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.
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You know how when you push a wheelbarrow full of heavy stuff, you have to lean into it and push hard, but slowly? And once you get going you can walk along fast, just lifting the handles lightly with your fingertips?
All right. Now imagine walking fast, with your fingers lightly on the handles, right into the back of a heavy wheelbarrow that’s standing still.
Did you stub your fingers and faceplant into the wheelbarrow? Well, that’s like trying to start a car in fifth gear (fast and light) instead of first (slow, powerful).
Equally incomprehensible is imagining yourself really bearing down and putting your back into it when the wheelbarrow is already rolling down a hill. If you can even manage that, you’d be wasting energy like crazy and wear yourself out. That would be redlining your car trying to drive 55 in first.
Gears are basically so you can vary the amount/quality
of driving force you apply in response to hills, speed changes, stop/start and the need to accelerate/decelerate. You do this naturally while walking. A car ain’t got no brain so it either needs you to do it manually, or it needs an automatic transmission which senses the load required of it and reacts by changing gears as needed.
source, drove stick for 12 years.
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