Entries this day: Leaving_bridge Puncture made_it!

Leaving bridge

5am JST Sunday 14 May 2006

(transcribed 2:33pm JST Monday 15 May 2006)

awake... whoah; it's light! no rain time to escape!! :-)

5:37am

roll out

Puncture

7:19am JST Sunday 14 May 2006

TJ Bike just got a flat tire. The back tire again. This makes 5 times for the back and 0 times for the front. I wonder if one of my patches came undone.

8:23am

My patches were fine, thankfully. I just put the last patch on, so I hope I don't have another blowout before I get some more patches!

It was a piece of glass.

- - - -

An old man walking his dog came giving me advice in Japanese about something I could not comprehend whatsoever. I tried telling him I didn't understand. I did understand when he told me I needed to put air in the tire. I had just put the wheel back on, a process for which I left the tire deflated so it would fit between the brake pads. He assured me I needed to put in more air, squeezing the front tire, and then the back tire and announcing 「ほら。」, basically "see?" and I started to get angry with him - just leave me the fuck alone; I am not sto0p-3d; I know the tire needs air.

I sat down, meditatively breathing, trying to calm myself, wanting him to continue his walk. I don't have the polite Japanese language to say I'm okay; please continue walking your dog. He continued to stand there (wondering what I was doing?), and I realized this was not going to handle things quickly, seemed passive-aggressive, and generally not helpful.

I got up, started to inflate the tire and he was like, [oh! that's an air pump], and I was like, [oh, you're right!] and after it was about 40psi, he gave each tire a squeeze and was like, "stopu! stopu!" telling me to fucking stop inflating the tire and I'm like getting really pissed; and finally let him have it:

「これは五番目のプンク。前の一か月八百キロに乗った。東京から京都、今 帰ります。ぜんぜんできる。」(*)

And I felt bad; he's just an old man who's been through a lot of shit in his life, seen the post war reconstruction of Japan, and he was just trying to help,... but I didn't stop myself.

no way to take it back

(*) [This is my fifth flat. In the past month, I have ridden 800 kilometers. Tokyo to Kyoto and now back. I can totally do this.]

He left; I finished putting my shiznit back together, then rolled out.

9:50am JST Sunday 14 May 2006

I rolled on a bit nervously hoping to find a bike shop to buy more patches, but they were basically all closed on Sunday.. Just came across a shop where the owner was outside puttering around outside. He was able to understand what I wanted, and offered me 6 large size patches for 200 yen. Awesome!

made it!

8:21pm JST Sunday 14 May 2006 (day 13199)

I've arrived alive at Kaz's apartment. and taken a shower. There's no internet access available at her place, but she'll sneak me into her work tomorrow night.

I do, however, have plenty of transcription to do, starting with a to do list I wrote yesterday.