Changing gears - How - Part2 of how to drive a stick shift

Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:30 am

Now, when you managed to start your car, you accelerate and a few seconds later you hear your engine is revving really high. Time to change gears! Relax, it’s much easier than starting a car, and since you managed to start the car, you can master changing gears, too. Interestingly enough the hardest part for novice is to change from first to second.

Why? Because it takes so long to change the gear at first, that your car comes to complete stop by the moment you start engaging clutch. How to remedy this? Practice, surprisingly. Smile

Before you start changing gears in real life, you want to spend some time playing in changing gears.

Your car is turned off, your parking brake is engaged, you sit in your seat wearing seatbelt – all like in real life, only engine is not working. And, like in real life, you proceed to do the following sequence: disengage clutch – shift into first – engage clutch and add gas – drop gas and disengage clutch – shift into second – engage clutch and add gas – repeat for the next gears in sequence. The idea is to make this process automatic. And you will make it automatic eventually, because this is what you will do all the time while driving.

So, you spent half an hour practicing shifts and you no longer have to remember when to press the clutch and when to release it. Good. I have one more exercise for you. You start the engine, you press the clutch and keep the pedal down there. Then you shift: first – second – neutral - release and depress clutch pedal – first – second – neutral… You don’t really have to do it for a long time, you just need to get a feel how shifting goes with the working engine, and a handful of times would be enough. Now you are good to go.

Next and last exercise: start the car – accelerate – change to second – accelerate – press clutch pedal – stop the car – change to neutral – release clutch pedal. This is not just exercise – now you are actually driving! When you feel more or less confident – include third in the loop, and start over from shifting while not moving, this time just a few tries before you go live. Then include forth gear. And when you are done with that, you built your basic skills for driving manual car. Congratulations! Wink