As if the broken washing machine hasn't been bad enough, my mama-chari brakes are failing me. Believe me, I've tried getting them fixed at gas stands, bike shops, and any other place that just might service a mama-chari. But in this country, apparently bike shops only service
real bikes, not bikes with baskets and without gears, so I have been told to go back to the shop I bought the bike from, which happens to be more than hour ride away these days.
So, I've continued riding my squeaky bike to the office everyday, still cutting my commuting time down by 10 to 15 minutes. However, it's recently become almost
too embarrassing and
too dangerous to ride! These brakes make THE most obnoxious screeching noise, so much so that I'm sure everyone in a 2-kilo radius thinks that hell has emerged from the depths of the earth and swallowed them. THAT LOUD! So, as to avoid making such a scene every time I want to come to a complete stop, I've been trying to take it easy on the brakes. I slow down until the point where I can reach the ground and stop the bike with one foot. Annoying but way less embarrassing.
However, there does come a time when brakes are necessary, particularly after a hard rain when the ground, the bike, my feet-- are slippery. I was riding on the street in the "buses only" lane and went to hop a small curb to get back on the sidewalk. I was going a bit too fast so I slowed down, but perhaps put too much pressure on my rear brake and not enough on my front. I skidded and the side of my front tire hit the curb, toppling me over like an unsteady domino. I hit the sidewalk face down on my hands, knees and chest, brushburning one and all of them. Close to tears (of frustration more than hurt) I quickly got up, brushed off, and continued to walk my mama-chari for a while before building the courage to climb back on.
It is quite embarrassing to fall on one's face with too loud a squeak, but perhaps even more appalling is that in the massive swarm of Tokyo rush hour, not one person stopped to ask if I was ok. I am sure that in the U.S., guys in particular would run over to see if a damsel in distress was hurt. But in Japan, are people too reserved or too self-absorbed to ask? Ignoring my stinging knees, I was fuming all the way home at all of the faces that certainly turned at the spectacle, even sometimes with surprise, but then kept walking without a word.
Word of advice: you do not want to run into a Jo-Lo fuming on a bike in slippery conditions with squeaky brakes. One girl almost did on the rest of my treacherous ride home-- almost crashed right into me in fact-- and then glared at me. Had she understood English, I surely would have just blown my fuse at that point, but lucky for her, my Japanese isn't angry-sounding enough. I continued the rest of my ride home swearing to myself.
