Rejoining the Fold

9 July 2023

I’m really blessed to be able to ride a Brompton folding bike.

I think….

….Anyway, my Brommie is the reason I got hooked on cycling.

I fist learned about Brompton bikes through a work mate who had one. I was already riding extensively at the time on a Dahon folding bike, riding it to a station midway through my commute, packing it away and taking it on the packed public transport for another section and then getting off for the final leg of the journey.

The Dahon Route was an awesome ride, but not made for the heavy duty use I was giving it (including the complete lack of maintenance that resulted from my ignorant belief that a bike should just keep going no matter how it was used, and particularly so the more you paid for it. Brommies are pricey and my expectations were that this expense meant I was buying a maintenance-free treadly. Boy, would I be in for a surprise over the years until I learned to do at least the basics for myself…)

I digress. In short, about a decade ago, bought a Brompton to replace the Dahon, rode the bike absolutely everywhere and became irrevocably hooked on cycling.

Brommies, in my experience, are more than just a bike. They seem to create a bond between fellow riders. I often reach out to other Brommie riders when I see them, and vice versa. Our bikes give us an immediate link.

There is an enormous sense of community surrounding the Brompton and these folding bikes have created friendships for me with people from all over the world.

Brompton in Palace is one such example of this. It’s a bi-monthly gathering of Brompton owners who gather together to just, well…Brompton. We chat, laugh and admire each other’s bikes (covet in my case), take some photos, sometimes go for a group ride, and then head for home.

It was my first chance to take part in maybe five years. At the very least since the start of the pandemic. I had an awesome time, mostly because of the wonderful people I got to meet.

I just love my bike and the world it opens up for me!

