brick
06-12-2006, 08:00 AM
My highway segment on Friday was worth reporting. The trip was 108 miles through the hills of eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island. Traffic was nice and light with temps in the low 70s and dead-calm air, making for nearly ideal conditions. I kept the technique nice and simple, too. Once on the highway, the cruise was generally on and set somewhere between 57 and 63mph. Then, using the ScanGauge's "load" readout as a guide, I would shift into N on the way down any hill that was steep enough to at least maintain my speed. That was a 42.2mpg segment door-to-door. The return trip was only 39.7mpg, but I can't feel too bad about that because I was fighting a head wind and using the A/C intermittently.
I think this technique works so well because it virtually eliminates operator error in throttle modulation. Manual control probably has the potential for better numbers, but at the same time it poses a risk of worse numbers unless the driver maintains 100% focus. It's easy to ruin a segment by bleeding off too much speed by accident and needing to gain it back at a bad time, and that can't happen with CC. My thinking is that recent success with this method also has to do with the type of driving I encounter. DWL is great for "high frequency, low amplitude" types of hills. But it has limited impact on "low frequency, high amplitude" hill driving, where one can only bleed off speed for so long before it is necessary to get back into the throttle to maintain the climb. That's 95% of what I see on these roads.
My 20 mile commute this morning was 41.1mpg using the same technique plus a little manual DWL over some low-amplitude hills.
I think this technique works so well because it virtually eliminates operator error in throttle modulation. Manual control probably has the potential for better numbers, but at the same time it poses a risk of worse numbers unless the driver maintains 100% focus. It's easy to ruin a segment by bleeding off too much speed by accident and needing to gain it back at a bad time, and that can't happen with CC. My thinking is that recent success with this method also has to do with the type of driving I encounter. DWL is great for "high frequency, low amplitude" types of hills. But it has limited impact on "low frequency, high amplitude" hill driving, where one can only bleed off speed for so long before it is necessary to get back into the throttle to maintain the climb. That's 95% of what I see on these roads.
My 20 mile commute this morning was 41.1mpg using the same technique plus a little manual DWL over some low-amplitude hills.