Wheels of Freedom

Classes started last week. Summer 'vacation' is officially over. Although I still had to go to school during summer I miss my 2 hour lunch breaks and the ability to come into work an hour later than usual.

Even though summer is over, except for the persistent sweaty heat wave this year, I am pretty happy. Last Friday I finally got my Honda Super Cub 50. After my school made a big deal about me getting a motorbike, which they really have no real say in except if I use it for work, I finally got to drive it home last week. The only thing I really needed help with from my school was someone to sign as my co-signer for a 100,000 yen ($1,200 USD) loan. Since I am a foreign resident, they wanted reassurance I would pay for the next 6 months and not just flee back to America on my new freedom machine. Thankfully my Board of Education supervisor signed and it was approved. If I had to pay for the bike upfront then I would have to wait until after the 10th of September and live for a month on bean sprouts and rice.

Anyway, after picking up the bike and enjoying Indian curry and naan in good company, I drove about 35km on the highway from Kusatsu to Hino. Since it was late, traffic wasn't too bad but there were a lot of trucks on the road. Overall it was great though! The summer night breeze was a great relief from the abundant hot and humid that I have grown accustomed to. I was back at my door step in about an hour and saved about 500 yen ($6) in train fees.

In 2006 the Honda Cub was named the best motorcycle of all time on a show aired by the Discovery Channel. You can watch their review of it with Chinese subtitles!

Today I took it out for its second spin around my area. I went to Minakuchi to make a spare key for the bike and buy some groceries. Minakuchi is about 20 minutes away from Hino. But when I came back I wanted to drive some more. So I headed up to Yokaichi which is north of me by about 25 minutes. However I got lost so spent about 20 minutes wandering around, which I didn't care about too much.

For being a 50cc engine, it seems pretty quick to me. Granted it maxes out on flat areas around 60km/hr. Which can be scary on the highway sometimes although the speed limit is 60km/hr. Most cars go about 80km/hr. The roads out to Yokaichi were very hilly though, so I was maxing out at about 40km/hr up hill on a road with cars whizzing by at about 70km/hr. Technically for 50cc vehicles if you go over 30/km you are breaking the speed limit. But it seems like nobody except grandmothers follow that rule.

My hundred million yen ride!


Not new, but beautiful.