The Manhole (And Jones Bridge Over Troubled Water)

 

     I had read it as comments on a post of a bike-enthusiast writer I was following on Facebook months ago: two cyclists narrating how their road bike’s thin tire got caught in a manhole, and how they flew from their speeding bikes and crashed onto the ground. I didn’t think much about it, and then this morning happened: I was in Binondo when my bike abruptly stopped, my rear tire lifting, and I was sent reeling to the front. It turned out that the thin (front) tire of my bike got stuck on a slit of a cement-covered manhole on the road. Luckily, the traffic light just got green and the vehicles (including my bike) were only starting to speed up when that manhole trapped me, and the motorcycle behind me was able to stop before it could hit me. And fortunately, too, that motorbike's rider, one good Samaritan, stayed to check on me and helped me uproot my tire off the manhole. I checked my bike on the sidewalk, found no damage except an ugly long bruise on the front tire, I breathed, then, proceeded to my destination.

     And last week, while ascending Jones Bridge on my bike on my way to Intramuros this morning, I caught up with a girl, who looked around twenty years old, struggling to climb the bridge with her bicycle. “Kuya!” he told me with a laugh. “Ang hirap palang umakyat sa tulay!" I thought of telling her to lower her gears but then I quickly remembered that it would be dangerous to shift gears while she was already ascending as it would make her bike swerve and she might get hit by the cars behind her. I glanced at her and her companion after I descended the bridge and she was yelling (gleefully, I thought) as she was descending the bridge, like she was in a roller coaster. In a few weeks’ time, she’d probably be doing unli-ahon with ease and glee while I’d continue doing errands on my bike.