Private School Training

Don't feel bad on any mistakes being made, it's learning from them that counts :D

I drove manual for 11 years prior to CDL training and you know, I don't think it helped me any at all other than understanding the concept of what a clutch & shifter does. It's so different in a standard car vs a big rig (esp my car..clutch type is to the floor). My muscle movements were trained wrong for commercial haha. When I drive my truck for too long and I get back in my car....sometimes I stall it or try to shift like it's a big rig :(, Also I've been primarily floating for the past 1.5 years...I get to double clutch again here in a minute for the Class A along with trailer backing *gasp*. Sometimes I envy the "crash course"....my "training" is sooooo drawn out (personal trainer=my significant other hahaha)

I look forward to your next diary entry

Week 3: As I stated in my last post, I made some success in alley docking. My confidence was extremely high after that success, so I took that success with me during our afternoon road trip. We make a run through town and get on 163 towards Eddyville IA and 34 back through town to get back to the campus. On our first round, I was making the return trip; I realized during this trip why I prefer automatics to manuals. Even though I know all the lights we went through, they still gave me issues. Having to downshift to slow down to a stop ahead of time during a stale green thinking its going to change but doesnt until you get literally right at the point of no return as I begin to accelerate again so I have to nearly slam on the brakes. After becoming flustered, I tried to shift from 6 to 8 on a slight incline and almost lose the ability to hit 6 again. I havent had any problems before during highway driving, but the lights... After a break, we make the same round again with me going 2nd; my route starts with making a left turn onto a divided 4 lane with a curved hill obstructing the view of on coming traffic, an exit ramp, and a very hilly road. I dont have many issues with it other than being hesitant on flooring it in 10 before a few hills. The next day, we do some more alley docking. I start out a little off on my timing, but eventually do 3 successful backs in, what felt like, less attempts than the prior day. Back to the same town trip as yesterday, but this time around, I go through town first on the first trip then attempt to redeem myself coming back on the 2nd trip. Thankfully, I time the lights correctly (with no absence of luck) and have no issues. Even with these successes, I still feel that an automatic would be better for me.

It'll get easier :D keep pushing on! Get that CDL without an automatic restriction! You can do it! You can always find your way into an automatic rig later :D

My guy wants to get an automatic, I'm not as enthused. Maybe I will be after I have as many years as he does haha

Curiously, how many days would you say the school has had you practice backing thus far? I need to win an argument lol

Curiously, how many days would you say the school has had you practice backing thus far? I need to win an argument lol

I want to say that we started on day 4 of week 2 and we're on day 4 of week 4 as of today. Let me go over what our day to day schedule consists of. Class starts at 0800, we almost immediately start into pre-tripping the truck, take it over to the practice pad to hook onto our trailer and finish our pre-trip and in-cab. Depending on who does it, that takes about 45m-1h. Once thats said and done, we start backing until around 1045-1100 when we bring the trailer to a parking lot out in front of the school, take about 30-45m for lunch, then do either road trips til 1600 or til about 1430-1500 and have classroom time for, currently, map/log book work.

So to answer your question, we practice backing about 8h a week as a whole, but since we're 3 to a truck with 2 trucks/instructors, it breaks down to a little less than that.

Kemo, I'm curious now. Whats this argument you're trying to win?

Week 4: Its been one rollercoaster of a week! I'd do good one day and bad the next! Perfect example; ever since the start of week 3, I've been doing really great on my shifting (in my head at least) with a few issues that come from my inexperience (releasing the clutch too quickly mainly). But today, Thursday, during our road trip I was having countless issues finding my gears! I'm at the correct speed for each gear, I'm double clutching , revving to 1500 rpms for 2 gear downshifts and 700 for 1, but its still giving me issues! Earlier in the week I was even upshifting right before the crest of an uphill and finding it perfectly every time! However, I wasnt the only one having issues finding gears today. Both the other students in my truck were having issues. I just chocked (see what I did there?) it down to an "off day." On the up side though, yesterday I succeeded and offset backing 3 times in a row WITH my 2 free pull-ups and today did 3 alley docks in a row, one of them nearly perfect; wasnt back quite enough, but I wasnt encroaching the back line so that was fine. I started the alley docking with some issues, but my instructor gave me a tip: put a half turn left in early enough so that if you need to push more to the left, you can, but also so you wont have as far to go to catch up with the trailer. After a few tries with that mindset, 3 in a row, 2 with both pull-ups. This week, for 2 days each, we pulled an empty flatbed then a partially loaded van. The flatbed wasnt all that different, but the loaded (its about 18000-20000 lbs of sand) felt loads different! I know its not going to be the same as a fully loaded beast, but at least it was an experience. I also did the pre trip on Tuesday and, if it wasnt for not being familiar enough with the in cab portion, I would've passed it.

