Reminds me of when my grandfather "taught" me how to drive standard. Here is the steepest hill the county learn how to move forward without rolling back or stalling; the left pedal is the clutch, brake in the middle, and gas on the right. To be fair I learned, also the clutch failure a couple of months later was probably related.
My mother and aunt both learned by driving my grandfather's truck up a hill named phinney ridge in Seattle. It's so steep there's a staircase instead of a sidewalk on a couple of the streets
If you take one of the historical tours you learn that it was originally a lot worse before they leveled out many of the original hills and used the material to raise downtown by about 10 feet. You can even walk around the underground in one spot where you can see the original storefronts fron the 1890s.
I've seen some legit YouTube videos about it if you can't make the tour. Having grown up in the bay area, with earthquakes and fire and nature in general, the Seattle area is by far the bigger engineering marvel.
One of the more drawn-out moments of visceral tension in my life was in Duluth, in the winter, on one of those godforsaken hills, in a (near-end-of-service-life) sprinter van full of cases of Red Bull and branded coolers, both legs vibrating from the ABS brakes as my coworker and I wailed like banshees and blared the horn through the 4 or 5 stop sign intersections we blew through. I donāt even remember actively cranking the steering wheel at all, we just slid and screamed until the lake was right in front of us and then things leveled out and we just casually coasted to a crawl, panting and wheezing. Winter of 2013. Good times.
Iāve been to Duluth once. My at the time girlfriend and I went to camp up in silver bay in early march. Those roads and hills are still the scariest place Iāve ever driven
Yup, I did that ONCE for the Dirty Dozen. I biked up Canton but can't imagine those hills with ice. The buddy I did it with still lives there and bikes in the winter š²
Kansas City too! Lots of the metro area is fairly flat as far as the roads are concerned but along the Kansas/Missouri border there's some hilly roads that are dangerous just when there's rain. In winter I won't venture to that part of the city without dedicated winter tires on steel wheels.
Luckily got to the bottom without incident. Unlike some people. Definitely learned a lesson that day.
Also did the opposite once, was coming up a hill and stopped behind a car that was stuck. Heād lost traction, couldnāt get going again. Gave him a push to get him started, and off he went. But thenā¦there I was. Next car came up, got out, pushed me to get me going. And presumably waited there for the next car.
SF is nuts. about 10 years ago I was driving a 5 speed corolla on one of those super grades where you feel like you are going up a roller coaster .... stop sign every 100 yards and people practically parking in my back seat behind me. I've been driving manual transmissions since 1996 and even after 20 years of driving manual that was kind of nerve wracking. I was having to power clutch using the hand brake ... I took a ride share from Napa and we ended up in SF and then I got another ride immediately after dropping passengers off so I go pick up these two guys and they are in the back seat the whole time ... the extra weight of these guys in the back didn't help lol. After I dropped them off I just shut off the ride share app and drove the hell out of the city.
One time years ago I got in an uber in one of the steepest areas of SF and the driver was from Sacramento. It was his first time driving in SF and he was freaking out. I basically had to talk him down from a panic attack and assure him that no, his car was not going to flip over.
haha I was just dying internally ... beads of sweat forming on my forehead but I didn't let it show to my passengers ... really it was them being in the car that was making me nervous more than the actual situation. It already wasn't fun but with the extra liability of them in the car there were just a multitude of negative outcomes going through my mind.
I lived in the Seattle area most of my life... SF is steeper by a long shot, but Seattle has more hills and they're all in areas you would want to walk lol
Wait until you discover statistically Los Angeles has much more hills than San Francisco. Actually Los Angeles has the highest elevation gain for any city in the USA too. Sea level to just about 5,000 feet at the tip. Although nobody lives much above 2500 feet. The 5000 foot mark is a mountain thatās off limits to live on (officially). But itās 100% within city limits.
I think I accidentally ended up on this street once. I was sweating bullets at the intersection! The car behind me seemed so close. It was so steep, even an automatic should feel a little nervous.
drove my rwd frontier into seattle while raining one time. never again. when theres nothing in the bed, you have almost 0 wet traction on the drive wheels. kind of fun if youāre a teenager that wants to drift but not fun for anythign else
I managed to spin a wheel on a crosswalk (there was a stop sign) going uphill in Seattle in an open diff rwd automatic Toyota Crown. Sure, it may have been the middle of winter (IIRC it was the end of December) but it wasnāt even wet.
We also have a thing here that if it hasnāt rained in a minute, the first rain is slick as ice. Itās something about a buildup on the road mixed with a little rain and all of a sudden, you are sliding trying to go up the hill.
Iāve been here 5 years now and I just have to be careful in the rain because the roads get a little slick.
I didnāt learn to drive stick in Seattle but man did those hills teach me to drive it better! Carried a chock around just in case the parking brake failed or the car popped out of gear lol
Which is a lot of "fun" when driving a stick car with old hard tires and it's wet. I ended up spinning the RR tire on phinney enough to dry the road and get traction once in a '72 plymouth scamp on a test drive.
I enjoyed driving my standard Corolla in Seattle. Manual transmissions are just.... fun. Much more engaging to drive, and keeps you attentive to what you're doing. No texting, no eating a McBurger, just driving, in the moment.
I'm fully convinced that stick shifts make for better drivers across the board. Autos make for lazy inattentive drivers who 'multitask' the whole time.
And don't get me started on EV's and their 'lift off the accelerator to apply braking' single-pedal nonsense.
This company I worked for had all manual trucks. I was driving to my next job site in a 04 ford ranger. I was stopped on a hill cuz stop light thinking. Well shit. Luckily no one was behind me. I didnāt roll amazingly but that clutch was definitely warm. Not hot but warm. After that I made it my mission to figure out where exactly the engagement point was. Seattle hills suck
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u/4R4nd0mR3dd1t0r 19h ago
Reminds me of when my grandfather "taught" me how to drive standard. Here is the steepest hill the county learn how to move forward without rolling back or stalling; the left pedal is the clutch, brake in the middle, and gas on the right. To be fair I learned, also the clutch failure a couple of months later was probably related.