Bikes Of 2024: Raleigh Tamland Two

 It's another late December here on the blog. You know what that means? Yep! Another round of my bikes I used in 2024. 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 before the rear wheel failed!

Well, ten years of the Raleigh Tamland Two and it still is getting plenty of ride time, despite its age. This is the bike I helped design in 2012 with advice I gave Raleigh and was the bike I was going to retire a couple of years ago, but I just couldn't get it to happen. 

Why? 

Because it is still a relevant bike in 2024 and with a couple of minor details updated, it would be bang-on for 2025. Mainly those details are things that would generally be seen as deal killers for some, but not for performance reasons. First is the reason I almost retired the bike, and that has to do with axle standards. The Tamland I have is quick release based. Getting wheels which utilize convertible axle caps is not as common as it once was. 

I started out 2024 with some carbon wheels on this bike.

But a pair of Irwin Cycling Carbon Aeon 35's I had would support a switch to quick release hubs, so I converted that wheel set in 2023 and started out 2024 with those wheels. However; when I experienced some weird drive train issues, I first blamed the free hub on the Irwin wheels. I switched out to a set of DT Swiss hubbed Roval wheels I got from Grannygear, and that seemed to solve the issue, until it didn't. 

Then I found the real reason I was having trouble. It was a worn out crank set. So, I replaced that crank set with a completely new one, because it was cheaper than buying separate rings, and that would have been it but for a new problem. The Roval rear wheel starting unwinding its spokes. Uggh!

Sooo.... Back to the Irwins? Well, not so fast! I had taken that wheel set apart to investigate the free hub, which I had originally thought was the problem, and in the process I misplaced the axle end cap. 

Doh!

I kind of liked this look, but that went away for a bit

So, I ended up using an older wheel I had built up as a place holder until I got the DT Swiss hubbed Rovals rebuilt with new nipples. More on that in a bit...

The other thing that the Tamland has which might be seen as a deterrent in 2025 to owning this bike is the straight 1 1/8th steer tube. But that has already been addressed with the addition of the Fyxation carbon fork with those mounts for bottles, and that addresses the third issue with the original Tamlands which was the lack of bottle mounts. There are only two native to this 2014 model. 

Oh! And I added a carbon post with a white saddle this year, just to be fashionable. No other reasoning for that! 

In the future changes department I will be reinstalling the aforementioned Roval wheel. Other than that? I think with about every critical drive train bit replaced I won't have to do much else.

Brown Season: Crossing Paths

Escape Route: Cedar River Bike Path with new 11th St. Bridge in background

 We went through a BIG weather change this past week. It was 80°F on Monday and Tuesday and Friday it was in the 40's. In between it was massively windy. It also rained a lot, for the first time in a long time, so all those days were not really conducive to getting out into the country. But Friday......oh my!

The winds were mere whispers and the Sun was out. So, I waited until it warmed up a bit, dressed head to toe in Twin Six gear, and hit the bike paths and streets to get over to Foulk Road and hit up those short Level B sections and then do my "Southern Black Hawk County" route off of that. 

The Cedar River at Evansdale

The Cedar Valley Nature Trail is getting repaved.

Of course, with all the winds we had the leaves are mostly off the trees now. Only some random trees here and there are showing colors. And the oaks, which hold their leaves most of the Winter here, they still show off their rusty-brown hue. 

McKellar Road

The Level B section of Weiden Road

So, I wasn't very sure how I'd find things on the dirt roads. We had a LOT of rainfall on Wednesday evening into Thursday morning. Would it be too muddy? I was betting that it would not, since this was the first significant rain we've had since August. I was right in my guess, as only a few big puddles remained. 

But one of those puddles spanned the original tread of the roadway at one point. Vehicular traffic had made a wider spot in the roadway to get around this, but I decided to try and see if I could wade through on the bike. And........I failed!

I didn't fall over, thankfully, but I went in way over my ankles when I dabbed with both feet so I had soaked shoes for the remainder of the ride. Oh well!  But that wasn't the only thing that went haywire at that point. 

I was riding the good ol' Tamland Two. (Shot pre-mud  puddle here)

There were scraping noises big time and I immediately thought it was the brakes, because this was some pretty silty water and I had gone in hub deep. But after trying all my tricks to clear the calipers I was still hearing a random, rotational squawk and I decided to stop at the end of the road to check the Tamland over. 

