15 May 09 07:13, Roger Nelson wrote to Roy Witt:

 RW>> RN> That took guts!
 RW>> I had plenty to go around in those days. :o)
 RN> We were all indestructible when young.

Still am... :o)

 RW>> Yes...as a young man with super reactions, I would have been able to
 RW>> stop that VW long before the 18 wheeler came to a stop. I figured
 RW>> worst case, I could adjust my speed to ride his back frame to a
 RW>> stop. That is, unless he ran into a brick wall.

 RN> Maybe so, but you do realize that the 18-wheeler has air brakes and
 RN> the VW does not.  (-:

Consider the physics involved. A moving vehicle has kinetic energy equal
to half the mass times the velocity squared. If the 18 wheeler and VW are
moving at the same speed, their kinetic energies are thus proportional to
their masses.

I figure the 18 wheeler would take about 273 feet to stop at 70mph, room
to spare with the 204 feet it'd take the VW to stop. And that's taking
into account the lubricity of the roadway due to the fallout from the fog.

 RW>> One can experience smog on a daily basis in California. Especially
 RW>> during a Santa Ana condition (east wind blows the smog off-shore).
 RW>> On any given day, you can look out to sea and see a yellowish-brown
 RW>> haze. If you're out there, you can barely see the coast through it.
 RW>> It's a lot better than it was 40 years ago, but it's still a health
 RW>> hazard.

 RN> You're right about that.  I remember having some difficulty breathing
 RN> because the air in the smog is so harsh.  We were all glad to get out
 RN> of it alive.

My dad had emphsyma and couldn't breath in the air of San Diego, which is
pretty clean by comparison to L.A.. Not to mention that asthma is on the
increase there.

 RW>> The highway (I-5 now) splits near the bottom of the mountains around
 RW>> Castaic, CA and the two roads intertwine and twist up/down the
 RW>> mountain like a grapevine, thus the name. In some places you can see
 RW>> the opposite lane, in others you can't. It's almost the same on the
 RW>> northern side of the mountains, but not as steep. If you go to
 RW>> Google Maps and take a look at it, you can see the split just south
 RW>> of the I-5/99 intersection. It's actually labeled as such, if you
 RW>> get in close enough. Once you get up to Lebec, they come together
 RW>> again, then you go south for a ways and it starts to go down. It's
 RW>> quite a ride.

 RN> Thanks.  I'll do that.  It sounds interesting, but I'm unsure I'd
 RN> want to drive it.

One trip I made was in a VW, in 3rd gear going up. I don't recall if the
VW's 4th gear was 1:1 or an overdrive, but it sure didn't have the power
to pull that mountain. A 35hp VW from the sixties. I had a 57 Chevy
convertible with a 283 and a 4spd at the time and it made it without a
problem, as did my 1960 El Camino hauling my stuff when I moved to San
Jose for a few months. It also had the power to tow the 57 up that
mountain with the same load on the back when I moved back to San Diego.
The latter was a long and tiresome trip, which I thought I could make
non-stop, as I did every other time I made that trip. But with the loading
and towing, I was all tuckered out by the time I hit Oceanside and pulled
into a 'Scenic View' area and took a nap before proceeding.

                R\%/itt


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