Super Cub Volume 1 Chapter 18 - Engine Oil

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It had been a few days since Koguma had started riding here and there with her Cub, and she had now reached a milestone.

The cumulative mileage of the Cub, which she had bought second-hand and had a mileage of five hundred kilometers, had exceeded one hundred kilometers since she bought it.

For a while after she bought it, the Cub was only going back and forth from her apartment to school, a distance of about two kilometers. But after Koguma bought some additional equipment, the distance she traveled in a day greatly increased, and the last fifty kilometers of the hundred kilometers were ridden in the last few days.

Koguma’s sphere of activity had also changed greatly.

She took the Cub, which was now able to cruise along with the flow of other vehicles, along the Koushuu Kaidou to the neighboring city of Nirasaki, and also along the Chuo Line to the downtown Sudama, the center of Hokuto City.

Although it was just strolling on a scooter to go there and back without buying anything because she had spent most of her scholarship money on the Cub, Koguma could see that the scope of the world she could recognize was expanding within her.

Koguma was enjoying the act of riding.

Unlike her own legs, the Cub was a mechanical product that ran on an engine, and there were many things she had to do to make it run.

After reaching a hundred kilometers during her morning commute to school, Koguma decided to complete her necessary errands on her way home.

As far as her fuel gauge was concerned, she still had a little more than half of the gasoline that she filled right after she got the Cub in the tank. However, gasoline wasn’t the only thing a Cub needed.

After parting with Reiko, who was mounting her Postal Cub in the parking lot, Koguma took her Cub in the opposite direction from her apartment.

She parked her Cub in front of a blue building two kilometers down the road.

It was the used bike shop where she bought the Cub. When she greeted the bald old man who was fiddling with a bike in front of the store, he looked up, saw the Cub, and then looked at Koguma.

“Didn’t expect you to bring it here so soon.”

The bald shopkeeper said as Koguma took her helmet with goggles.

“I would like to have an oil change, please.”

The minute Koguma said that, the bald old man took the handles of the Cub with the engine still hot and rolled it into the store.

Changing the oil at a hundred kilometers was what the shopkeeper told her to do when she bought the Cub.

A new bike didn’t need it, but for second-hand bikes that remained stationary for a long time, changing the oil once at this distance as a sort of internal cleaning would extend the life of the engine, apparently.

Once at a hundred kilometers. Another change at five hundred kilometers, and then once every thousand kilometers.

By that time, hopefully she would be able to change the oil by herself.

As far as what Koguma watched from the side, it didn’t seem difficult to remove the bolts, drain the oil, tighten the bolts, and then pour in new oil from the top of the engine.

She would have him show her how to do it again at the next oil change, and she thought she could do it herself if she asked Reiko or looked it up on the internet at the school library.

It would inevitably cost a lot of money to continue riding this Cub, so it was better to do what she could by herself and spend as little as possible.

To do that, she needed a tool to remove the bolts and the engine oil she currently had in her Cub.

Koguma, watching the work from the side, pointed to the oil cans in the store and asked the bald shopkeeper.

“Where can I get those?”

“They sell them everywhere.”

Koguma had started going to the home improvement store during her roamings on the Cub, which had become a habit for the past few days.

She knew that there were many kinds of engine oil for cars and motorcycles, expensive and cheap. She didn’t know what kind of oil she should buy for her Cub.

“Should I buy this kind of oil?”

The shopkeeper looked at the oil cans with the Honda logo on it and spoke.

“That’s the best one.”

After changing the Cub’s oil and inspecting the brakes, tires, electrical components, and other parts, the bald shopkeeper finished his work and said, Five hundred yen. The price was about the same as a full tank of gas. She didn’t know if that was expensive or cheap, but she guessed it was a necessary cost.

Koguma looked sideways at the oil cans as she paid.

She didn’t know when it would be, but she was sure that she would come here again to get her second oil change after five hundred kilometers. After that, she would change the oil herself.

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