CDL School

Next week is week 4, that means it's my final week! I am stressing. I can hardly sleep. I'm doing good withn backing maneuvers and learning pre trip but I am STRUGGLING with my upshift/downshift . Especially downshifts. Other ppl in my class make it look easy. I guess I'm stressing so much because it's really important to me and I want my CDL. Anyhow hope all is well with everyone. Drop some encouragement and advice if you dont mind. Much love!

My advice is to slow down on your shifting.. in other words, dont try to shift to quickly (speed shift). Nice and easy. And they don't expect you to be perfect, but they do expect you to be able to recover safely if you mess up a bit. Just remember.. out of gear = out of control.

Relax, try to stay calm and just do your best.

Wishing you the best and a successful cdl test.

Hey , which company did you decide to go with ? The best advice is to stay calm , try not to stress too much and just remember your speeds and rpms , you'll feel it . Take it slow and relax otherwise it's like swimming in quicksand. If you get too overwhelmed remember to stop before you make a critical error. Always remember that this is YOUR training. You got this!

When I learned how to downshift, I focused solely on my speed.

Going from 10 to 9 I'd be at 40 mph 9 to 8 -30 mph 8 to 7- 20 mph 7 to 6 - 15 MPH

There's not really a need to go any lower. I would also say clutch bump clutch when I was shifting.

Clutch put it in neutral Bump hit the accelerator Clutch put it in gear

The only time I looked at RPM was when it didn't go it, but it worked 90 percent of the time. The only time you have to adjust it is on hills.

Cecelia, just relax. You stated that you are getting trained to get your CDL. That means you will have to go on a road test with an examiner. These examiners don't expect you to be perfect with your shifting, especially with down-shifting. You can grind some gears and still pass. When I did my road test, my shifting was perfect on the upshift, but not perfect on the downshift. But I still passed and got my CDL. It really didn't matter because I got an AMT when I went solo. So don't stress out about it.

Cecelia your experience and frustration is to be expected. Common.

Couple of additional thoughts I’d like to share...

- This is about Cecelia. Don’t worry about other students. The CDL is like a touchdown in football. Be it a perfectly arced 60 yard strike or a 1yard dive, it’s only 6 points. No extra credit for shifting perfectly vs. scrubbing a few gears. Focus on what you are doing and try your best not to be distracted comparing your progress to others.

- In addition to what others have said about slowing it down; getting into the rhythmic-cadence of 1 pause 2, I suspect one other possibility is causing missed shifts. “Too much clutch.” If you push the clutch in too far as you upshift or down shift, the clutch brake is engaged fouling the shift. Many students as they are learning don’t realize that tapping the clutch is all that is necessary for shifting. The only time to push the clutch beyond a couple of inches is when stopped attempting to select your starting gear.

Relax...allow yourself to make mistakes. Expect and accept that this is not easy and your learning curve is unique to Cecelia and no one else.

Relax. You will eventually get this.