Big Red Wins The Blue, But Still A Toot For Astuto

27 July 2025

I’ve finally got one of my 2025 goals back on track in what has been my most prolific month for cycling in several years, courtesy of a dry, hot July. This morning I caught up with my target of averaging 1,000 or more kilometers per month across the year.

Big Red: The only name possible for an Aussie’s blue bike

This distance is nothing near my cycling heyday when I would ride almost three times that length regularly, but it’s good enough with all the life circumstances going on.

I’m commuting often, going to school, and serving on the estate’s body corporate, all of which are taking decent chunks out of my life on a near daily basis. I also need to make sure I get to garden, both at home and for the estate.

I’m a little chuffed because it’s pretty clear the cycling gods are testing me again this year, what, with stolen bikes, osteomyelitis that has required at least twice-weekly treatment for almost four months now, more doctors for being too fat, and then the decaying eyesight, hearing and braking power that essentially rule out group rides because I am a potentially dangerous liability.

I’m gonna head off on a biking odyssey in early September, riding the Big Red following an internal blue over which bike I’d ride. I was tempted to get on the Astuto, which is what I had built her for because she is light and has disc brakes which are both factors that enable me to hit the mountain climbs and descents with confidence. But she is temperamental and has a number of idiosyncracies that stem mainly from using a cheap Chinese drive set. I gave her a test earlier this week as I wanted the fairytale of her going on a tremendous journey to be a happy ending after she was “borrowed” for four months this year, and when on song she is a beautiful ride and would definitely make climbing much easier than the cumbersome Big Red, unfortunately she is not as reliable, nor as comfortable. But it was a joy to be riding her again.

Many dislike the searing summer heat. And part of me is with them, because we haven’t had a rainy season of any great note for three years now. That makes for great riding conditions if you can handle the heat, which I have found daily riding helps me do, but it also rings an alarm bell for me about the climate. The clearly defined seasons that were easily perceptible in my early years in Japan no longer exist, and that is a transformation that has come about in less than 40 years.