Bikes Of 2025: Raleigh Tamland Two

 It's another end-of-year period on the blog. You know what that means? Yep! Another round of my bikes I used in 2025. This round-up will not include some of the bikes I did not use this year much, or at all. I focus only on the bikes that played a big role in my riding during this year.  As always, any changes or future plans for any bike I feature will also be detailed. I hope that you enjoy this year's round-up.

 The Raleigh Tamland Two finishes out its 11th year here with minimal use. I had it out a couple of times this Spring, but on through Summer it sat mostly unused. The longest ride I did on it was the Labor Day Ride with N.Y. Roll, at least I think it was the longest ride I did on that bike for 2025.

I did figure out the rear wheel issue, which wasn't a rear wheel issue, and bought a new crank set for it in a 170mm length. I was hoping to put a lot more miles on this bike to see what I thought of the slightly shorter cranks, but alas! I just never got around to it. I think I like this shorter crank, but as of now, I cannot say until I get more time in on those. 

Since I gave away the Black Mountain Cycles MCD this is now my oldest purposed gravel bike. I'm definitely not getting rid of it, and if you have been a long-term reader here, you know all about the story which would explain why. 

As for changes I may build a chi-chi wheel set for this bike some day. Maybe a set of blue hubs with silver spokes on carbon rims of some sort. I mean, that'd be cool, but totally unnecessary. It's a good bike as is. So, I wouldn't count on much changing with this one. 

Fixin' A Wheel

The Tamland with the temporary wheel

 Last Summer I was going round and round with my Tamland's Roval wheels and figured out that the noise I was hearing was some of the spokes getting loose due to unwinding nipples. 

I temporarily solved the issue by using an old wheel I had sitting around. However; I wanted to save that Roval wheel somehow and I thought maybe rebuilding it would be the way to go. 

However, straight pull spokes are expensive, and buying a minimum of 32 of them, (what one wheel would need) was going to be costly. So, since the spokes were really not the issue here, I decided that maybe I had nipples that would work to replace the red alloy DT Swiss nipples the wheel had originally. 

I searched for some brass DT Swiss nipples I knew that I had but there were only 26 nipples in that little box. Hmm.... I started digging through my stash of wheel stuff and I found these red alloy nipples I had saved for years. They had come from a wheel off a Raleigh Rush Hour track bike. If I recall correctly we were tasked to remove all the alloy nipples for the customer right away when the bike was purchased and replace them with brass nipples and different spokes. Anyway, I hadn't found a use for them all these years. 

Oddball red alloy nipples.

As I recalled these nipples were weird. They would not thread on Wheelsmith spokes as they had a slightly different thread pitch. I usually use Wheelsmith spokes, so that was maybe why I still had not found a home for these red nipples. 

I had no good idea what the spokes were in the Roval wheel but my guess was DT Swiss. (And no - I did not check the head for a stamp) I grabbed a red nipple half expecting it to not work when hey! It went on!

Now I have plenty of these nipples, so I started going through the Roval wheel one spoke at a time. Unwinding the old nipple, putting Wheelsmith Spoke Prep on the threads, and then installing with the red alloy nipples from the old Rush Hour track bike. 

The new nipples are longer, which I guess is 'good', assuming that the nipple has a bit more support. The thing is, the old, I assume DT Swiss nipples, had a hex head inside the rim portion that was hidden from view so the support thing may be a wash. 

Straight pull spokes are a bit weird because they usually have to pierce a thicker "flange" so they tend to be a bit longer than you might expect. These are 300mm and 302mm in length for this rear wheel application. 

Plus, they can spin while you are tightening up the spoke nipple. There is no "J" bend to work against, so I have to kind of tension them up by applying sideways pressure which jambs the nail head and helps prevent the spoke from spinning until you get enough tension for that to hold the spoke immobile. 

While I have two tensionometers, I am doing initial tensioning by plucking the spokes and matching pitch. I'll go through and do a final tensioning with the tensionometer at the end. But in my experience, it probably will need only very minor adjustment. 

'Spose I should do some cleaning too.

This will save the rear wheel, use the spokes I have without having to purchase new ones, and get this wheel back on the Tamland again. 

It is important to save this wheel because I don't have much for quick release wheels anymore and less that are suitable for a gravel application. These are pretty light wheels as well as being thematically similar in color scheme to the Tamland, so they kind of look at home on that bike. Those red painted DT Swiss Aerolite spokes are definitely unique! 

So, that's but one of the Winter projects I have in mind to do this Winter. I'll be busting out more as the season rolls along. Hopefully I get around to everything I have in mind to do. That will depend on the weather we get, of course. 

Stay tuned.....

They Come In Threes

At least one thing went right...

Ever hear of that old saying that "bad things come in threes"? Well, I have to wonder after this past week if the saying is true. I had a pretty unlucky string of road blocks which has stacked things up in the old Lab at Guitar Ted Headquarters. 

The first check came while dealing with the State Bicycle Co. Monster Fork review. I had ridden it enough in one offset setting that it was time to go to the other choice. Well, the first thing I ran into was that the wheel did not want to come out of the fork without a bit of dead blow hammer influence. Not good. Then I figured out that the offset change was not accounted for by the designers of the fork with a corresponding change in brake position. No go.

So, that is in limbo now until I hear back from my contact at State Bicycle Co. to see what they want me to do from this point. Is it just my fork (doubtful) or is it a flaw in the basic design (I'm betting on this one)? We will see......hopefully. At this point I don't know why it is the way it is, I just know it is. UPDATE 10/22/24: After contacting my person at the marketing company they relayed from State that the brake mount must be flipped to make it work and that seems to have solved that issue. Look for my update on this review on Thursday, October 24th.

