The Trouble With Gradients

Is that what goes down must usually come up, and vice-versa.

Charlie will get to see this . . . but if she doesn’t see it until summer, I might get away with it!

In January 2003, I suffered from a bout of VTS Optimism when tackling a reasonably steep hill right in the middle of the Yorkshire Moors. I took a road knowing full well that there was a 25% descent, then climb, after around three inches of snow. I thought I could do it. Well, actually, I could, because I had to walk up and down it numerous times, it was Kermit who had the problem with it.

To tell the tale, I went down the 25% hill very slowly – at walking pace – initially using second gear and the footbrake, then I dumped the clutch to let the ABS do it’s thing, since it was thumping away from time to time. Thus, overcome by the possibilities of getting stuck (that would never do!) I decided to stop and turn around.

Hello, Kermit, stop! But of course, if the ABS is activated, you’re pretty much braking at the limit of adhesion anyway, so you’re not going to stop any sooner by pressing harder (okay, so you may well activate the ABS for all wheels and not just a couple). Seeing a drive, I attempted to pull off and turn around. No such luck. No traction. No grip. No going up the hill. I had to press on.

At the bottom of the hill, we went over a bridge and then we had to go up the far side. Well, that’s the theory, and after a careful run up, we got almost two thirds up when Kermit ground to a halt, spinning his wheels. So I had to stop.

Stop? On this hill? You must be kidding. On the footbrake and providing I didn’t breathe, he would hold himself. If I breathed, he started to slide back down the hill. Backwards. That’s not a nice experience. But at least I can vouch that the ABS works just as well going backwards as it does forwards. I don’t know what was thumping the most – the ABS module or my heart! J

And he was starting to rotate, in other words, the left hand rear most wheel was probably on the verge, or getting that way, so that the front of the car was starting to rotate around in a clockwise fashion as you’re sat in the (rather sweaty by now!) drivers’ seat. And Kermit’s butt is getting rather close to some barbed wire - not good news. At this point, I’m thinking something like, “I say, frightfully long drop down there, heh, chaps?” Suddenly a flimsy little barbed wire fence didn’t seem quite enough, compared to a thirty feet steep embankment with Kermit’s name on it.

At this juncture, I did seriously think that I was well up the creek and that the best case scenario would be to “land” the Ka on the verge, and go for help.

One more cock up and I’d have had Kermit’s butt into some barbed wire, which would have been expensive and “walking with a limp” painful once Charlie found out what happened. Two more cock ups and I’d be thundering down the embankment, with my head between my knees kissing my ass goodbye, which would probably be just as expensive, but “life assurance policy” painful.

However, the Lord was helping me and through careful, precise accelerator, clutch, handbrake and steering wheel control, I managed to get Kermit to turn him around so that he was now pointing downhill.

I’m not entirely sure how I did this; because Kermit’s responses were unpredictable and he wasn’t going in the way I was pointing him. I don’t have any pictures of this section, mainly because I was too busy going, “phhhttt!” rather a lot.

We picked up speed and make an attempt at the original hill.

Again, we got about two thirds up the hill strait, when Kermit ground to a halt – you can see where I stopped here, at point “A” on the picture. You can also see where I had previously tried to turn around, at point “B.” And again, he wouldn’t hold himself on the gradient, so I had to roll / slide the Ka backwards, in as straight a line as I could (showing as “C” on the picture).

However, given that there was nowhere to park and Kermit wouldn’t hold himself on the icy road, I had to gently put him on to the verge (since he’d stop on grass and chipboard). Once he was secure, there was nothing for it but to start to use road salt.

These two pictures illustrate just where I had to “park” (read: abandon) Kermit. You can see how the ABS has left the tell-tale marks in the snow at point “B” – when I was first descending the hill!

Road salt is bad for hands and it hurts as I type this, but at least it works and melts the snow pretty quickly.

Two chaps in a rear wheel drive, long wheelbase, Transit arrive and climb the hill using brute force and shovels of grit. They went up it, it took them a while but they did it - leaving me with a partially clear road, of course!

Partially clear, because the Transit is about a foot wider than the Ka.

It took about an hour to prepare the road to this point, showing here. You can see the marks where the Transit has managed to get up it. Driving up to the bend at the top was reasonably easy, thankfully!

Unfortunately, when you get around the corner, there’s more to go!

Getting Kermit up this part of the hill took over an hour, primarily because I had to literally inch him up the steeper section, which was proving to be difficult because I kept on falling over.

Move him forward a few feet, stop, more grit down, drive another three feet. The best technique is to move him off with the minimum of revs, else you’re just wheelspinning away all of the power (he needs a limited slip differential, heh!).

Two hours to go up a hill!

Well I guess I’ve learnt something. Don’t bite off more than you can chew and if we did ever move out into the middle of nowhere, I’ll be getting winter tyres and cheap 13” steel wheels!

And finally!

Many thanks to the lady who lives at the house, who helped me (and, yes, I know that the Subaru could hack it!) – when the thaw arrives I’ve a box of chocolates with your name on.

And a big to the chaps in the Transit van and the farmer type person, who just drove right on past me and didn’t even volunteer to help.