All in all, off days aside, it was a good week. Im making strides with my backing and I'm counting that as a victory in my book. Next week we'll be starting to learn our town trips for our CDL test. I honestly feel ready for it, all I've got to do is get my backing down and I'll be golden!

Nice update! Sometimes I have those moments with shifting still. And that's really cool and a good thing that they gave you a load so you can feel the difference! I didn't know they did that. Keep on it man, great progress! :D

As for the argument I needed to win - my significant other was trained by a cranky old angry man who owned a cabover and trailer who trained ppl looking to get their cdls for a living........20 or so years ago! So whether it was because of the old man or because of my old man's memory, maybe both:

He says that you only practice backing for like, half a day when training...."that's all you need" Like okay old timer! lol. Even if that was true.....20 years ago. It sure ain't now!

Thank you!

Week 5: Crunch time is coming! Our last full week of practicing before our test day in week 6, and what a great time to get sick!! On sunday, I start having chest congestion, it got so bad that i had to leave early on monday and tuesday! I lost 2 days of practicing the route for our road test, but i was able to at least stick around to get some backing practice in and see the route. I go to the doctors on tuesday after leaving early to get antibiotics and here it is friday and im still having issues. Good news is, i was able to stay the whole day Wednesday and Thursday to get a few practice runs in. Ill see if i can get an overhead pic of the most difficult part of our route for you all to see after this entry.

We also got an opportunity to practicing our backing where we'll be testing and its alot different than our gravel practice pad. We're actually on asphalt backing around a corner where there are slight ditches on either side. If we swing to wide to the right, the tractor will go into the ditch and automatically fail. However, the part that threw me for a loop was not having a specifically designated starting point. On the practice pad, we had a cone that we used as a starting point, but its not going to be there on test day. I got used to judging my distance travelled from that point to know when i needed to start turning my wheels. We also practiced offset backs which i had no issues.

We had another curve ball thrown at us this week. The truck we were using previously is in the shop getting new seats put in, so we had to switch to a spare truck whose clutch is brand new and not worn at all. It would start to grab even before i could feel it, and i was having issues before still. Thursday as i was practing our test route, i was getting extremely frustrated at the clutch, probably alot more than i was day 1! But there was a slight silver lining to that day. While we were practicing backing on the practice pad that morning, i successfully completed 7 alley docks in a row after about 3 resets at the beginning.

We're all amazed at how far all of us have progressed in 5 weeks. Day 1, i couldnt shift to save my life! Now, I'm still having issues, but i feel that i can do well enough to pass my test on tuesday next week and obtain my cdl.

7 alley docks in a row?! Sweet deal! I put an update in my diary that no one is reading lol. I suppose it's just for me but that's okay. It's like writing in a real diary but leaving it unlocked and in public lol, I still get some things out of my mind by "writing" it down.

Sucks you got sick but it seems like it's not going to affect you too bad training wise. Glad to see your confidence boosting as well :D

Week 6 Day 1: The time has come. Its the day before test day and we're having a mock test day. What goes on today is going to be what we're going to go through on test day save for pretrips cause 6 individual pretrips will take too long. At the time of writing this, I'm sitting in my car patiently waiting my turn to test, I'm going last of 3 in my truck today. Even now I'm nervous as hell! My life and the lives of my wife and future children hang in the balance, riding on my performance today and tomorrow. Even though I'm confident enough that I'll pass tomorrow (as long as I dont choke on the alley docking), its a very heavy thing to weigh on me.