Next up I decided to try the Irwin Cycles Aeon 35 carbon wheels in the Raleigh again, since I figured out that it was the worn drive train which was the problem, not the wheels. Also, I had to swap wheels due to those Roval wheels having spoke issues. Should have been a "no big deal" swap, since I had those Irwin wheels in the bike at one time. However, since I thought it was the free hub body going bad at first, I removed the Irwin wheels. Then I had taken that rear wheel apart to inspect it. In the process I must have mislaid the drive side quick release end cap and now I cannot find it. 

Email sent to Irwin on Friday. Until I hear back from them, that will be in limbo as well..... 

A screw loose here....

Then on Saturday I was riding my new-to-me fixed gear bike and the screw holding on the brass bell to the handle bar fell out. Next thing you know I was making a fancy catch of the bell before it was jettisoned to the pavement. 

This wasn't that big of a deal, but after the first two things it was something that pushed me to the end of my rope. I just took everything to the Lab, parked the bike, set the bell in the handlebar bag, and grabbed my Honeman Flyer for a mind-cleansing ride around the neighborhood. 

Hey! I just put some new fuchsia bar tape on the HF. Looks great and feels good. At least something went right with bicycles recently! 

Oh yeah, and Thursday was spent fixing my front porch steps until I ran six screws short of being able to finish and I had no time to go get more. That got finished up on Friday. So frustration was a bit of a theme of late here. I am hopeful this changes soon. 

Stay tuned for updates.

When It Gets Old

Shimano FC-RS510 crank (Image courtesy of the internet)

 I think some of you who are regular readers here might recall that I had been having troubles with a wheel set which I had been using on my Tamland Two gravel bike. It is a carbon Irwin Cycles wheel set and I was having, what I thought was, issues with the free hub. As it seems to be turning out now, that is not the case.

Apologies to Irwin Cycles.

You might also recall how I had recently installed a DT Swiss hubbed Roval carbon wheel set on the Tamland Two, thinking that I had eliminated the issue with the free hub on the Irwin wheels, which, as it seems to be now, was not what was going on. 

I had been toying with the idea of blowing apart that Irwin rear wheel, getting a new rear hub, and relacing the new hub to the old carbon hoop. However; every time I picked up that wheel and spun the free hub it felt perfect. I happen to have two other Irwin wheels with similar rear hubs with a LOT less miles on them and they felt exactly the same. I also did not see any evidence of wear or damage inside the hub I suspected of causing my issues. So, I was reticent to blow up the wheel if it was still in good operable condition. 

And now I am happy I did not blow that wheel apart. 

Late into last week's ride I started to get similar "skipping" issues, but as I was feeling before with the Irwin wheels, it was now getting worse. I immediately knew I misdiagnosed the issue and I knew what was going on. 

My drive train was shot.

Specifically the crank chain rings. I thought about this as I shifted to the big ring for the remainder of the ride, and remembered that these chain rings were installed in late 2014! 

Doh! No wonder that small chain ring was allowing the chain to jump teeth! So, a complete swap of chain rings, chain, and cassette (although the cassette isn't all that old, I probably should swap it out), is in order. Time to research!

I found many times when a customer at the bike shops I used to haunt as a mechanic would need chain rings it was actually cheaper  to buy a crank set than it was to buy separate chain rings. Crazy, but true, and in my case, that still is true. I was able to source my preference in gearing, which is 46T/36T in a Shimano FC-RS510 crank for under 100 bucks. Two chain rings in those sizes would cost well over 100 bucks! Especially the Shimano ones which I would necessarily have to buy to fit the original Ultegra crank set on the Tamland. 

I also opted to try an experiment. The new fad is to go shorter on cranks. Now, I do not have any extenuating circumstances that would point me to using shorter cranks. No knee pains, nothing like that. So, maybe this won't matter, but I ordered 170mm cranks to try them out. Some folks rave about the shorter cranks and they have gone waaaay shorter with 165's or less. I'm not into radical changes because my belief is that minor changes can make huge differences. Let's take a "baby step" and see.... 

The RS-510's are a heavy crank set, since they are not made in the HollowTech manner, but are hot-forged aluminum and solid in nature. If the shorter cranks are 'meh!' or if I see no reasons to keep them on the bike, I will swap the chain rings to the older Ultegra crank set and donate the RS-510's to the Collective. I figure I am getting the arms for free anyway. 

So, are you a 'short crank' devotee?  N.Y. Roll already is singing the praises of shorter cranks, so I've heard a bit of The Hype. Let me know in the comments.

Two Things

Tire Swaps:

I took that new SILCA Terra pump and did a couple of tire swaps the other day. First up was to switch the WTB Vulpine S tires to another wheel set. I decided on the DT Swiss hubbed Roval wheels I have. 

These are mountain bike wheels, they have six bolt rotor interface, and convertible axle interface, and are narrow. I think the internal width is something like 21mm? I cannot recall, but it is skinny. 

The Vulpine S tires are 45mm wide and they look great on these rims. As in they set up well and look fine, as far as how they should perform goes. Aesthetically? Well, this scheme on the rims is a little "shouty", and that really isn't in vogue these days. But the Rovals are probably 12 years old. So times have changed. 

One thing is certain, not only are the graphics out of date, but the inner rim width is as well. However; as with most trends, I feel the "wider is better" trend is going to pull back some from the extremes it is reaching for now. Maybe things won't go back to 21mm inner rim width, but I can see 23mm - 25mm being a "sweet spot" where inner rim widths for road and gravel will eventually settle into. 

I don't think I am wrong because if you look at how light wider rims are now for gravel, just think how light they could be using less material in a narrower rim. The performance won't suffer, and 42mm -45mm tires will be just fine in the inner rim width range. There are no downsides. I know tire sizes are reaching toward 50mm+ on gravel bikes the racers use, but I think even this trend will pull back for similar reasons. Lighter, more aero, and easier to attain mud clearances. 

But I digress...

The tire swaps will encourage more riding, allow me to get some more review stuff done and buttoned up, and keep me riding. All good things. 

