hills

After I dropped finished half of the movie "The Queen", I took Chuck out to a quiet deserted hill street. The grade wasn't very steep, but it was steep enough to roll back without holding the brakes. I was trying to learn how to hold the car by the ebrake, and release the ebrake just as the clutch started to engage. It took me awhile, but after several attempts I became more consistent and less jerky. One thing I noticed was that I did better if I separated the steps more clearly. Instead of simultaneously engaging clutch, gassing, and releasing the ebrake, I found it to be much smoother if I engage and gas, and THEN release. That's not to say that I'm spinning the front wheels, but just not doing all three at once made it much better.

When I got comfortable, I took it to a much steeper hill and to my surprise, the ebrake didn't hold the car as well as I thought. I had to really use some forearm strength to get that sucker up high enough to stop the car. To make matters worse, the clutch + gas operation needed tweaking because just the clutch friction alone couldn't hold the car. There needed to be MORE gas and MORE precise clutch control. Of course, I had a few stalls here and more than a few choking sounding starts.