Golden Girl La Cangura is the name of my bike, a beautiful gunmetal and gold-trimmed machine from Orbea, a manufacturer from Spain, hence the name (which means The Kangaroo in English). She looks delightful in among the canola, the yellow hues of the bike and the flowers a wonderful match. Just wish...
Craving Procrastination, But Will Procrastinate Tomorrow Well, what a bloody awful rabbit hole to fall into. Today was supposed to involved delivering choccies to some cycling associates in Kawasaki. But getting up and about with half an hour or so free before Mrs. Kangaeroo was due to head off to work and hanging out with the...
Survived I was hospitalized. My brother and sister dropped everything to come and help. They took me to meetings. I have stopped. I will be all right. I can’t give up....
No Wonder the Wallabies Were Wallies in RWC2019 Australia’s rugby team, the Wallabies, were ignominiously dumped from the 2019 Rugby World Cup that Japan is currently hosting (and being lauded for both its organization skills and the rousing performance of its unfancied team). The Wallabies lost badly to England in a quarter final, mostly because they were not...
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Thank God for Diet Coke! This week, Kangaeroo was granted the dubious pleasure of eating a glazed donut hamburger. The photo deserves to be listed as full size to stand as testimony to its likelihood of clogging arteries, even among those who haven’t eaten it. This was the Luther Burger, which sells for an equally...
Glad to be Alive Kangaeroo is easy to be critical and cynical, less so to be thankful. Today, he is taking a moment to be thankful for life. Kangaeroo loves life, even though he has largely made a mess of his own until recent years. Life interrupted this week, preventing any significant entry here,...
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Where’s the Whist Amid the Wisteria? Being greeted by the sublimely serene sight of fully blooming wisteria in the outer suburban wonderland of Yakushiike Park only to have the calmness crushed by the piercing squeal of a little prick abusing and haranguing me for riding a bicycle in the park wasn’t really what I had been...
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Minding My Peas, and Queues In my Aussie plant grow from seed experiment, desert peas moved outdoors today, with more budding plants queueing to join them. Only three of 12 desert pea seeds germinated, but did so strongly. Nonetheless, having struggled with clumsiness when repotting everlastings last month, I was better prepared this time. By...
Boomerang Shrine And Shooting The Rapids Mrs. Kangaeroo and I got another wonderful experience shooting down the rapids in the delightful Saitama Prefecture town of Nagatoro, which is also home to a shrine hoping to draw people back with something of an Aussie touch. Boomerang Kaeru Shrine, just outside Nagatoro Station, is dedicated to the worship...
Another One Bites the Dust… It’s no longer possible for me to trust my own mind because I know how utterly unreliable it is, but I got greater affirmation of why I’m so uneasy in my workplace when I learned last night that we have lost yet another very decent person from our working team....
人参依存症カンガルーが観光客を孟攻撃する　オーストラリアを訪ねている数十人が人参やジャンクフードなどに依存しているガンがルーに孟攻撃され、怪我を負っている。　シドニーから南方にあるマクワリー湖周辺に現象が起こっている。　餌を与えないように注意されてにも関わらず中国人観光客を中心に訪ねる人の多くがそこに群れを作ったカンガルーなどに食べ物をやっている。　その結果、カンガルーを中心とした有袋類が主に人参に依存することになった。　体が要求している人参などをもらわないと、カンガルーが暴力的に反応し、観光客を蹴ったり、噛んだり爪でキズ付けたりしている。　マクワリー湖観光関係者は、多ヶ国語の注意書き看板の設置などの対応策をとっているが、多くの場合厳守されていないのは現状。 https://youtu.be/TsfgNVFYPak...
Love The Way You Lie Kangaeroo got a much better day than expected today, Japan’s National Foundation Day but not a holiday because it fell on a Saturday. Waking, Your Humble Narrator (to borrow a turn of phrase from Anthony Burgess) was greeted by a winter wonderland from the previous day’s snowfall. There would be...
