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This was the first time she had ridden with windproof goggles on her helmet. Koguma’s sense of speed changed drastically.
Until that point, when she went at a speed that was faster than her pedaling her bike at full speed, she couldn’t see properly because her eyes hurt from being exposed to the wind and dust floating in the air. But when she put on the goggles, she could see things in the same condition as when she was stopped.
She immediately put them on and rode home from the home improvement store. Koguma noticed the difference in speed and went straight to the intersection where she turned onto the prefectural road to her apartment, and then headed northwest on the Koushuu Kaidou.
She had only gone on this road a handful of times when she went shopping in her mother’s car. It was late afternoon on a weekday and there were no cars in front or behind. For the first time since she brought the Cub, Koguma stepped all the way down on the gas pedal.
She could feel the speed of the Cub increasing from the sound of the engine and the wind. Her field of vision, protected by the goggles, was clear, and she could see the road and meter clearly.
The needle on the speedometer reached the apex, and now it was advancing to the right half, which it had never done before.
When the needle reached halfway down the second half of the meter, Koguma began to feel afraid of the speed.
In the past, she could not ride this fast because of the wind, but now she could directly see what speed really was thanks to the goggles she was wearing.
Koguma pulled back on the throttle, returning to the cruising speed where the needle was directly in the middle. It was slow. She was seized by the illusion that she had gotten off the Cub and was running on her own feet.
The road, which had left the city center and was now surrounded by farmland, went on as far as the eye could see.
Koguma turned the throttle again. At this speed, she would be able to see things she couldn’t see before.
The Cub continued to accelerate. The engine was running extremely well, and the speedometer needle was about to reach the end of the scale.
Koguma spotted a car in front of her and hurriedly applied the front and rear brakes. She had almost rear-ended a car that was exiting a roadside store without checking carefully.
Just as she managed to avoid a collision, another car approached from behind before she even realized she broke into a cold sweat.
Normally, she would have pulled to the side of the road and let it pass, but Koguma accelerated the Cub.
The car in front of her, which she had almost rear-ended earlier, was driving at the average cruising speed for this national highway. Koguma adjusted the Cub’s speed and kept a moderate distance from the car. The car behind also kept a distance and followed behind her.
Koguma was riding while matching the flow of traffic created naturally by many cars. For the first time since she bought the Cub, she had the awareness that she was participating as one of the people driving on the roadway.
She wondered if Reiko already knew about this speed. She must be seeing a much faster world. Speaking of which, the blue dial speedometer, one of the modified parts installed on Reiko’s Postal Cub, had numbers up to 120km marked on it.
Koguma looked at the speedometer on her own Cub. On the scale that was printed with numbers that were sufficient for a moped, the needle was tilted as though it was a hand reaching forward and further, chasing after someone who was going faster than it.
As Koguma drove along on her Cub for a while, a blue signboard appeared in front of her.
It was an information signboard indicating the distance to Suwa and Matsumoto, which were the destinations of the highway.
I wonder if I could get to some other city if I drive the distance written on that sign with this Cub? Thinking that, Koguma then remembered that, unlike a bicycle, a Cub consumed more gasoline the more it was driven.
Although the installation of the luggage box and the windproofing of the helmet was done on an unexpectedly low budget, her wallet was a little tight this month because she had thrown away all her savings on the purchase of this Cub.
When the cars in front and behind Koguma broke away, she turned the Cub around and went back to her apartment.
She wasn’t uninterested in a city she had never seen before, but she wanted to take this sense of speed she experienced for the first time today back home with her, without painting over it with another experience.
Even with sweets, it was always better to close the mouth of the bag before your tongue became numb to the sweetness, and eat little by little to enjoy the aftertaste over and over again.
Koguma, who was now able to reach the speed of a normal car on her Cub without any resistance, easily arrived at her apartment near Hinoharu Station.
It was a apartment where only the radio provided any entertainment, but she knew she would sleep with a sense of anticipation tonight.
Koguma, walking the few dozen meters from the bike parking lot to her apartment, was riding her Cub in her imagination.
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