A Success Story:

The Honeman Flyer by King Fabrications based upon a 1930's track bike design has become something of an obsession with me. I am constantly reaching for this bike even just to go around the block once if that is all the time I have. 

I did not expect this to happen. The radically slack seat angle and long chain stays are laughable on paper. No one would choose this for their bicycle in 2024. 

But perhaps they should consider this. 

I'm not going to sit here and claim that this is "the next big thing" but I've never ridden a bicycle that handles like this one does. Well.....maybe my old 20" banana seat bike did. I recall that bike being really stable, but think about what the effective seat angle is on a bicycle with a long, 'banana' style saddle. Pretty slack, I bet. 

So, maybe that is where I developed an affinity for the set up on the Honeman Flyer. Or, perhaps, those old builders were on to something in the 1930's. I mean, they weren't doing this to make the bicycles slower, or less racy. This design won a track championship, so it isn't like it was some cruiser meant for recreational riding. 

All I know is that, while the design might be crazy, I love it. This has been the most fun bicycle to ride that I have owned since I got the Gen I Fargo in late 2008. I just cannot seem to stop wanting to ride it. So, for me the Honeman Flyer is a success.

Fattening Up

Going back a year or so ago I rode the Tamland Two I have with a set of Irwin Cycling wheels. GX35's, I want to say, and while they had been great wheels up to that point, I noted an issue cropping up. The free wheel wasn't engaging correctly and I experienced a few "hiccups" in the engaging process after coasting. 

It had been extremely dusty up to that point and I thought that perhaps the grease in the free hub body was too thick due to dust intrusion which might account for my problem.

I got the bike back to my shop and re-greased the hub after cleaning it out. That seemed to have a positive effect as I did not notice any problems for several rides after that. However; on this latest ride I did, I noted the issue again, and this time it seemed worse. In fact, I thought that I may not make it back to the house. 

Well, that did it for me and those Irwin hubs. I cannot afford to get stranded out in the country by a sketchy hub that won't engage properly anymore. My plan was to swap out wheels and then do something with the Irwin carbon rims and another, new hub set, But in the meantime I wanted to get the Raleigh back up and running as soon as possible. The problem is that I've wholesale swapped over to through axle wheels, and quick release is almost a dead thing to me now. 

Fortunately I still have a few options in the house. One of them found its way onto the Raleigh, but now I have a different problem! The Raleigh was never meant for "fat" gravel tires, but they are so close to fitting that I had to give it a try.

The Tamland Two with some older Roval XC MTB wheels.

The plan entailed taking off these old Roval wheels I got from my friend in SoCal, Grannygear, and use the tires that were already mounted on them which are SOMA Cazadero 700 X 50mm tires. They looked a bit narrow on the Roval rims and so I thought maybe, just maybe, they might squeeze into the frame and fork. 

The Roval wheels are pretty much a set of DT Swiss carbon wheels seeing as how they have DT Swiss spokes and hubs and then you have the Far East manufactured carbon rim with Roval stickers slapped on there. The partially red theme works a lot better on the Raleigh than it did on the Fargo, where they were mounted previously. (More on the Fargo in a minute)

Obviously the wheels and tires went in, but that rear tire jussssst grazes the chain stay where the wheel is slightly out of true. Too little leeway to play with there, so a different set of tires will have to be mounted on the wheels. 

No daylight there!

Bummer! I was so hoping to ride fatter rubber on this bike, but hey, what do you expect? The bike was designed in 2012 and there weren't any gravel tires above 40mm - 42mm then. So, making clearance for 50's would not have even been imagined at that time. I get it. And I'll be okay. No big deal! 

Okay, so I'll have the Raleigh sorted soon with a wheel set that is reliable and won't cause me any worries in the hub department, at least. That ratchet design DT uses is pretty robust. But that wheel set came of the Gen I Fargo, and well, now what to do?

Fortunately, I still had the older wheel set I was using on the Fargo hanging in the rafters. That would only need to have the cassette swapped out to what I had been using on the Fargo and to have a tubeless sealant refresh. And this is what that will look like......

Tires so fat they wouldn't fit in the frame of the image!

The Surly Extraterrestrials on Duster rims fit here with room to spare. That's a 29" X 2.5" tire, and it slots in nicely between what I have going on with the Singular Gryphon Mk3 and the other gravel bikes I own. I just need to refresh the sealant and that one is good to go. I may end up doing a little tweaking on the stem/handlebar set up by reversing the ShockStop Stem to negative rise and lowering that stem on the steer tube by a couple of spacers. 

But otherwise this bike is set for some gravel touring duties and I intend to use it for that this year. The relaxed position, Redshift Shift ShockStop Stem, and those fat tires will make for a much more comfortable and smooth ride. Plus, it can carry a ton of water! 

Anyway, that's what I've been up to over these rainy days we've been having. I'll have an update on the tires for the Raleigh soon. Stay tuned.....

Ten Years Of Tamlanding: Part 1

Ten years ago last week on March 21st, I brought home a new bicycle. It was, at that time, a rare 'gravel specific' bike. Of course, you long time blog readers may have already guessed that I am referring to the Raleigh Tamland model. 

Since it has been ten years, I thought I would celebrate the fact by sharing the back-story in one fell swoop instead of piecemeal, as I have over the years. Many of you know bits and pieces of the Tamland story, but hopefully through reading this you might learn something new. 

To tell the story properly we have to go back a few more years to around 2009 or so when I was seeing bicycles at Trans Iowa that were a bit more adept at gravel than my drop bar converted Karate Monkey. By this time I had already had two custom frames made and I had a frame builder that I was happy with. Also, I had my friend Ben Witt, who was on a similar trajectory as I. He was a bit more influenced by Rawland Bikes and was thinking of a fat-tired road bike with fenders that would have the grace to go on any road anywhere.

At this point, around 2009, Ben and I had almost fine-tuned a custom bike idea and we were about "this close" to pulling the trigger on having the bikes made by Pofahl. But then some developments occurred that put that idea on ice. 

