> > > I tend to heel-and-toe the brake and gas, especially when driving in snow. I do it without thinking. After 50 years or so, things like that become automatic. I also sometimes double clutch, which is not really necessary with modern transmissions, but it's habit. I have a Cushman Eagle with a two-speed crash box (unsnyn tranny)and a foot clutch. Shifting from low to high requires only a pause in neutral, but high back to low requires double clutching. A few Eagle riders, who haven't bothered to learn that, will always come to a complete stop, shift into low and then take off again. By then, double clutchers are already to the top of the hill.
> > > Howard
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> > My lord, I didn't think ANYONE knew how to do that anymore. I thought I was the only one! I still double clutch too despite having a modern synchro tranny. Saves wear and tear on the synchros ;) Acutually, half the time i shift w/o the clutch, which is pretty easy to do if you know how to match revs correctly, but which you will chew up a tranny doing when you first learn how ;)
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> Well, go on, tell us how to do it! I've heard the term "double clutching" before and I've never found anyone who could tell me what it was, which annoys me, because I enjoy driving a manual transmission.
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> Brunnen-"automatics are boring"G

All right, class, pay attention. Let's say you are driving up hill and find that the gear you are in is too high and you are losing speed. To get into a lower gear smoothly, you push in the clutch and shift to neutral. You let the clutch back out and then you blip the gas a little to speed up the engine. With the clutch engaged, this also speeds up the gears in the transmission.
Then you push the clutch pedal back in, shift into the lower gear and get back on the gas. If you do it quickly and smoothly and bring the engine speed up just enough, the gears don't make a sound.
Actually, it takes a little practice, but it's not difficult and even if you miss it a little, you really just get some noise. Gears are tough.
I used to shift into low gear while moving just to impress my buddies. In those days, first gear wasn't syncronized. And they were really impressed because none of my buddies was the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. You can make it sound like a double clutch if you just leave the clutch in the whole time, but it won't work unless the transmission is fully syncronized.
Howard