Easy Mountain Driving
When I lived full-time in Florida, I rarely thought about mountain driving. For the one trip out west or through the Smoky Mountains, it was trivial to simply take off the cruise control and turn on ...
Forum Discussion
Mr.Mark wrote:Mountains always frustrate my ideal plans for fuel economy. On small, straight descents, I like to wind up as much speed as possible before approaching the next ascent, but it rarely happens that way. I typically find myself on windy curves at the bottom of the descent where I wouldn't want the additional speed anyway.
If I'm near the end of the hill and see the next hill coming, I can move the retarder stalk to zero and start to pick up speed to 'get into' the next hill. If you only allow a 6 mph increase, you are not utilizing the hill to your advantage and your engine will kick in sooner.
Since I drive about 60 mph in a 70/75 mph zone. I'll let the coach coast up to 70-75 into the next hill.
Like you, I set my cruise control below or well below the speed limit for a couple of reasons. 1st, it's much, much safer on winding mountain roads to go slowly and 2nd, it allows me to pick up speed safely and within the speed limits when I want to.
The way I do that is I simply hit the cancel button on the cruise control. That prevents the brake from coming on and allows me to pick up speed. Then I'll hit the resume button on the way up.