First off, there was the crowd-sourced idea from Rawland for an "any-road" bike. The Rawland blog kept drawing ideas for a new bike from its readers but when I saw that the proposed idea, dubbed the Nortvind, was veering into rando bike territory, I bailed on that ever being a solution. 2010 rolled around and I still didn't have the bike I was envisioning. Meanwhile, I knew (because I saw the prototypes at Trans Iowa) that Salsa Cycles was well on its way to producing a gravel "racing bike" and that it probably wouldn't have the 42mm tire clearances I wanted. Well, let's be honest here. In 2010 there were no 42mm gravel tires, so I get why Salsa was not into bigger tires for that reason, plus there were other factors involved in their decision making process as well.

Prototype La Cruz Ti by Salsa Cycles as ridden by Joe Meiser at T.I.v5 in 2009.

Brands at this juncture were hedging their bets on gravel bikes by making them with cyclo-cross geometry so that they could also be sold as cyclo-cross bikes. However; this was also not my cup of tea, but until I saw the Warbird in 2012, my thoughts were that this cyclo cross thing was probably where we would land for gravel bikes and that I was stuck with that being the reality. 

Tired of waiting: I bought the Orange Crush in 2011.

By late 2010, after getting strung along by Rawland, and finding myself in tighter financial stead, I decided that I would have to get a gravel bike from a company that sold value oriented frames and forks, like Surly. The Cross Check was an early 'no-brainer' choice as it was relatively inexpensive and was already a staple on the gravel scene, as far as bike choices went. 

However; late into 2010 Black Mountain Cycles hinted at a frame and fork that would bear their brand and be pretty competitively priced. It was, of course, the Monster Cross frame. It compared very favorably to a Cross Check in may ways, but there were details I liked better than I found on a Cross Check. So, in 2011, I took delivery of the "Orange Crush" and that was my gravel bike for the time being. Done and done! Right?

Well, first of all, while I like the Monster Cross it is not what I really wanted in a gravel bike. Someday, or so I thought, that old idea Ben and I had would be something I'd have to get on and have made. But along about 2012 I received a phone call while I was at work in the old bike shop I worked at then. Strange. I never got phone calls unless one of my children were sick or Mrs. Guitar Ted had something important to relay. 

It turned out to be my contact at the time for 29"ers at Raleigh. Brian Fournes was on the line asking if it would be alright if I was put on speaker phone to speak with Raleigh's development team. They asked "If you could design a gravel bike from the ground up, what would you include. Anything is on the table as long as it is reasonable and saleable."

Wow!

Off the top of my head, I repeated all the stuff that Ben and I had fine-tuned over the course of our brainstorming up an all-roads bike in 2009. I listed everything I could think of, but I did change a couple things. First, I listed that it had to have disc brakes. Originally I wanted Paul Components "Racer" brakes, but I knew that the market was heading toward disc brakes. I also stated that the bike had to have full-run brake housings as a result, which was also a change-up from the original design. But everything else I stated in 2009 with Ben's help was included including:

• Slacker than 72° head tube angle. I hedged a bit and asked for 71.5°. 
• 73° seat tube angle.
• Steel, curved blade fork.
• Bottom bracket drop of more than 70mm. (Raleigh went with 72.5mm)
• Steel tubing. (I asked for 853 Reynolds but Raleigh said in the end 653 was a better choice)
• No severely sloping top-tubes. 
• Rack & Fender mounts
• Clearance for 42mm tires with fenders
• Standard threaded bottom bracket
• 1 1/8th steer tube
• A chain peg

The Raleigh Tamland breaks cover in 2013. (Image by CXMagazine.com)

I got off the phone, marveled at the occurrence, and pretty much promptly forgot all about it. I mean, was any of that really going to happen? No way, right? I mean, this sort of stuff happens all the time. Bike companies ask random people what they want and something totally different ends up happening or nothing at all happens. I've had that experience before this phone call and after it with the cycling industry. No big deal.

But then in 2013 a bit of buzz happened as Raleigh showed a Tamland bike which was supposedly 'gravel specific'. Now, I had no idea if this was THAT bike. Raleigh never told me a thing about the project's name, nor did they breath a word about it after that 2012 phone call to me. So, I was completely in the dark as to which, if any, of my ideas were applied to the Tamland. 

Meanwhile a debate sprang up about whether or not gravel bikes even needed to be. "Just use a cyclo cross bike!" and my favorite anytime something new comes out, "They are just finding new reasons to make us have to buy a new bike!" I really love that one! As if the bicycle industry forces people into purchasing new stuff. Ha!

March 21st, 2014: The Tamland is on my front doorsteps.

I grabbed anything that mentioned the upcoming Tamland to see if I could learn about its features, but all that was really mentioned was that it would have 40mm Clement MSO tires on it, which were a new gravel tire at the time. It wasn't until just before Interbike 2013 that I learned that yes- at least a few of my ideas were on the bike. I was both thrilled and horrified. Thrilled for obvious reasons. Horrified because what if this flops and then people find out it was because of my ideas that the Tamland failed.

Finally, I arrived at the Interbike indoor floor show and I went to Raleigh's booth straight away. I ran into Brian Fournes just outside of their space on the floor. He asked if I had seen the Tamland yet. I replied that I was just on my way to check it out. I asked him what, if any of my suggestions Raleigh used. Brian replied, "All of them!"

The Tamland Two as it looks today

 I was instantly horrified again. I told him that if it fails it probably would be my fault and that made me feel uncomfortable. But Brain instantly reassured me by saying that the first run of Tamlands was sold out to dealers already! 

So.... At that point I was thrilled about the existence of a bicycle I had an influential part in. I was happy that it was met with acceptance and seemed to be well on its way to becoming a success for Raleigh. But how could I get one? 

That will be answered in my next post.

