Class 1 school in Vancouver area.

13 - seems to be easy enough

 

Are they teaching you to split the upper gears? Valley didn't teach me to split at the beginning. I couldn't understand why though. If you don't split the upper gears it shifts like crap.

 

Oh i'm sure they will.. I only made it into 6th today.. just learning the double clutch thing mainly.. its so.. foreign.

 

Tell them you are too good to waste time learning to split gears and ask if they have a 5+4 you can take your road test in to show what a supertrucker you are going to be.

Dang I can't wait to get behind the wheel, I'll just keep ragging on you so nobody figures out I'm jealous - especially me!

You already live in Kamloops don't you, or did you have to rent a motel?

 

No hotel needed, I've been here since about 87.

I'm a bit on the nervous side putting a trailer on the back of the truck today.. we'll see how it goes.. I'll be at the yard in about an hour and a half, much clearer skies out today, I should get some better pictures.

 

You'll likely be in the industrial park instead of downtown so it should be fine. That is very quick progression. At least you don't have to spend the weekend worrying, you'll already have proven to yourself that you can do it.

Do you work on the pre-trip each day too?

 

A little.. more verbally just going over it to make sure its done the way the testers want to hear... We bob-tailed all over today the trailer will be tomorrow. Wayne wanted to make sure I was a bit more comfortable with the gears today - no grinding, most shifts were smooth - One ####### pulled right up to my tail, then halfway around me and sat pretty much right beside the gastank while I was merging up-hill onto a bridge - def a twitch moment.

The second, and much MORE twitch moment today was when we were uncoupling a trailer.. there was another student who parked his right right beside ours. We'd backed up, coupled to a trailer.. went through an entire pre-trip with it, then uncoupled. After the landing gear was down I was parked with the end of the trailer just over the 5th wheel. Ready to pull away, I released the parking brake just as the student directly to my right moved forward.. I near panicked as I thought I was rolling backwards even tho I was at full brake. Took me a moment to realize what was going on.

Aside from that we looped out to Heffley Creek which is about 20 min up the highway from Kamloops twice, and followed twisty little Ord road through to tranquille (passed through two construction zones).

Tomorrow is all day with a trailer..

Still getting used to double clutching, I've found all the gears today and the highway run was pretty relaxing.. its a lot of work in town.

 

Sounds like your having a great time learning! I wish they didn't stress the double clutching part because most people rarely do it. Its a lot for a rookie to remember espp on a road test. Highway driving is def more comfortable than city driving. Once you get that trailer behind you taking corners will become second nature swinging wide. I find myself doing it in my pickup sometimes . Any snow in kamloops yet?

 

lol - I can just picture the moment as the other truck moved!

I expect double clutching to take a while for me too. I'm really going to have to fight the urge to push the clutch to the floor. I've driven a couple of these tractors in the past briefly, but only floating the gears. I've never experienced pulling 53' of trailer.

 

Just don't start parking your little truck on an angle like you did with the big one!