I found that it was coming from the crank set, which was alarming because it was new. But upon further inspection I found that the Third Eye chain watcher gizmo was the culprit. It must have moved ever so slightly and was juuuuust kissing the inner part of the big chain ring in spots. A few minutes with a multi-tool later and I had that sussed out. I will say that a rubbing chain watcher can make a horrendous noise! I wasn't aware that was possible until Friday!

Foulk Road

After a swing through Washburn, Iowa, I hit Foulk Road just West of there and turned Left. Then I ran into dog trouble. First was at that old lonely house on a hill just South of Washburn Road and on the West side of Foulk. That house was a shambles for years but has recently been renovated and someone is living there now. They have some terrier breed, possibly a Yorkie by the looks of it, that was tenacious! It came at me three separate times. Little ankle-biter! 

The next dog I have had a run-in with before. It's a Labradoodle and it lives on an acreage on the West side of Foulk Road just South of Schrock Road after the farm on the same side. It won't let you by until its owner comes out and drags it away. I'll tell ya, if your dog won't heel when you yell at it, that pretty much tells me you do not have control over it. Not the dog's fault, by any means. 

Looking North up Hess Road

Somehow these trees managed to hold on to their leaves this past week.

The roads were freshly graveled if traveling North/South. The East/West roads seemed to have a finer gauge gravel, and they were mostly covered, but easier to handle. Of course, I don't have a Redshift Sports ShockStop stem on the Tamland out of vanity because it would ruin my red/white/blue color scheme. Silly me.....

I sure could have used that stem though and I was regretting being so fashion conscious a few times on the ride. Especially going the one mile North on Hammond that I rode. That was brutal! 

North on Hammond's super-fresh chunky goodness.

Ansborough looking North.

I almost never meet other gravel riders as I ride around Black Hawk County. Last time I can remember running across someone was back in 2020 when I came across Tom on this same route, coincidentally. But Friday I did see another rider, and it was someone I did not ever expect to see on a gravel ride alone by themselves. It was Cindy, a long-time road rider and a former customer back in my bike shop days. 

She stopped and we chatted for a bit. She was heading out and I was coming back toward town. She did not much like my report on the roads! But she  was determined to ride every gravel road in Black Hawk County, much like what I did in 2020. Looks like I was not the only crazy person running around trying to bag every gravel road in the county! I hope she completes her quest. 

Three hours and twenty minutes time for the loop today including stops. Not bad. I'll take it.

They Come In Threes: An Update

About a week or so ago now I wrote about three problems I had that came up all about the same time. Now all three problems have been addressed with at least temporary solutions. I thought I would share this update with you all to bring you up to speed here at Guitar Ted Headquarters.

First up is the State Bicycle Co. Monster Fork v2. If you read the latest review update on this you already know that I was able to determine that a flipped brake mount solved the issue. So, that's been ridden and a review update/final word will be forthcoming. 

Just a quick note in case you missed it: I am still having an issue with the I-9 hub coming out of this fork, but a HED wheel goes in and out like a champ. I'll test more wheels I have here to see if anything else hangs up like the I-9 hub does.

The Shogun's bell is back on. I managed to get it on the stem and keep the bell working. It took a bit of a shim to keep the edge of the brass bell off the lock nut for the head set. A short piece of rubber strip did the trick and I was able to get the bell's edge to clear by a few millimeters or so. 

Speaking of shims - I had to shim the brake lever as well. Turns out that is how Velo Orange wants you to do things. There were aluminum shims of two different thicknesses in the box. Thankfully I had not thrown away the box!

 Now the Tamland Two got a different fix than I was thinking it would. The DT Swiss hub/Roval rim rear wheel had been coming apart. So, I had intended on going back to the Irwin Cycles Carbon Aon 35 wheels but somewhere along the line I had misplaced one of the quick release end caps. So, after trying to contact Irwin and getting no reply, I decided to try another avenue. 

I had a wheel set I had built quite some time ago now that I had never used. Actually, it was a different wheel set before I rebuilt it. Here's the long story...

I had gotten payment for an advertisement on my old 29"er site, I think it was, in the form of a wheelset for a tubular tire set up. The thought being that there might be a tubular gravel tire coming out. The tire never materialized, so instead of having a brand new wheel set I'd never use, I blew it apart and rebuilt the wheels using a set of Bontrager RXL Scandium aluminum rims. While the rims were lightweight, and tubeless ready, they were rim brake rims. But at least now I had a wheel set I could use for......something. 