Gents Race Preview 1

From my ride out in the country 3/2/23

Well, it is less than two weeks until the Gents Race and I.......I am NOT ready!! This Spring , so far, has been a rotten one for riding here in this locale. Things started out great, but they went down a path of more Winter-like conditions and that has prevented me from getting any significant rides in at all. 

Now, a little cold, that I can take. Wind? Not that big of a deal. But throw in snow, ice, and wind chills in the single digits? Nope.... Not gonna do that. And then....

I got sick. Some nasty cold thing. It has been a drainage down the back of my throat that collects until some thick, gooey mass and then I wake up in the middle of the night, cough it all up, and then sit there unable to return to sleep. My sleep patterns are in rags. 

Not that it has mattered much. I mean, with the crap weather, I am probably not going out anyway, but all of this is making me anxious and feeling unready is not fun. I suppose I am not the only one, I only feel that I am the only one. Which is bad enough in itself.

The Raleigh may see duty as a training bike.

All this cold, wet weather also may be lasting long enough that the sandy roads South of Ames where the Gents Race course is may be soft and inconsistent, much like last year. Maybe - hopefully - not as wet at the beginning! 

The good news about that course is that it dries out in a hurry. Give it a bit of Sun and wind and things straighten right up quick. Like last year when it was a mess to start out with and then a bit of Sun and wind straightened things right out. But I expect that whatever the weather is, it won't be "good weather", because "Gents Race" and that should be explanation enough. 

I mean, yeah.....there have been good years, but they are not the norm, and I don't expect that anytime I go into this event that it will be "nice" weather. It would figure in that since I am in no shape to ride a metric century that the weather would also be sucky as well. Why not? 

I say, "Bring it!" 

At this point, I have to give up any expectations that I will be comfortable, ready, or in any modicum of "fitness", whatever that is, for this event. I will just plan on getting there, riding, and trying to have some fun. If that can happen I will be satisfied and I will consider the event a success for myself.

Gents Race Preview 1

From my ride out in the country 3/2/23

Well, it is less than two weeks until the Gents Race and I.......I am NOT ready!! This Spring , so far, has been a rotten one for riding here in this locale. Things started out great, but they went down a path of more Winter-like conditions and that has prevented me from getting any significant rides in at all. 

Now, a little cold, that I can take. Wind? Not that big of a deal. But throw in snow, ice, and wind chills in the single digits? Nope.... Not gonna do that. And then....

I got sick. Some nasty cold thing. It has been a drainage down the back of my throat that collects until some thick, gooey mass and then I wake up in the middle of the night, cough it all up, and then sit there unable to return to sleep. My sleep patterns are in rags. 

Not that it has mattered much. I mean, with the crap weather, I am probably not going out anyway, but all of this is making me anxious and feeling unready is not fun. I suppose I am not the only one, I only feel that I am the only one. Which is bad enough in itself.

The Raleigh may see duty as a training bike.

All this cold, wet weather also may be lasting long enough that the sandy roads South of Ames where the Gents Race course is may be soft and inconsistent, much like last year. Maybe - hopefully - not as wet at the beginning! 

The good news about that course is that it dries out in a hurry. Give it a bit of Sun and wind and things straighten right up quick. Like last year when it was a mess to start out with and then a bit of Sun and wind straightened things right out. But I expect that whatever the weather is, it won't be "good weather", because "Gents Race" and that should be explanation enough. 

I mean, yeah.....there have been good years, but they are not the norm, and I don't expect that anytime I go into this event that it will be "nice" weather. It would figure in that since I am in no shape to ride a metric century that the weather would also be sucky as well. Why not? 

I say, "Bring it!" 

At this point, I have to give up any expectations that I will be comfortable, ready, or in any modicum of "fitness", whatever that is, for this event. I will just plan on getting there, riding, and trying to have some fun. If that can happen I will be satisfied and I will consider the event a success for myself.

Shop Work Between Storms

 Last week when I got out for a ride on that wet gravel I noted that my drive train had a serious "skip" to it that felt like a worn out chain. I was thinking I still had that old gold-colored Wipperman chain on this bike, but no! I had a brand new Shimano 11 speed chain on it. 

I had forgotten I had swapped out parts. I did not use a new cassette, but an old XTR one that N.Y. Roll had downloaded to me a while back that he thought might still have some life left in it. 

Guess it did not.

Soooo.... I decided to bail on that cassette and just get a brand new one coming. I went with my old tried and true choice, a SRAM PG 1130 model that has 11-36T cassette cog range. It's not the 40T low I had with that old XTR but hey! I've been getting along fine with the 36T low all this time, so no big deal there. 

Anyway, once that gets here I should be sorted, but I am taking a look at some new chain rings and perhaps a new crankset. I still rather prefer my 36/46 cyclo-cross inspired ring set, but we will see. 

The next order of business was to get those Planet Bike Cascadia ALX fenders off my bench and on to my Raleigh Tamland 2. I really have been pretty happy with the Cascadia ALX since I made the switch several years ago now. They are a LOT more stable and quiet than the Planet Bike Freddy Fenders I used to use which were great fenders, but noisy and really floppy, especially in the rear. While the Cascadia ALX's are more expensive and heavier, I think that trade off is more than worth it. 

The Planet Bike Cascadia ALX fenders over 700 X 44mm WTB Raddler tires.

Gotta love that old Raleigh! When I told the Raleigh team in 2012 that this bike should fit 700 X 42mm tires with fenders they knocked the final product out of the park. There are not too many gravel bikes out there that can do what you are looking at here: 700c X 44mm tires on 25mm internal width rims and fenders? With clearance to spare? 

Yep. 

Now I'm set for 'slop-season' riding which is about what we've been getting here, but for the actual cold wind chills and colder days interspersed between days up into the 40's. Monday it actually rained here all day. Today? It is supposed to start snowing and we're set to see 4"-8" of heavy, wet snow. Oh joy! 