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MAMILシーズンがやってくる！　約7年目の2011年に、ツール・ド・フランスで初めてオーストラリア人として総合優勝者となったことを機にオーストラリアで中年の危機の一種の現れなどで小ばかにされることが多いが、心理学者などが多くの中年男性がMAMILになったことによって運動ができ、他人と社会的に接するので極めて肯定的な現象として見ている。　そこで、オーストラリア人の映画監督が世界中のMAMILについて米国で絶賛上映中。そのサイクリング・スラングや専門用語が豊富であり、面白いかもしれない。奥が深い世界。言われてみれば、日本語のサイクリング・スラングもたくさんあり、日本の自転車関連世界も興味深いと言える。それがまた今度にしよう。　とりあえず、冬の終わりが見え始まって、春が来るとMAMILが続々と近所に表れてくるだろう。見苦しいところではあるが、肉体的にも精神的にも健康的であることを考えて寛容的に見てみよう。 MAMIL – Official Trailer from Demand Film on Vimeo....
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Flake News! Tokyo, or at least the hillier Tama part of it, got dumped by a heavy snowfall on Friday, turning the place white. Kangaeroo Corner’s trees, never keen on the cold, struggled with the heavy snow clogging their branches. It did look good, to be fair dinkum. But it was another...
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Beating Jobsworths with Luck Waking early gave Kangaeroo a slice of luck this morning, enabling a visit to Yakushiike Park in Machida before the jobsworths arrived there and booted him out for bringing his bike. The park is a delight, unbelievably located in the Tokyo suburbs. It has some spectacular wisteria growing on trellises,...
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Costly Bloody Crash! Kangaeroo’s accident this week continued to have reverberations. Although both Kangaeroo and the bloke he collided with rode away apparently unharmed from their predawn collision, costs have since mounted. The crash gave greater urgency to updating the chain and gear sprocket on La Cangura, which had been showing signs of...
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Glistening… Today greeted me with the pitter-patter of raindrops (and a hefty dose of demotivation), so I spent the predawn hours vegging out with the idiot box on and gazing into the garden, appreciating the raindrops glistening on the leaves. In days of yore, I wouldn’t have been deterred by the...
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Everlastings Love! Everlasting daisies have become the first plants I’ve potted after starting to grow them from seed. I planted the seeds in humidity pods on February 19. They germinated in a flash, with buds clearly visible within a week. They were starting to grow too big for the pods, so I...
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Sunrise of the Year (So Far!) Mother Nature turned on an absolute bloody ripper of a morning with the sunrise of the year so far, at least as far as I am concerned. The skies were simply glorious as light broke through, blended with the clouds and created a mix of vibrant colors crossing the spectrum....
A Season Of Sayonara And Au Revoir It was sayonara time. We farewelled our apartment that Mrs. Kangaeroo scrimped and saved to snare upon the end of her previous marriage. Then it was goodbye to being Tokyo citizens as we became Kanagawa Prefecture residents. And we moved on to say au revoir to the Printemps department store....
オーストラリア最大恐竜がエロマンガに　オーストラリアの最大恐竜がエロマンガにあった。　本当。　下品なことを考えってんじゃねぇよ！エロマンガはオーストラリア先住民の言葉で「風がよく吹く平野」という意味だそう。　エロマンガは、北部クイーンズランド州にある小さな村です。石油とオパール鉱業が中心となっている人口約40人の村である。　1990年代までエロマンガ有名なことはオーストラリア内で海から最も遠く離れている町ということだった。（今でもそうと主張しているが、そうじゃないという人もいます。）　いずれにせよ、クイーンズランド州都ブリスベーンから約1,000キロ西の方に置かれている。　1994年にチャリ乗りの少年が化石を見つけて、以降次から次へ恐竜の化石が発見された。　2007年にみつかった化石が今までオーストラリアで最も大きいな恐竜のものだった。　その恐竜がティタノザウルス類の一種であり、エロマンんがの恐竜がクーパーと名付けられた。　しかし、名前は名前なので、当然にエロマンガという村が日本に注目を浴びた。　数多くの日本のエロ漫画や普通の漫画もエロマンガの話が出ています。　その中は「ニニンがシノブ伝」、「サムライフラメンコ」というまでもなくオーストラリアで児童ポルノとして禁じられている「エロマンガ先生」がある。　今、エロマンガに恐竜研究が励んでいる。　2017年に開館したエロマンガ自然博物館が運営しているが、コロナ禍で苦しんでいるだろう。　それでも、間違いなくエロマンガがオーストラリア恐竜研究・跡地の最前線にひとつということはまちがいない。　これからもエロマンガにますます期待できるだろう。　　　...
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Ouch! Taking a Tamagawa Tumble 「Ouch!」「バカヤロー!」「ごめんなさい。」「日本は左通行だよ。バカヤロー！何考えてんかよ？バカヤロー！」 Kangaeroo took a Tama River tumble today and it was entirely his fault. Taking his normal pre-dawn ride along the Tama River Cycling Road, Kangaeroo caught a glimpse of an oncoming runner just late enough to be able to swerve away from her and avoid striking...
