Astuto

  • So Cursed Even Its Thief Brought It Back

    In a week where a kleptocrat despot and Dicktator made for one of the most bizarre geopolitical times of my existence, Mrs. Kangaeroo reminded me of a thief much closer to home as I finally got my Astuto bike back home. Mrs. Kangaeroo calls the bike cursed. She might have a bit of evidence to back up her claim, as she pointed out that even when a thief stole the bike in February last year, they brought it back to us again four months later. The bike has certainly had a bit of misfortune since making my acquaintance when I began trying to build it after my old Trek literally…

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    The Lions Won’t Eat You…As Long As You Can Outrun The Gazelle

    Blessed with more time than I’d expected yesterday afternoon, I got to have some fun with the statues at the closed Yokohama Zoorasia. My Astuto bicycle got some great shots running away from wild animals, including a pack of lions chasing a gazelle. It reminded me of my schooldays, when I was the slowest runner in the entire school, and a friend joked that it wouldn’t matter if a wild animal chased our group down, as all they would need to do would be to run faster than I could. Painful, but true! I’d often toyed with a visit to Zoorasia, so was glad to finally make it, and pleased…

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

    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. 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…

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    No Making A Blue When It Comes To Big Red

    As anyone who knows Australian slang could tell you, anything with a hue as azure as the latest bike in my fleet could only possibly be given a name like Big Red. So that’s exactly what it got, and that’s not making a blue in the slightest. Big Red came to us in a bit of an accident. Someone stole the all-terrain, all-weather bike I’d built up to trek across the country (and then it returned four months later in the exact place it had been taken from). Mrs. Kangaeroo felt pity for me that my efforts (and money) had gone to waste and let me buy Big Red secondhand…

  • Rain Yet Again Can Be A Bit Of A Drain

    May in Tokyo in my mind is a month of warm, dry, blissful weather, but for the second time in the four-day weekend this year for Golden Week we’ve had constant rain, which is frankly a bit of a drag. But being stuck inside with little to work on is giving me a chance to do a little study and fix my bikes to protect against theft, having being stung by a robber taking my bike earlier this year. I can also spend time with the struggling dinosaur, who still isn’t quite 100%. And the rain makes the garden look absolutely spectacular! I had originally planned to spend the morning…

  • Should’ve Been Astuter With Astuto

    Someone stole my Astuto bike and I’m feeling pretty lousy about it. The bike was special because a lot of people showed me kindness and generousity so I could build it up from scratch. I should have kept her inside the house, but we simply don’t have the room. I thought she was covered by insurance, too, but it turns out not to be the case because the bike was not taken from inside the home. Apart from the benevolence I received, the bike also promised to help me rejoin the cycling community. I was once an avid and highly active cyclist, but over the past few years, arthritis has…

  • Too Good To Be Truthful

    So, I pledged to myself to revert this blog to it’s original role of telling funny and interesting tales related to either Japan or Australia, I wasn’t totally honest to myself, which is always the case when convenient to do so. Not that it’s a despicable or harmful lie, but the morning was too wonderful to let go undocumented this morning, so it’s another set of cycling sunrises. My colleague similarly subjected to an unjustifiably huge pay cut announced his imminent departure yesterday with no word of a replacement, which I am assuming means a drastic increase in workload. In better news, a friend has an unused bike frame he…