Finally, got my cdl/ permit, advice for mountain driving?

A nice thread by @Lepton1 one was put up.

 

Bring extra underwear.

 

Steep Downhill and you need to downshift

While I started this thread, lots of old hands have added a wealth of wisdom.

 

I like the avatar. Pretty amazing that driver saved it from flopping over.

 

Take your time, never be in a hurry when driving the mountain states cause you aren't going anywhere in a hurry. Interstate or secondary roads eat up time in the mountains.

 

I use this site here, coupled with this site here: Tejon Pass, aka The Grapevine Truck Crash

I look up the grade when trip planning, google it, watch crash videos and read articles... then I use my experience.

Honestly, a lot of grades I don't downshift unless I'm loaded, the weather sucks, the grade is winding with steep switchbacks, etc... if it's 7% and a mile long, but straight down into a valley and nobody is in front of me, I just enjoy the ride.

When I first started driving(and I'm still new, so take everyone else's advice first!!!) I would always downshift to like 6-7th gear and put my 4 ways on. Hell, I did that last night on the grade coming into SLC from Park City, Utah. People were flying by me in the pitch black, talking #### on the cb. Cool. I can't see #### and these curves are tight and I don't want to blind people with my hi beams.

One of the only really valuable things that my trainer taught me was "on grades, put your ego aside and let everybody pass you". Was he saying that because he's a good trainer? No! He was saying that for self preservation. He wouldn't even let me pass people in front of me who were crawling up the grade. "We don't pass on grades."

My advice is to start like that and gradually, as you learn your capability and that of your equipment, you can make better judgment calls about how to handle the grade.

There have only been two where I was genuinely scared that I was in trouble. The first was Eisenhower on 70 outside of Denver. 46,000 of cheap American beer in a box and I didn't manually downshift my automatic. Before I knew it, I was doing 75 and my brakes were fading fast and smoking. And I quickly understood why there's the sign at the bottom of the grade telling trucks not to take the exit if you're experiencing brake fade. I got half way up the other side of the slope before I could even begin to slow down.

The second was the grade coming into California on 10. I WAY underestimated it, because I had driven it so many times. Every other truck was blowing by me and my pride got the better of me.

All I had to do was take my #### time.

 

I rather refer to Lepton1's thread becuase I have a little bit of mountain inside of that. So I don't have to repeat it.

Mountains are here becuase it pleases our God to see us work on them. With that said, whatever speed that truck comes up, whatever gear it comes up in is the same gear or even less that it should use coming down. Any clown can climb uphill. But it takes a real good driver to get back down. It's not difficult.

If there was a engine with a large enough displacement (Think huge ship engines) and a gear with a deep enough ratio you can hold a 40 ton 18 wheeler on a vertical shaft. (To paraphrase...) But good trucking companies have jacobs brakes in the engines so when they are properly set up on your tach on the way down, you never have to touch your brakes which is my particular goal on any grade. Cold brakes will allow you to absolutely stop that truck one time right now on any hill. Hot ones fade out then smoke and eventually burn. And zip... off you go. Bye! See you in the next world. Or at the bus station having quit.

Physics is not difficult on a mountain. It's the curving, the banking and traffic around you with people in herds or solo doing stupid things creating trouble. You are doing well to put aside ego, look at me Im trucking etc and let everyone pass you. If you are the slowest, then you are the safest mountain man I know. It does not matter what the weather is. (It does... but let's leave that for a while yet, winter is coming...)

If you use google maps and take a look at Milroy PA there is what is called a 7 Mountains Grade on either 527 or US 322. I call it US 322. Its a number of miles down. There are videos of people coming down that properly. It's a nice little hill, not too long or short and has enough beef in it to teach you a little taste. That was actually what I consider my hill because my trainer took me onto it first up several times on ice in winter when all the megas were falling over in the ditch... and then later coming back down first on ice a few times, then a bit of snow and finally 3 feet of powder with no jake brake at 80000 Ketchup from Ohio to G'burg.

I would meet many much bigger and badder hills in my time and some have my name on it and not always in a good way. I chalk those up as a victory. A couple are good for fun. Put her in nuetral, let the speed past 130 until gravity stabilizes it for the percent of grade. Never more than 5%. Otherwise speed never stabilizes and you die. Don't ever do that. This was something that was done a long time ago when no one was looking to add a little time with the engines we had back then.

I said enough, have yourself something to drink and read Lepton1's thread. There are many good posts. In my day there was no net. Just a old instructor who was born on a mountain yelling at me as I confronted my mortal fear of the #### thing on Big Savage. Ugh. (The same one my Uncle who survived redball in war hauling gas under strafing attacks and hauled gas on a runaway on that same hill in the 50's) And you wonder why I don't haul fuel.

 

Sadly the best thing to have when taking a decent is experience , to know how your truck handled it before.You have to keep it under control of course but if you know there is an upgrade ahead to catch your momentum it will decrease your trip time. They used to say go down the same speed you went up ,but again that is experience. With engine brakes you can explore higher downgrade speeds with some confidence, especially with Cummins but it is always mandatory that you keep speed under control. There will always be guys passing you as loads and experience produce different different results. If you find yourself really tromping on the binders to control your speed then you probably have too much momentum and should slow down. A high tach will make the compression brake work better but a very high tach will make it hard to shift, but 2 or 3 hundred down is about right ( the operating range is on the dataplate on the engine, cummins on the top left). What I generally do in an unknown is find a gear that holds the truck wiithout using the treadle brakes at all or if a constantly changing pitch, very little. But I assure you many will pass with this technique. But the most important is to know the grade and as a rookie that is true for everything all day. Perhaps you could identify your territory and guys can give advise based on that. Weights above 40 bushel (thousand) on the floor need caution, below 30 probably OK in most situations. Keeping an eye on the application gauge really isn't worth much except to tell you you have a big problem and watching for smoke is to little too late. I think a better question for the forum is where are the baddest downgrades in the country. I would say southbound 95 white bird, Id south of grangeville but maxis do it all the time. All these stories are generally created by someone ####up, don't be that guy. The only time I smoked my brakes was with a legal load south bound 5 hilt ca and i was watching my application guage when someone yelled at me for smoke, I was lucky and that grade isn't very long. Light brake pressure should be enough to stop you if your trompin' you need to look further ahead.