Warm in the Winter Dino the dinosaur is no slouch in finding a warm place in the winter, which is a handy trait when you’re a rosy faced lovebird. She huddles up next to her heaters, on the nest she builds out of the strips of paper she so dexterously rips off with her...
Tour de Kagoshima-Kyoto Day 9: Koyasan to Nara Glorious weather almost a complete turnaround from the previous day was the hallmark of the penultimate day of the 2019 Kagoshima to Kyoto cycling tour. Sunny skies greeted the riders as they roused from their sleep in a chilly Koyasan temple. Riding remained cold and rugging up was the order...
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Get Off Of My Cloud! Riding today was like floating through the heavens at times, reminding me of one of my favorite songs by the world’s greatest rock band: The Rolling Stones‘ Get off My Cloud. I’d have loved to have been able to keep the scene for myself as I rode through the mists...
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豪キャブラリー： Shoot through Shoot through （打って通れば）を聞くと何となく「銃の引き金を引く」ような感覚を起こすかもしれないが、実際にオージー英語でこの表現を使えば一切そういうような意味がない。実は、「打つ」(shoot)と一切関係ない（だったら、なんで使うかと言いたくなるよね、、、）。「出ていく」とか「場を去る」などの意味。Shoot offも同様の意味として使う場合もある、「急いでいく」ような感覚があるが、shoot offのほとんどの使う時がshoot off your mouth（口を打つ！）になり、「しゃべり過ぎ」という意味のだ！...
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Ramen Cake Will Make You Do Your Noodle! Nationwide all-you-can-eat sweets franchise Sweets Paradise make amazing cakes decorated to look like main meals but almost indistinguishable from them until tasted. Sweets Paradise makes an assortment of foods that look like main dishes but are actually cakes, including bowls of noodles, omelets, katsudon and eel. What’s more, the prices...
Eel Chips And Catty Kerr Wasn’t able to get away much this summer, but am delighted to roll into work every day and be greeted by an Aussie adorning a huge billboard, thanks to Miranda Kerr dressed in a cat outfit. Otherwise, it’s been a push to get over the line in the busy season....
Strewth! ヴァージン・オーストラリアのストライン（豪州英語）離れが続く Strewth!元々オーストラリア市場で出来るだけオージーらしくやろうとしたバージン社の航空部門のストライン（オージー英語）離れが急速に進んでいる。　今週からヴァージン・オーストラリアの乗務員が客に向けて具体的な指示がある場合を除き「mate」と呼ぶな、という命令が出たらしい。オージー英語では、mateと呼び合うことがごく自然なことだが、同社がサービス向上に伴ってもっとビジネスらしく客と接したいということだそう。　その関連で乗務員が再教育を受けざるを得ない。しかし、客が事前に「mate」と呼んでほしい申請すれば、乗務員がそう呼んでもかまわない、と同社がいう。　同社のオーストラリア市場進出は2000年だった。その当時、飛行機が主に赤いだったため、オージー英語で「赤いものをブルー＜青い＞」という習慣にかけて社名をヴァージン・ブルーとした。　しかし、昨年11月会社のリブランディングによって社名をヴァージン・オーストリアに変更し、一般旅行者よりビジネスを中心に戦略も変えた。カンタス航空に次ぐオーストラリア２位の航空会社の同社がオーストラリアに馴染めれば馴染むほどオージー離れが進むようだ。 Virgin Australia公式サイト「やばいリンガル」Mate 豪キャブラリー： Matey （動詞） The Strine Why Atorkin: Natchrule Strine...
A Seed Of An Idea As I touched on over the weekend, I’ve started trying to grow plants from seed and I completed the first round of the process this morning before heading off on my bike. Dwarf wattle seeds that I soaked in boiling water last night were the final group of seeds that...
All Sorts of Returns Kangaeroo.com is back online after a few weeks of being grounded. There were myriad reasons for why nothing got posted. But an old friend from NewsonJapan played an important and much appreciated role in getting the site back on track. Other everyday items making comebacks of sorts include my spare...
Calamity Free Ride! After several days featuring a series of stumbles, fumbles, bumps and bruises, it was fantastic to finally have an early morning ride that went without a calamity. Sort of. Riding La Cangura much slower and more cautiously than usual, the morning ride went without a hitch. There were many fears...
Wistful Wisteria There’ve been better times than the past week, and hopefully the climbing hardenbergia comptoniana planted today augurs a rise out of the doldrums. I couldn’t sleep, so as soon as it was light, I got out into the garden, moving the lawn, weeding and my efforts culminating in re-potting the hardenbergia...
A Pheasant Start to the Morning I got a delightful start to the morning with a not-quite-chance encounter with a beautiful green pheasant near the Tama River. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been fortunate enough to cross tracks with pheasants in a few places. They’re beautiful birds, the males are at least, and I loved...