Well, that something is the Tamland. I only have the rear set up now, but at least the bike is rideable. 

More soon.....Oh! And have a safe Halloween, if you observe that tonight.

Country Views: Dusty Daze

Escape Route: Martin Luther King Jr BLVD bike path

It seems that this year will be a year book-ended by dust. We started out very dry, in a severe drought, by the way, then it flip-flopped to very wet. Now it hasn't rained in any significant amount for almost two months and everything is turning brown. The dust on the gravel roads is at about the worst levels I've seen in a while. That's saying something since we've had two and a half years of very dry conditions with a mini-break this past Summer with a few other wet spots here and there. 

The warm temperatures and every plant dying and drying down doesn't help matters. But since it has been so nice, I am still riding in Summer kit. Usually by this point I've been in tights and a vest or wind shell a few times. 

This past Friday was breezy out of the East-Southeast, so I grabbed the Tamland Two and headed out East on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard on the bike path there. Then it was out to the country on Newell Road.

The low angle of the Sun makes it look late but in reality it was only about 2:00pm when I took this image.

Many fields have received their Fall "hair cut".

I'm not sure what it was but the wind didn't really get to me as much as it does sometimes. Why that was I cannot say, but it felt good just to cruise into the wind at a steady pace. Now, I won't lie, it was great to turn out of the wind on Pilot Grove Road heading South. I hadn't been down that way in a while either, so it was nice to get reacquainted with the scenery.

Lounging bovines.

The corn harvest is just getting cranked up now.

I found it rather odd this day to not find anyone harvesting. I know it has been a kind of touch-and-go situation with how dry it is. There was one big field fire that destroyed a cornfield already in Iowa and several counties have instituted "burn bans" in the open due to how dry it is. 

Check out the dust hanging in the air after a vehicle had passed by this place.

You could literally see dust moving through the air in the form of clouds being driven by the steady, strong wind. My nose was getting gritty inside, and whenever a vehicle passed the dust was so thick it blinded me momentarily. Then if I was going East-West, the dust kind of hovered over the road for a bit. The wind didn't really move it off, and I was amazed by that since this was no small breeze blowing. 

A motorcyclist traveling South on McStay Road.

This was taken several minutes after I was dusted by a passing vehicle.

I figured to leave the dust behind South of Elk Run and get on pavement but it was about the least of my worries as I discovered that some of my non-driveside rear wheel spokes were unwinding themselves and causing some bad wobble. I was quite concerned, having several miles to go to get back home, but I nursed it along and eventually made it back in one piece. 

I guess I'll have to try and test the Irwin Cycles wheel set and see if it holds up, like I believe it will. Meanwhile I have  a wheel set repair to address. 

Is It Fixed?

New crank set: Will it "fix" the problems?

Last week I mentioned that I had finally diagnosed the issues with my Tamland Two. The crank set rings had been on the bike for a decade (!) and it was cheaper to buy a complete crank set rather than buy two chain rings. However; the narrative in the comments was all about crank length as I mentioned that I had ordered a 170mm length crank set. 

Well, the crank set came in and I decided that maybe I should try just the crank set first.The chain measured good yet and the cassette was put on at the same time as the chain. If the chain rings were the issue, the skipping of the chain over the teeth would most likely be eliminated with the new crank set. 

After installation a short neighborhood test ride revealed nothing but smooth going. So, a longer gravel ride was in store, and it happened on Saturday. 

The good news? I had no issues. Yet.... I'm not 100% convinced and more riding will be necessary before I am ready to say this is fixed. However; I will say this new crank shifts really good and smoothly. Just from that standpoint alone the change was worth it. 

Soooooo..... What about that crank length? You know, I'm not sure there is anything there. Not that there couldn't be, but again - I need to ride the bike more. All I can say now is the bike worked the way it was supposed to work.

I don't have power meters nor any technical equipment which would let me know if the shorter crank was better or worse. Maybe I had a good day Saturday and felt okay, or maybe it was something else. Actually, it was something else. It was the heat and wind! I don't know if you can really hang your hat on a crank length thing. Sure, bio-mechanically your knees may be happier, or maybe you adapted. Humans are good at adapting, by the way. Really good at it. 

Whatever. I'll keep riding these for a while and see. Meanwhile, I'm a lot more excited about how the bike is working as far as the drive train goes. No doubt, you readers are a lot more interested in crank length. Well, judging from the last post on this you all were seemingly all about that life. 

