I’ve driven manual for years and STILL don’t understand why you need to change gears.

Question

I get that low gears > more power but low speed. I get that high gears >low power but high speed.

But can someone give me the brain dead intuition of why you need to change gear “sizes”? A single sentence if possible.

I’ve tried Googling it but they always use a bike example. I’ve never ridden a bike. Or they start talking about ratios and it just goes over my head.

In: 0

Answer 1

Riding a bicycle up a hill would be the simplest most intuitive example. You have a fixed amount of force you can apply to the pedal. You need a higher gear ratio to gain leverage to have enough force to overcome the incline. The opposite is true when riding down the hill.