Merry Christmas 2019 All the very best for Christmas 2019! Have a wonderful festive season and take care. May all your Christmases be Chrissie. An Aussie Chrissie...
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...
CHAMPIONS! Tigers Premiers 2019 as Dimma’s Dynasty Does us Proud Richmond had its greatest-ever Grand Final-winning margin, smashing the Greater Western Sydney Giants by a whopping 89 points, winning 114-25. The Tigers overcame an injury-riddled season to demolish their closest rivals and establish a powerful dynasty. Dustin Martin won the Norm Smith Medal for being the best player on the...
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...
Tigers Trump Tenderfoots Richmond Football Club will contest the 2017 AFL Grand Final! The mighty Tigers triumphed over the Australian Football League’s newest team, the Western Sydney Giants, a talent-packed outfit created to boost revenue from TV broadcasts. Now, Richmond will play the rampaging Adelaide Crows to determine the Aussie Rules champion of...
Getting Off to a Good Start So far, the winter of 2022-3 has been fairly kind to Tokyo. Unlike 2022, when the early days of January saw snow and generally gloomy weather, this year has been warm and sunny on the whole. Kangaeroo got on the bike early today and headed downtown to meet some mates...
Rav-AGE! Getting old is not much fun, nor, as the late, great thespian Bette Davis once famously said, it’s not for sissies. But I’ve becoming increasingly conscious of age over the past few weeks. My eyesight is going: quickly and rapidly. I’m seeing less in the dark and rain, vision is...
Saving Things For a Rainy Day It’s drizzling and miserable weather today, which provides a wonderful opportunity for an update as my customary lunchtime ride can be substituted. Lots has happened since my last post, but there’s little time to write about it, so this is a bit of a summary of the past couple of...
Let There Be Light This morning I got an entire ride in the light for the first time this year. I still had lights on my bike, but they were the flashing type that enabled me to be seen instead of the high-lumen shiners that all me to see. It was lovely to be...
It’s All Happening Here! Pushed for time and all other sorts of resources, Kangaeroo was surprised to note this morning that it had been almost 10 days since the last post on the site. So much has been going on, some of it pretty crucial, that time slipped away. To borrow a turn of...
Crikey! Didn’t See That Coming We got back from Australia at the start of the month and Customs were warning about people who had been in Wuhan. The next week, our office shut down for good and we were sent home to work there permanently. Now we’re ordered not to come into contact with anybody...
Koala-ified for Anything Tokyo is a city full of surprises. And that is the least surprising aspect of the world’s largest city. Kangaeroo got a pleasant surprise yesterday while pottering through the backstreets of Shinjuku, one of the Japanese capital’s many sub-capitals. For some reason, Lord alone knows why, there was a statue...
Indescribable Ecstasy of a Tiger Triumph Richmond are Australian Rules football champions of the world! After 37 years! The feeling of joy is indescribable. Sheer, utter, unadulterated bliss does not do the feeling justice. Ecstasy doesn’t come close. Decades of disappointment, anger, despair, longing, envy, mistakes, yearning, praying, desperation were all lifted in a handful of...
Every Cloud Has a Sliver of Whining An unseasonably warm and dry late winter and early spring has given way to more customary wet, with really lousy weather since rain began early yesterday morning. Wet weather makes me whine, but I really shouldn’t because it was supposed to pour all day today, but I woke to warm...
