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Old Bike

October 3, 2019

Now he was maintaining his old bike. Until recently he mainly used his car. During this time he would sometimes use his old bike that he had bought 10 years ago or so, and use it mainly for when he went to a bar. But about a year ago, he found a good bike. With gas prices going up and other environmental concerns, he made a shift from mainly using a car to a bike, his new one, and so his old bike was left in the garage. Recently one of his friends' bike was stolen. He offered his friend his old bike. His friend happily accepted it. As the old bike had been not used in a long time, there were things that he needed to fix. First of all, both of the tires were flat. He was afraid that they might have punctures. He carefully pumped air into both of them with an air pump. He was relieved, they were ok. Next, he put on chain-oil on the gears and the chain. To check, he spun the rear tire ~it turned swiftly and smoothly. He then tried shifting. The bike had three gears in the front, and seven gears in the rear: all were ok. This bike was old, but it was not bad! He cleaned the bike's body and other parts with wet tissues that contained alcohol, and took away the grease and dirt effectively. He then tightened some of the loosened bolts. As he was wiping the rubber grips with the wet tissues, he noticed that the rubber grips were half torn and broken. They were also sticky, so wiping didn't work. He then taped black duct tape around one of them. It was ugly. He gave up that idea. He thought for a moment and gave a short sigh, "It's a half ridden boat." It was a phrase that means if you start to help somebody, you shouldn't quit half way. He went to a DIY shop, and went to the bike corner and bought a cheap pair of rubber grips. He returned and started to take off one of the old rubber grips. It was not an easy task. The grip was very tight. He used all of his power, and finally managed to take it off. Then he started to put a new one onto the handle bar. Soon he realized that it was harder than taking the old one off. At first, he thought that he might have bought the wrong sized grip. But when he pushed it harder, it began to move. Maybe it was just tight. The progress was very slow though. In the middle, the progress became harder. He was exhausted and his hand began to ache. But, he couldn't stop half way. He breathed deeply, he concentrated, and then he pushed with all of his might: it moved about one millimeter. He repeated this many times. He began feel dizzy. After about twenty minutes or so, he still wasn't quite finished. He needed to refresh. For a change, he started to take off the other old rubber grip. Compared to pushing, it seemed like a piece of cake. He really didn't want to attempt to put on this new grip like he did the other one. He needed a change of perspective. When he thought about it, an idea came to him. He went to the bathroom and found a bar of soap. He had learned about this method maybe on TV or maybe in a science class at school. He didn't have any memories that he had ever tried this, so he had no idea if this would work or not. Anyhow he needed to change his strategy, even if it was nonsense. He dipped two of his fingers with some tap water, and then rubbed the soap. He then took the new rubber grip and rubbed the inside with his wet fingers. He put the grip on the handle bar and pushed it. It went to the middle. He was speechless. He couldn't believe this. He pushed it again, this time it moved to the end. Two pushes it took! He couldn't move for a while thinking about how effortless this one took compared to the first one. Then he remembered that the other one was still only about 90% finished. He thought to pull it off then reput it on using the soap method. He tried a little, and realized that pulling it off was as hard as pushing it on. So he started to push. He finally managed to finish it.   Now he was looking at his now well maintained bike. He hoped that his friend would like it. This time he learned a big lesson that whether knowing one thing or not can have totally different outcomes, like heaven and hell. This is like life, he thought. "But... with a little bit of soap, it worked that much better ..." Even now he felt that he was looking at magic.

*pump :ポンプで（空気を）入れる
*torn :裂ける
*duct tape :ガムテープ
*for a change :気分転換に
*attempt :試みる
*effortless :努力を要しない
*outcome :結果