Looks like we might actually have a fat bike season ahead of us here.

Shop Work Between Storms

 Last week when I got out for a ride on that wet gravel I noted that my drive train had a serious "skip" to it that felt like a worn out chain. I was thinking I still had that old gold-colored Wipperman chain on this bike, but no! I had a brand new Shimano 11 speed chain on it. 

I had forgotten I had swapped out parts. I did not use a new cassette, but an old XTR one that N.Y. Roll had downloaded to me a while back that he thought might still have some life left in it. 

Guess it did not.

Soooo.... I decided to bail on that cassette and just get a brand new one coming. I went with my old tried and true choice, a SRAM PG 1130 model that has 11-36T cassette cog range. It's not the 40T low I had with that old XTR but hey! I've been getting along fine with the 36T low all this time, so no big deal there. 

Anyway, once that gets here I should be sorted, but I am taking a look at some new chain rings and perhaps a new crankset. I still rather prefer my 36/46 cyclo-cross inspired ring set, but we will see. 

The next order of business was to get those Planet Bike Cascadia ALX fenders off my bench and on to my Raleigh Tamland 2. I really have been pretty happy with the Cascadia ALX since I made the switch several years ago now. They are a LOT more stable and quiet than the Planet Bike Freddy Fenders I used to use which were great fenders, but noisy and really floppy, especially in the rear. While the Cascadia ALX's are more expensive and heavier, I think that trade off is more than worth it. 

The Planet Bike Cascadia ALX fenders over 700 X 44mm WTB Raddler tires.

Gotta love that old Raleigh! When I told the Raleigh team in 2012 that this bike should fit 700 X 42mm tires with fenders they knocked the final product out of the park. There are not too many gravel bikes out there that can do what you are looking at here: 700c X 44mm tires on 25mm internal width rims and fenders? With clearance to spare? 

Yep. 

Now I'm set for 'slop-season' riding which is about what we've been getting here, but for the actual cold wind chills and colder days interspersed between days up into the 40's. Monday it actually rained here all day. Today? It is supposed to start snowing and we're set to see 4"-8" of heavy, wet snow. Oh joy! 

Looks like we might actually have a fat bike season ahead of us here.

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.

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.

Gravel History With Guitar Ted: The Raleigh Tamland

My Raleigh Tamland Two, circa 2015

This story has been told, in part or in whole, in several posts throughout the years here on this blog. So, why bother now again? 

Well, this month marks ten years since that day at work when I was rudely interrupted from a busy schedule of repairs by a strange phone call. 

This post will tell the story leading up to that call, and then briefly what happened afterward. The timeline of events is kind of important from a historical point of view here. 

So, in the late 2000's I am pretty much known in the cycling industry as "that guy that is a 29"er freak". I pretty much started out on this blog being a big proponent of that wheel size for mountain biking. The industry soon took note, for whatever reasons, and I started getting shadowed here by industry people who were keeping tabs on 29"er gab going around on the web. This in turn brought me to the attention of blog and website folks who were eager to add - and I use this term cautiously - 'talent', to describe why it was that 29"ers were great, and a person that in turn could review product coherently. I guess I was on folks radar for those reasons. 

So, because of all of that, I had a "voice" that was being heard. Then I started in on what it would take to make a great all-road bike. I liked riding on gravel- a lot - and 29"ers were okay at that, road bikes were not, and cyclo cross bikes were almost- but not quite- right for the job. I wanted a better tool for the task. This led me to some brainstorming sessions with Ben Witt, at the time he was a bicycle shop owner and was really into design and philosophy of bike design in general. We had an idea, and I talked about that a lot here. 

Guess someone was listening again. Because I got a phone call......

That's the backstory in a nutshell. Essentially, then Raleigh brand manager Brian Fornes, who had dealt with me a lot on 29"er stuff, was interested in getting Raleigh on the front end of the gravel scene. At this point, in 2012, there was one bike, and one brand doing anything in the space, and that was Salsa Cycles.

My Tamland Two from Tuesday's ride

Their Warbird bike came in titanium or aluminum, and it had limited tire clearance. You could squeeze in a 40mm tire, but that was about it. When Ben and I had been brainstorming this idea for ourselves, we were wanting room for 700c X 42mm tires with fenders. The Warbird wasn't quite that bike. 

So, with the Warbird being either too expensive, (Titanium) or too stiff (Aluminum) and then not being quite where I needed it to be, I was on the search for a custom built steel frame that would have all the things I wanted. Ben suggested that maybe we could have Mike Pofahl do a couple of these "allroad" bikes for us. Then I got "The Phone Call" mentioned above. 

It was Brian Fornes. He asked if I would mind if he put me on speaker phone so the team of engineers and product managers could hear me. I agreed. (But why? What on Earth could THIS be about?) So, then the question: "If you could build a bike for gravel, what would you do? Anything is on the table as long as it is marketable. Nothing crazy. Okay? Go!"

So, I gave it to them, but I slightly modified a couple of things, thinking them too "radical" for the Raleigh folks. I wanted a 71° head angle, but I told them 71.5°. I wanted a 75mm bottom bracket drop, but I said that it had to be more than 70mm. They ended up with 72.5mm. I wanted cantilever brakes, but knowing that road and cyclo cross were rushing head long toward disc brakes, I told them that this bike had to be a disc brake bike to sell. I told them it had to have rack and fender mounts. I told them I wanted a chain hangar on the drive side seat stay. I told them I had to have 700 X 42mm tires and fenders. I said it had to have a steel fork, because at that time, carbon forks were stiff as jackhammers. I told them it should have a straight steer tube to look right. We discussed how the fork should look. I really wanted a sloping cast crown, but a uni-crown was more cost effective, and it was to be a curved fork blade design, not a straight bladed fork.  I suggested they use something from the Reynolds catalog for frame tubes. I suggested 853, but they used 631 instead because it was better for the design. I wanted a more traditional look, not severely sloped in the top tube. Yeah, I think that's about it.... 

