Parsed Participle

Too close for comfort...
Here, it's actually touching the spokes - in fact, it's almost in the path of the spokes. 'Uncle', as we (Me and Mark) have been addressing the man at the neighborhood bicycle repair-shop, explains that the cause seems to be a damaged/bent hanger:

The frame was fixed, Uncle said the 6-7 degree bend was fixable, but apparently the hanger isn't 'right' - it's probably why the derailleur dived into the spokes last month, which was a spectacular event, still etched in my mind... the rear wheel came off, the chain broke and wedged between the largest rear gear and the wheel, and the derailleur flipped upwards, and the bike came, literally, to a grinding halt. Needless to say, the derailleur and chain, shown in these pictures are all new.

The risk of that happening again is only if I use the forward small gear, which is when the spoke-touching happens, as shown in the photos. And that, says Uncle, will be fixed once the drop-hanger arrives - and since Raleigh parts seem to be relatively scarce in Japan, that's been taking a long time...