Specialized Diverge

  • The (Ballsed-Up) Big Red Bike Tour

    Had things been different, right around this time I would have been getting ready to go off on an exciting bicycling adventure that I’d named the Big Red Bike Tour. But the trip is off, or at least changed into a different, much-truncated version. Having fortunately fallen into buying an aesthetically delightful bicycle of such an azure hue it could only be given the name Big Red, I was keen on taking advantage of its comfortable riding sensation and ability to go anywhere to head out on a tour. Keeping up the Big Red theme, I promptly went out and ordered a blue Kangaeroo kit (replete with thought bubble to…

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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…

  • Mirror, Mirror On The Paddy, Tell Me Now, ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’

    Tempted by the rice paddies, which now look like mirrors as they are filled with water and the stems planted, I rode through western Tokyo along the Tama and Aki rivers into Itsukaichi to climb and take beautiful photos. It’s been a while since I have ridden in the mountains, but the stars aligned today and I decided I’d try to see whether I could still do it. I’m about 30 kilograms heavier than the last time I rode higher than 400 meters in elevation, which I reckon was about four years ago. And now I’ve just remembered that I rode a climb earlier this year, so I am lying….