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...

My bicycle, which was sadly stuck at the mechanic-shop for a whole 3 weeks owing mainly to the lack of a spare part (A derailleur drop-hanger, to be precise), is now, finally road-worthy again. Or at least, almost so. So there's still a danger of the derailleur diving into the spokes like it did 3 weeks ago - but the chances, says the nice mechanic, are greatly minimized with the adjustments he's made. He was nice enough to not accept any payment until it was 'fully' fixed - i.e., after the hanger arrives. But it feels great to be cycle-borne again!

Mark Arahna actually lugged this all the way from New York.