And then I waited, and I put off that custom bike, because "What if?" What if Raleigh does this, and the shop I worked at was a Raleigh dealer, so..... 

My Tamland Two, bone stock, right after I bought it in 2014.

Well, obviously I got it. But that time between 2012 and 2014 was a time of anticipation and wonder. I remember that the bikes broke cover in a cycling mag in the Summer of 2013. I was intrigued by what I read, but the details weren't available. Did they do anything I asked of them? I had no idea. 

Then I went to Interbike in 2013. I made a hasty path to the Raleigh booth where Brian Fornes met me and asked me if I had seen the Tamland yet. I said no, I hadn't, and what, if anything, did Raleigh use of my suggestions? 

Brian instantly retorted, "They used all of it!" (With the mods mentioned above)

I was horrified! I actually replied, "Well, I guess if it doesn't sell then it's my fault!", and I really felt responsible for the success of the bike in that moment. However; Brian assuaged my fears by telling me that the first run of the Tamland had sold out to the dealers, so at least they believed in the bike! But it still had to sell off the dealer showroom floors, and it did pretty well, from what I understand.

The reason, I think, was that many had hoped that Salsa would have come out with a steel Warbird, but they didn't. The Tamland, being Reynolds 631 steel, kind of was 'that' bike in 2014. And also considering the fact that in 2014, you could buy a Warbird, or this, and that was about it for gravel. At least from a well-known brand. (The Vaya notwithstanding, and that's another curious tale I've already written about here.)

The Raleigh with 650B X 47mm tires and fenders

I ended up buying mine at shop discount, but it was still almost 2G at the time. Many who understood what was going on thought that Raleigh should have given me one, but keep in mind, Raleigh couldn't keep these in stock at first. So, to insure that I would actually get one, I bought one. Because, let's be honest, how many times do you get to have any influence at all on a bicycle design sold at retail in a bicycle shop? I'm going to say, almost never, is the probability for that happening at all, never mind ever again. 

Regrets? Yeah, I have a few. I probably should have told Raleigh to make the Tamland a through axle bike. I should have asked for fork mounts for a rack, or water bottles. But I was pretty pleased with how it came out. And, to boot, it actually works the way I envisioned it to work. Bonus!

Afterward the wave of gravel bikes came, and now almost no one ever would even think about Raleigh as a company selling a gravel bike. Brian left the company, then they went consumer direct, way before they should have, and whatever has become of Raleigh is sort of a mystery now. But the legacy of the Tamland lives on in that it set a standard for design that many, many gravel bikes use to this day. Big tire clearances, (I can almost run 29" X 2.0's in the Tamland), 650B compatibility, the geometry, and most of the mounting options are all things today's gravel bikes share with the Tamland.

Gravel History With Guitar Ted: The Raleigh Tamland

My Raleigh Tamland Two, circa 2015

This story has been told, in part or in whole, in several posts throughout the years here on this blog. So, why bother now again? 

Well, this month marks ten years since that day at work when I was rudely interrupted from a busy schedule of repairs by a strange phone call. 

This post will tell the story leading up to that call, and then briefly what happened afterward. The timeline of events is kind of important from a historical point of view here. 

So, in the late 2000's I am pretty much known in the cycling industry as "that guy that is a 29"er freak". I pretty much started out on this blog being a big proponent of that wheel size for mountain biking. The industry soon took note, for whatever reasons, and I started getting shadowed here by industry people who were keeping tabs on 29"er gab going around on the web. This in turn brought me to the attention of blog and website folks who were eager to add - and I use this term cautiously - 'talent', to describe why it was that 29"ers were great, and a person that in turn could review product coherently. I guess I was on folks radar for those reasons. 

So, because of all of that, I had a "voice" that was being heard. Then I started in on what it would take to make a great all-road bike. I liked riding on gravel- a lot - and 29"ers were okay at that, road bikes were not, and cyclo cross bikes were almost- but not quite- right for the job. I wanted a better tool for the task. This led me to some brainstorming sessions with Ben Witt, at the time he was a bicycle shop owner and was really into design and philosophy of bike design in general. We had an idea, and I talked about that a lot here. 

Guess someone was listening again. Because I got a phone call......

That's the backstory in a nutshell. Essentially, then Raleigh brand manager Brian Fornes, who had dealt with me a lot on 29"er stuff, was interested in getting Raleigh on the front end of the gravel scene. At this point, in 2012, there was one bike, and one brand doing anything in the space, and that was Salsa Cycles.

My Tamland Two from Tuesday's ride

Their Warbird bike came in titanium or aluminum, and it had limited tire clearance. You could squeeze in a 40mm tire, but that was about it. When Ben and I had been brainstorming this idea for ourselves, we were wanting room for 700c X 42mm tires with fenders. The Warbird wasn't quite that bike. 

So, with the Warbird being either too expensive, (Titanium) or too stiff (Aluminum) and then not being quite where I needed it to be, I was on the search for a custom built steel frame that would have all the things I wanted. Ben suggested that maybe we could have Mike Pofahl do a couple of these "allroad" bikes for us. Then I got "The Phone Call" mentioned above. 

It was Brian Fornes. He asked if I would mind if he put me on speaker phone so the team of engineers and product managers could hear me. I agreed. (But why? What on Earth could THIS be about?) So, then the question: "If you could build a bike for gravel, what would you do? Anything is on the table as long as it is marketable. Nothing crazy. Okay? Go!"

