Downtown is about 5 kilometers from where my family lives and we go everywhere using our bike, except when I have to bring the kids with me then I don't cycle. My husband, who began it all as a utilitarian/transportational "cyclist" had to abandon the habit when he took on a new job for fear of getting his bike stolen. The institutional buildings in the city are not very accommodating to cyclists and oftentimes the users and designers of the buildings are more concerned about adequate vehicle parking than bike racks, which in a way is understandable considering how cumbersome automobiles are and how convenient, space savers bikes are. But it wasn't the lack of space that my husband was so worried about; it was the lack of a safe place to store the bikes. It wasn't so long ago that his colleague lost a spare tire, secured to his truck with a chain and all--he thought!!, to what appeared to be a regular thief in the area. There were other things that were lost there, just when the owners thought they were secure enough to leave in their cars. Like the worthless looking electric fan that the friend of a friend of my husband's colleague left tied to the railing of his multi-cab. he came back and it was missing. who would've thunk? The thing is, my husband had tried doing a sloppy paint job on his bike, deliberately made it look ugly so he wouldn't have to worry about having his bike stolen but just the same, the fears remained. What if the thieves were smart enough to tell that his bike was better than the other shiny bike on the rack? What if the thieves were into collecting old school roadies? No shit, i say. But whatever. he is just usually crazy.
On October 15, some magnitude 5-point something earthquake shook my family out of our small house. my dad went batshit crazy and screamed at the neighbors to come our of their house. Which, my husband admitted only after a week, actually worked. The sleeping neighbors did go out of their house to see the shakes off. but whatever. my dad's also crazy.
The power went out minutes after the shaking stopped and the heat of the day has started to seep into the house. We had so many errands to do. I was supposed to get my new bike, a dutchie, from the recycled bike shop. We need to have the photo assignments of our eldest kid, already a month overdue, printed. He didn't seem to mind, the kid, because he was more worried about getting eaten my zombies in minecraft than being eaten alive by terrible grades. And he is just six. nobody worries about being eaten alive by an NI (needs improvement) rating at six. though i know crazy parents who are. whatever. we are not one of those crazy parents.
So we rode our bike, at half past 8 in the morning a little after that quake, to get some fresh air and get the errands done. I brought along my automatic camera. i have been getting better at balancing on my bike and pedaling while shooting in the middle of the street. it's fun. and because i also know where the bad roads and the potholes are, so it's also safe. and practice makes less deadly for ninja photography. for me, at least.
Since DPWH started digging and bulldozing the whole stretch of Luna in Lapaz we've stopped taking that route. I also feel that motorists who use that road tend to be more aggressive; I;ve been honked on twice or maybe more for not "sharing the road" even though I just gave way to another motorist turning right and was in the middle of changing lanes/going to the outer lanes. But motorists are stupid, anyway, and if I have time to waste I usually carry on and not mind the honks until they give up and slow down or wait for the lanes to clear so they can "overtake" this slow cyclist.
As i said, we've stopped taking main road going downtown from where we live. the one we've been taking for the past months is the road by the riverine (though technically the rivers here do not have banks anymore, the banks have been converted to roads already). It is usually not as complicated as the main thoroughfare with the traffic much more predictable. However, it is also being used by big cargo trucks, some looking like mini primes. These trucks are usually too noisy to ignore and i can usually hear them approaching even without them honking. when that happens, I don't rush to get ahead of them, i stop, give them the full lane and wait until they are at least a car-length away to get back on road. Even when i am inside a vehicle being side by side, on the road, with a cargo truck sends chills down my spine. death by cargo truck. or sometimes i imagine its insides/cargos spilling out and burying alive the cars tailing it, me inside the car, included. whatever. it's scary crazy. it's even crazier imagining it while you are tailing the truck on a bike. So i just stop and wait for it to be over.
JM Basa was the midway stop and i think we also had some cold drinks somewhere. it was just too hot to go home and i just wanted to bike and bike and bike around the city some more. it was so windy that day; it was so good to be out. maybe it was the wind that caused all the shaking.
i've used up all my frames before we could make a full circle or get back to where i took that first shot.
we dropped by the bike shop to see about my dutchie. I was told to come back for it later in the day, at 4pm. which is good because I was planning on using it to get to cinematheque to attend the 530 pm opening of the Chinese Film Festival. I wanted to bring the kid along since my new bike would have a rear rack but the kid weighs at least 28 kilos. when i finally got the bike, i took a long look at the rear rack and decided against it.
he will learn his chinese when his time comes. for now his "yi er san kaishi" is good enough.
FIN.
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