cycling

  • Having Faith And Hoping For The Best

    Our new home is a delight and the neighbors seem nice, though it’s hard to meet many of them as we’re still in a state of emergency, but I am having growing concerns about our company operator. Our president clearly has no idea of what she’s doing and the reason for taking us on remains an utter mystery to me, but they are paying our wages as promised and I have got plenty of time to keep me distracted. Our dinosaur follows me everywhere now in our single-story home, unlike the two-story place we used to live in, where she was scared to fly downstairs. She will not leave me…

  • 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 mental and physical deterioration. It doesn’t take much! But it…

  • May It Be That Way

    May is Kangaeroo.com’s favorite time of the year. Normally, dry, warm and sunny, flowers bloom and the month is a visual and sensual delight. This year has been unseasonably sodden, but that’s good practice for the upcoming rainy season that will begin in early June. Normally, May is a great time for relaxing and cycling, but this year has also been a bit different. Kangaeroo is on the move and has spent most of the month getting ready for the shift. In that regard, the lousy weather has been a bit of a godsend, limiting the temptation to get on a bike and get away from it all. It might…

  • 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, but not stopping time on the bike.

  • More Climbing

    Continuing on from yesterday, today was another day of climbing through the mountains on the beautiful Belladonna (a Cervelo R5 road bike). Kangaeroo is too exhausted from the energy-sapping ride and a rush to get out to go into much detail. But he is eternally grateful to cycling for giving these opportunities that have been unimaginable for most of his life, and to his wife for allowing him to pursue these dreams. And, of course, to his bikes for carrying him there, and the cycling mates who help and encourage him.

  • Climbing

    Kangaeroo loves cycling. He cycles a lot. And I mean a lot. The line between a moderately good rider and a strong rider can largely be drawn at climbing; specifically, how fast a cyclist can make it up the hills. The best cyclists are all good hill climbers. The key to strong climbing is having a good power to weight ratio, which basically means weighing little but still having lots of power. Look at most pro cyclists and they all look like skeletons with disproportionately huge legs. Unfortunately, the only thing disproportionally huge about Kanageroo is his belly. He has practised hard at becoming a better climber, but the results…

  • Ideal Workday Weather

    Today is bleak. Weather is debilitating. It’s drizzling, bleak, wet and cold. Perfect for work … if you have to work indoors. (Not too good for those who earn a living outside, though) It’s too wet to ride, to do much outside to be honest, but not wet enough to fully rule out any activities under the skies. This kind of weather does my head in. Kangaeroo has also just switched employers, so there is a massive amount of stress and the fear of the unknown. Transition is not moving altogether smoothly, either. One bonus of not being able to ride was getting to take a walk. And Kangaeroo is…

  • Spring-Heeled

    Spring is such a delight in Japan. One reason for that is the blooming of cherry blossoms. For a week or so, much of the company is given a glorious pink carpet as the national flower blooms, transforming often bleak landscapes into spectacular vistas. Kangaeroo spent the weekend cycling Tokyo’s central districts and suburbs, taking as many photos of the blossoms as possible.

  • Spring in the Step

    This has been a strange kind of week. Meetings kicked off the week, continued throughout and were punctuated by work and lots of cycling and photography. Oh, yeah. And looking after the pet dinosaur. Amid that, feelings went up and down. Mostly down. Now, as the working week draws to a close, it feels like things are getting better. The next couple of weeks are going to be demanding. The next few months even more so, actually. But for today, things are comparatively calm. And that contentment has put a spring in the step, appropriate considering the season.

  • Heading Toward New Horizons

    We’re off to a new home, thanks to the miraculous passage of a housing loan, and I’m getting a new job as the company looks for ways to deal with the pandemic. We’re moving back over the hill from Kawasaki into Tama and into a delightful place now undergoing renovations. Work is another matter. It smells a bit fishy. We were told the shift a day before it initially happened before a short postponement, and the company is saying it’s a transfer for administrative purposes and we will continue to use the same company name and contacts despite belonging to a completely different entity. Today, I found they have terminated…