Knackered! Kangaeroo is delighted another working week is drawing to a close as he is absolutely exhausted. Kangaeroo’s boss is a serial power harasser. The boss’s gnawing attacks on co-workers have driven away every single colleague bar Kangaeroo since their employment started. And the boss has gone out of their way...
Oz Has a Purr-fectly Good Map of Australia On Her Snout Oz is a 5-year-old cat with a unique characteristic that makes her purr-fectly pertinent for news about Australia. This peculiar pussy’s special snout is adorned with an amazingly accurate map of Australia! Incredibly, Oz is from Australia. The Oriental Longhair breed first made news when she was shown at the...
Some of the Cycling Camerawork that can be Expected These are the types of shots that I’ve been able to take of bikes....
Farting Proudly! Despite the best intentions, the weekend was a bit of a write-off, and apart from a brief interlude with an old mate to tell each other bawdy tales about breaking wind, the rest of the time was more about flat than flatulence. My mate, an 83-year-old American, and I have...
Enough of the Rain, Already! Kangaeroo is on holiday. Has been for 37 hours now. And it has rained almost that entire time. And due to continue falling for almost the next 24 hours, too. Ah, well…not much that can be done about it....
豪メルボルン郊外で激しくなっている「マック紛争」　これこそがマック・アタック！どこにでもあり、幅広く支持されているので日本ではなかなか想像がつかない「マックドナルド紛争」が只今、オーストラリアメルボルン市郊外で大こととなっている。　メルボルン中心部から東方約40キロにあるダンデノング山脈の一角にあるテコマという人口約3000人しかない小さな町にはマックドナルドのレストラン建設に関しての長年のバトルが今週結末となった。　右記の地図が示すようにマクドナルドがメルボルン東部に進出していない。だが、長年、同社が森かピクニックや美しい風景などで観光地であるダンデノング山脈地方にレストランを開店することに努力したが、住民の猛反対で出来なかった。　1990年代にかけて今世紀に入ってテコマの隣町であるベルグレーブでは開設計画がだめとなった末狙いがテコマに向かった。　環境保全を支持する同地域住民が昔から多かったので、今回反マックドナルド派の先頭に立っている。地域議員サマンサ・ダン氏らが言うのは、マックドナルドが地域性に会わず、24時間営業が地域の治安が懸念されるようになり、地域の会社が経営難となる。また、米国の多国籍企業が同地域に合わないという。ほぼ10年間戦ったが、23日付、借地人紛争に対して判決を下すビクトリア州立民間行政裁判所（ＶＣＡＴ）がマクドナルド側の歌えを支持、レストラン建設を事実上許可した。　すると、猛反発。今、反対派が建設予定地を占領し、ガーデンを作った。一部の人がそこに24時間体制でキャンプしている。また、反対を訴える歌や動画を多数作成している。ニュース関係 Maccas Tecoma battle would have been ‘too expensive’ Protesters threaten to chain themselves to Tecoma McDonald’s site to stop development フェースブック関係 No Maccas in the Hills （グループ） No McDonald’s in the Dandenong Ranges...
Holmes, Sweet Holmes With Valentine’s Day focusing a spotlight on love (or at least a love of chocolate in Japan) and having gone to a movie theater to see a film for the first time in decades over the weekend, I got to thinking, which can often be a dangerous thing. Growing up...
Spring Has Finally Sprung Almost as though on cue, probably the most delightful time of the year in Japan–May, when it’s warm, dry, sunny and with the longest hours of daylight–has been generally bleak and glim by its usual standards in 2022. This year has been subjected a bit to the rule of law:...
Not So Fast, Sonny! Skippy The Bush Kangaroo Has Turned 50! Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, probably the most-loved Australian children’s TV program in history, has turned 50 years old. The first episodes screened in Australia in February 1968 and the show remains popular to this day, though only three series comprising 91 episodes were made. The show premiered outside of Australia....
離婚ベント同士！ Fate smiled broadly on me today as I finally dragged myself out on the recumbent (or the rikonbento as we’ve come to call it), and was rewarded by getting a meeting I had yearned for years. Following yesterday’s glorious weather and my most recent viewing of a weather forecast showing...
Australian Football’s Tokyo Area ‘Samurai’ Off to the World Cup Australia rarely makes the news in Japan, so it’s interesting to see it on the front page of the Asahi newspaper June 4 evening edition. The story is about Japan’s Aussie Rules team, the Samurais, who’ll be battling it out in the International Cup starting from June 8. Japan has...
Grass is Greener….Here, And Not On the Other Side! Kangaeroo Corner’s garden is about to enter its second spring, and is currently going through its first winter. And its grass is greener than could ever be imagined…literally! Although Kangaeroo comes from a family of avid gardeners, he had never really had a chance to do much gardening. Only an...