low-cost ride
The first day I owned my cheap, 100cc Malaysian motorbike, I discovered a deflated rear tire a while after I had brought it home and parked it. A too-small inner tube had been fitted before I rode the bike home from the dealer. I had been pleased that the bike shop had replaced the oil and had installed a new battery and two new tires. I didn’t know that not all the tires here are tubeless. And I certainly didn’t know that a slightly too-narrow one was in the 17″ rear tire (which is wider than the 17″ front tire).
I pushed the bike to an auto repair garage across the street from the apartment complex, where a mechanic fitted a bigger innertube in the rear tire for 16 ringgit ($4.32 or 210 pesos). What a deal for a part and labor.
Some days I check the lights, and one day I found that although the bike’s passenger grab-bar stoplight was operable, the lower, main tail lamp/stop lamp wasn’t lighting any more. I tried to twist the bulb mount from the ‘inside,’ under the seat, where the turn signal bulbs can be twisted and removed. I couldn’t budge it.
I got a screwdriver, removed two screws on the exterior of the tail lamp cover, but it wouldn’t pull free of the housing. So I went to the garage across the street. A mechanic –overqualified for this– removed the same screws then used a long, thin, flat-blade screwdriver to pry two or more unseen tabs in order to unsnap the taillamp cover and pull it from the relector housing. Success! Then he replaced the two-filament bulb, reassembled everything and only asked for 1 ringgit (28 cents or 13 pesos). Such a deal. In the U.S., I couldn’t buy the bulb for 28 cents!
Whenever I fill the 4.3-liter tank under the seat, at RM 1.80 per liter of premium gasoline, I pay about 4.50 ringgit ($1.24). This is low-cost transportation.