So, I gave it to them, but I slightly modified a couple of things, thinking them too "radical" for the Raleigh folks. I wanted a 71° head angle, but I told them 71.5°. I wanted a 75mm bottom bracket drop, but I said that it had to be more than 70mm. They ended up with 72.5mm. I wanted cantilever brakes, but knowing that road and cyclo cross were rushing head long toward disc brakes, I told them that this bike had to be a disc brake bike to sell. I told them it had to have rack and fender mounts. I told them I wanted a chain hangar on the drive side seat stay. I told them I had to have 700 X 42mm tires and fenders. I said it had to have a steel fork, because at that time, carbon forks were stiff as jackhammers. I told them it should have a straight steer tube to look right. We discussed how the fork should look. I really wanted a sloping cast crown, but a uni-crown was more cost effective, and it was to be a curved fork blade design, not a straight bladed fork.  I suggested they use something from the Reynolds catalog for frame tubes. I suggested 853, but they used 631 instead because it was better for the design. I wanted a more traditional look, not severely sloped in the top tube. Yeah, I think that's about it.... 

And then I waited, and I put off that custom bike, because "What if?" What if Raleigh does this, and the shop I worked at was a Raleigh dealer, so..... 

My Tamland Two, bone stock, right after I bought it in 2014.

Well, obviously I got it. But that time between 2012 and 2014 was a time of anticipation and wonder. I remember that the bikes broke cover in a cycling mag in the Summer of 2013. I was intrigued by what I read, but the details weren't available. Did they do anything I asked of them? I had no idea. 

Then I went to Interbike in 2013. I made a hasty path to the Raleigh booth where Brian Fornes met me and asked me if I had seen the Tamland yet. I said no, I hadn't, and what, if anything, did Raleigh use of my suggestions? 

Brian instantly retorted, "They used all of it!" (With the mods mentioned above)

I was horrified! I actually replied, "Well, I guess if it doesn't sell then it's my fault!", and I really felt responsible for the success of the bike in that moment. However; Brian assuaged my fears by telling me that the first run of the Tamland had sold out to the dealers, so at least they believed in the bike! But it still had to sell off the dealer showroom floors, and it did pretty well, from what I understand.

The reason, I think, was that many had hoped that Salsa would have come out with a steel Warbird, but they didn't. The Tamland, being Reynolds 631 steel, kind of was 'that' bike in 2014. And also considering the fact that in 2014, you could buy a Warbird, or this, and that was about it for gravel. At least from a well-known brand. (The Vaya notwithstanding, and that's another curious tale I've already written about here.)

The Raleigh with 650B X 47mm tires and fenders

I ended up buying mine at shop discount, but it was still almost 2G at the time. Many who understood what was going on thought that Raleigh should have given me one, but keep in mind, Raleigh couldn't keep these in stock at first. So, to insure that I would actually get one, I bought one. Because, let's be honest, how many times do you get to have any influence at all on a bicycle design sold at retail in a bicycle shop? I'm going to say, almost never, is the probability for that happening at all, never mind ever again. 

Regrets? Yeah, I have a few. I probably should have told Raleigh to make the Tamland a through axle bike. I should have asked for fork mounts for a rack, or water bottles. But I was pretty pleased with how it came out. And, to boot, it actually works the way I envisioned it to work. Bonus!

Afterward the wave of gravel bikes came, and now almost no one ever would even think about Raleigh as a company selling a gravel bike. Brian left the company, then they went consumer direct, way before they should have, and whatever has become of Raleigh is sort of a mystery now. But the legacy of the Tamland lives on in that it set a standard for design that many, many gravel bikes use to this day. Big tire clearances, (I can almost run 29" X 2.0's in the Tamland), 650B compatibility, the geometry, and most of the mounting options are all things today's gravel bikes share with the Tamland.

Choosing

Could it be the Tamland Two?

 So, a disclaimer first: I have a LOT of bicycles that are pretty nice and this entire post is probably not very relevant to many of you readers out there. So, understand that I have nothing to worry about in terms of "what bike to use". I have what many would say is a 'first world problem' I fully understand that. But I am writing a blog post and this is the subject, so....

Gents Race. It is coming up real soon, and I have not many miles in my legs yet. Well.....that's not news. generally I don't have much for miles by this point in the year due to event planning. That is not an excuse this year. 

So what? Well, this plays into what I want to go with for my Gents Race rig, and mind you, this is the last Gents Race that they are putting on. Or so they say. I mean, they could pull a 'Tom Brady' on us all and have another Gents Race next season. Who knows? I have no other option but to believe them now. I guess I'd better be careful what I put my faith in, right? 

Or it could be this one.....

Anyway, I was originally thinking of pulling out my Twin Six Standard Rando v2, but..... It is a single speed and riding that with geared riders in an event where you are supposed to be sticking together may not work so well. Then there is the highly likely possibility of strong winds the day of the event. I've ridden in this event many years and can think of maybe one- maybe two years that it was not really windy. Some years it was ridiculously windy. A single speed would be no good. 

Not when I'm not really ready to grind out 65 miles, or whatever they have for a course there, in poor conditions. I'd need to feel more confident than I do with my fitness to go single speed at this point.

...or maybe this bicycle.

Which is kind of a bummer for me because I think I rode the first one on my Black Mountain Cycles when I first got it and that was when it was still a single speed bike. I thought maybe I'd grab that one for old time's sake, but yeah..... Single speed. 

I could do it anyway, but I don't have to when I have other gravel bikes. Back in 2011, the BMC was my gravel bike. As in- the only one. I know we forget sometimes, but a specific bicycle for gravel did not exist when I did the first Gent's Race in 2011. 

Now? Pfffft! You cannot turn around and not knock over a gravel bike. They are everywhere! And I have.....gulp.....five gravel bikes! Five? Well, add in my Fargo, my Pofahl, and my old Karate Monkey to that list, and maybe even my fat bikes, because all are up for gravel use in my mind. But 'gravel specific'? Well then- Five. That's nuts! 

Since two of them are dedicated to single speed use now, I''ll choose from my three geared gravel bikes. Any one of them would do fine. Any one of them would be an advantage to me in my sorry state of fitness right now. So, don't go feeling sorry for me. I have it covered, and I am privileged, I get it. But I still have to do one thing.

Choose.