Andrew Deane
Speeding Up
- Aug 17, 2007
- 121
- 0
Sunday morning found me humming along the Tamagawa, enjoying the warm sunshine on my shoulders, the distant view of snowy mountains, and the glinting light on the river. As Browning might have said, God was in His heaven and all was right with the world.
Or, so I thought! The next moment, I hit a crest in the tarmac path, momenarily lost the line, and looked up to find that I was bearing down on an old man on a mama-chari at close to 25 kph. What followed was like a slow-motion comedy of errors: I instinctively corrected right (I'm from Canada); he corrected left (he's Japanese); we realized we were still collision-bound; we both corrected again; and I pulled hard on the brakes, leaving a good deal of my rear tire on the tarmac. Alas, it was not enough, and we crunched front wheels.
I looked up to find him standing over me, dazed, but unharmed. My spandex bike shorts were caught on his brake handle, and when I fnally rose to my feet, I was feeling pretty sheepish indeed. He muttered something about braking, smiled and got back on his bike. As he departed, I think I even shook his hand, or something equally surreal.
I picked up my bike, which looked fine, and went to push it. The front wheel had buckled: my ride was over.
Mercifully, neither of us was hurt, but my pride is severely dented, and my front wheel is, as they say, history. I take full responsibility for the accident, but as I stood waiting for my patient wife to pick me up, I got to thinking.
I have been in Tokyo for just over nineteen months, and I have had two bicycle accidents in that time (in the first I collided with a drunken j-walker as he stumbled across the road late at night near Roppongi Hills). Neither accident has been serious, and neither has involved cars, but in all my previous twenty or so years of riding, I'd only had three acidents! Was I getting careless? Do others have similar tales of woe?
As I waited for my wife, I watched one guy nearly wipe the tarmac on exactly the same crest I hit, and another two people narrowly miss a head-on collision by about half a foot. On the road behind me, a motorcycle nearly t-boned some idiot making an illegal u-turn in the middle of the road!
The Tamagawa is so crowded with riders (professonal, amateur, mama-charis, and yes, the merely reckless - a group to which I seem to have newly acquired membership...), and with lovers, mothers, elderely couples and tiny tots. Given the traffic, I would be surprised if my experience was rare, but it has unsettled me to say the least. The potential for serious injury is staggering. I am curious whether others have had similar experiences.
So, where do roadies go when they want to hammer down relentlesly and fearlessly?
Or, so I thought! The next moment, I hit a crest in the tarmac path, momenarily lost the line, and looked up to find that I was bearing down on an old man on a mama-chari at close to 25 kph. What followed was like a slow-motion comedy of errors: I instinctively corrected right (I'm from Canada); he corrected left (he's Japanese); we realized we were still collision-bound; we both corrected again; and I pulled hard on the brakes, leaving a good deal of my rear tire on the tarmac. Alas, it was not enough, and we crunched front wheels.
I looked up to find him standing over me, dazed, but unharmed. My spandex bike shorts were caught on his brake handle, and when I fnally rose to my feet, I was feeling pretty sheepish indeed. He muttered something about braking, smiled and got back on his bike. As he departed, I think I even shook his hand, or something equally surreal.
I picked up my bike, which looked fine, and went to push it. The front wheel had buckled: my ride was over.
Mercifully, neither of us was hurt, but my pride is severely dented, and my front wheel is, as they say, history. I take full responsibility for the accident, but as I stood waiting for my patient wife to pick me up, I got to thinking.
I have been in Tokyo for just over nineteen months, and I have had two bicycle accidents in that time (in the first I collided with a drunken j-walker as he stumbled across the road late at night near Roppongi Hills). Neither accident has been serious, and neither has involved cars, but in all my previous twenty or so years of riding, I'd only had three acidents! Was I getting careless? Do others have similar tales of woe?
As I waited for my wife, I watched one guy nearly wipe the tarmac on exactly the same crest I hit, and another two people narrowly miss a head-on collision by about half a foot. On the road behind me, a motorcycle nearly t-boned some idiot making an illegal u-turn in the middle of the road!
The Tamagawa is so crowded with riders (professonal, amateur, mama-charis, and yes, the merely reckless - a group to which I seem to have newly acquired membership...), and with lovers, mothers, elderely couples and tiny tots. Given the traffic, I would be surprised if my experience was rare, but it has unsettled me to say the least. The potential for serious injury is staggering. I am curious whether others have had similar experiences.
So, where do roadies go when they want to hammer down relentlesly and fearlessly?
