Bikes Of 2022: Raleigh Tamland Two

  It's the end of the year and time to review what's up with the bikes I used over the course of 2022. You'll get a brief overview, any changes made, and what the future has in store for each bike listed. Enjoy!

The Raleigh Tamland Two. Yeah..... You all know this bike if you've been here any amount of time at all since 2014. 

That was when I bought mine at employee discount from a former bike shop job I had. There isn't much here that is original to the bike anymore other than the seat collar, the rear derailleur, the crankset, and the main frame. 

I just switched to a carbon set of wheels, my Irwin Aon Carbon 35's, to be exact, and I think I've swapped out the handle bar this year and installed new handle bar tape. The carbon wheels are a nice upgrade and something I should have done a long time ago. 

This bike was to have been retired three years ago now. Guess not, eh?

I probably won't be changing much on this bike besides the obvious wear items. I have a TRP Hydro braking system on there now which may end up getting retired and see me going back to TRP Spyre brakes or something cable actuated hydraulic. We'll see. No hurry on any of that.

Other than that, this bike keeps reminding me about how it represents what a gravel bike/all-road geometry is about. I see press releases a lot and many for gravel bikes that have so-called "modern" or "radical" geometry for a gravel bike. I check out the geometry charts, and unless they are designs derived from current state of the art mountain bike numbers, they are almost all very similar to, or not even as pushed forward, as the Tamland's. 

When I got this bike in 2014, it was one of the rare choices that was "gravel specific". Now in 2022/23, it still stands tall when compared against the hordes of bicycles called "gravel bikes". A bike ahead of its time?

It would seem so, and it isn't going out of style anytime soon, it would appear.