• Strine Sports

    Tower of Strength on an Icy Morning

    Today started with a pre-dawn trip to Tokyo Tower. A quick get-together with some mates over coffee and chockies followed. And then it was a ride back home. Now it’s on to familial duties. It was cold and dark heading into town. Just about every traffic light seemed determined to earn its keep by making Kangaeroo stop. Still, Kangaeroo got to ride in with a reasonably quick time. The get-together was over pretty quickly. It was nice to see some old faces for the first time in a while. It also reaffirmed how much the pandemic has changed things. Yet…

  • Strine Sports

    Enjoying the Cycle of Life

    Kangaeroo is not a young marsupial. He is old, fat and lazy. Exercise is not his thing. Yet, thanks to the humble bicycle, this exercise-averse old codger can enjoy a relatively healthy lifestyle. Every morning, almost without fail, Kangaeroo wakes, dresses, has a cup of joe and gets on his bike. For the most part, it’s not a long ride, but it’s a ride. Kangeroo has got a lot of cobwebs in his head and these rides usually help to clean them out. They’re back soon after the rides are finished, but even so, they would be much worse without…

  • Strine Sports

    New Roads

    Kangaeroo won’t be doing much riding along the Tama River for a while. For the next few weeks, it will be back in the homeland again. Riding will be a bit of a challenge while there. But also a bit exciting! Oz is far stricter on policing road rules than Japan. It will be interesting to see whether Kangaeroo can adapt to the differences. Kangaeroo grew up in the Dandenong Ranges, which are apparently a cycling Mecca for Melburnians, though it wasn’t the case back in the day (at least to the author’s knowledge). For the time being, though, it’s…

  • Strine Sports

    Tripping on the Tama River

    Kangaeroo cycles pretty much daily. Due to a number of time constraints, nearly all the rides are along or near the Tama River. This river is one of the main waterways in Tokyo and has been supplying the city with water for centuries. River-side cycling is on bike tracks and really isn’t demanding (except for the requirement to be constantly wary of pedestrians). But it’s still great fun. Being able to wake up, get on the bike and shake off the cobwebs and let life rip is a blessing for this old man. And Kangaeroo is even luckier by being…

  • Strine Sports

    Shattered! Bye-Bye Belladonna

    Calling Belladonna the love of my life would be going a bit too far. But only a tiny smidgen. And she is waaaay up there. But, the beautiful Belladonna is gone. A cracked frame means this carbon bike is now an accident waiting to happen. She is irreparable. And it happened the very day after finally being given an all-clear to ride again following illness and injury that have been another plague to cope with since January. Despondent is not the word. But I cannot thank this beautiful bike enough for the sheer, unadulterated joys she gave me. She has…

  • Strine Sports

    Enough Of The Cold, Already!

    May weather is generally the best of the year in Tokyo, by Kangaeroo’s reckoning, and though it looks like it’s gonna shape that way, it would be nice to say “bye” to the cold until at least the late autumn. The first weekday of May greeted early risers with a delightful sunrise over the Tama River. Rain started falling around midday the previous day, rendering riding as a bit too tough., The rain persisted overnight and into the early hours of the morning. The forecast was for the weather to clear and become sunny by the end of the day.…

  • Strine Sports

    Bloody Beauty! Back on the Bike!

    After months of near inactivity, Kangaeroo was finally able to indulge regularly in the pursuit that brings probably the greatest pleasure in life: cycling! So far, 2022 has been a series of calamities in terms of cycling, starting with poor weather then moving on to poor equipment, poor health and poor luck! But things slowly slotted back into place and have finally allowed for a week on the bike that is as good as it gets now! And some of the results were stupendous, as can be seen in the gallery. What sheer delight!

  • Strine Sports

    Bloomin’ Marvelous!

    For all sorts of reasons, Kangaeroo hasn’t had much of chance to get out and about and cop a look at the cherry blossoms in bloom in Tokyo in 2022. Nonetheless, that hasn’t meant being completely deprived of a sight that possibly makes the Japanese capital the most beautiful city in the world for a week or so every spring. Various restrictions have limited viewing to the area of the Tama river and its tributaries, but even then it has made for some wonderful sights, as this gallery shows.

  • Strine Sports

    What a Gift!

    At the risk of sounding like a broken record, May is, in Kangaeroo’s opinion, the nicest time of the year in Japan. Having said that, 2021 has been a little out of the ordinary. Where we are normally blessed with dry, warm, sunny weather at this time of year, but much of the month has been bleak and sodden. Combined with preparation for a move of home, conditions have conspired to curtail Kangaeroo’s much-loved cycling at a time when it was expected to peak. This effect was demoralizing, leading to excess eating, dearth of exercise and a downward spiral of…