Stay tuned....

Country Views: Harvest Begins

Escape Route: Sergeant Road Trail.

Saturday is a rare day for me to get in a ride anymore these days. I have to work at the Cedar Valley Bicycle Collectivc until noon. Then I go home, eat lunch with my family (very important to me) and then generally we go grocery shopping in the afternoon, and well, that pretty much shoots the day for riding. 

But last Saturday I had freedom in the afternoon to get out for a ride. It was the last "official day" of Summer, it was 90+ degrees, and the winds were gusting up to 30mph out of the Southwest. Oh well! You take the chances you get. 

So, I saddled up on the recently fixed up Raleigh Tamland Two and headed Southwest on the Sergeant Road Bike Trail. Hot, big wind, and lots of Sun is a recipe for me to get overheated fast, so I tried to throttle it back and spin. It seemed to be working fine until I got a few miles out on the gravel and the relentless wind was working me pretty hard. 

I wasn't out into the country long before I noted that everything looked very dry, there were a LOT of ag tread tracks in the gravel, and that a soybean field I was passing by had been harvested. Then I saw it.....

A combine harvesting soybeans South of Waterloo.

Grain being loaded into a semi-tractor trailer.

I decided to try going a mile or so Eastward and then back South, then East, and maybe shorter stints into the wind would extend the ride. I decided to get to the corner of Ansborough and Washburn Road before making a call on the ride distance. Unfortunately I was just not feeling well enough to crack off another hour plus in that heat and wind. Plus I was being conscientious of the harvest as big trucks and machinery were everywhere in fields where I was riding. That and dust was bad enough. Getting dusted by an 18 wheeler wouldn't have been much fun. In more ways than one!

The wind was about to rip flags off flag poles.

The rate at which everything has dried up this year is amazing.

Turning back North was pretty awesome! However; it was still hot, and the drier wind made it feel like I was racing a hot and windy DK200 from back in the day. That heat and drier air just sucks the life out of you. 

I had to stop where I found shade on the road twice just to cool down some. It was quite the last day of Summer, and now we've flipped a switch and gone quite a bit cooler with rain and winds out of the Northwest instead of the Southwest. Sometimes the weather matches the calendar, I guess! 

More soon on the Tamland, by the way. Stay tuned.....

Country Views: Memorial Day Ride

Escape Route: West 2nd Street

The recent rains relented and on Memorial Day it was supposed to be clear and decent, as far as weather was concerned, at least until early afternoon. So, I figured that after feeding the cats I should hop into some clothes for cycling and head out for the countryside. 

It was very Sunny with little to no clouds in the sky. But it was cool and there was a Northwest breeze. I ended up wearing a long sleeved wool jersey and my wind vest. I think it was in the mid-50's when I left. And I left at 7:30am! Pretty early for me. 

I grabbed the Raleigh Tamland Two for this ride as I needed to wrap up my look at the Top Shelf Bar and get some more time with the Velo Orange Burrito Supreme Bag. Plus I used the Camp Snap camera on the ride. (Images will appear in another post) So, a little business to attend to on this ride as well.

I chose to ride in Eastern Black Hawk County despite the fact that this would require me to ride into a headwind on the way back into town. I was tired of riding North of Waterloo. So I went out on the Martin Luther King Jr. bike trail and hopped over to Newell to get to gravel.

"Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sun, but mama, that's where the fun is."

Headin' East on Newell Road.

Now we've had so much rain our rivers and streams are out of their banks. Quite the turnaround from a month ago when every small stream was dry and lakes and ponds were dangerously low. There was water standing in fields and yards of farmsteads everywhere out East of Waterloo. 

Standing water in this field may hurt crops if this field was planted before the rains.

Crops have emerged in many fields and they are turning the fields green.

Along with all the rain, the gravel roads have firmed up and cleaned up to the point that everything is fast and smooth rolling. I was using Donnelly USH tires, a tire way ahead of its time, by the way, and I was flying Eastward. No chunky gravel to slow me down! I was loving this difference from what we had to ride on for the past two years. 

Flags were standing out at nearly every farmstead I passed by.

A stop at New Barclay Cemetery

I decided to roll on Eastward to New Barclay Cemetery to see what, if anything, they may have going on for Memorial Day. I figured on then riding South and then back West on Young Road. But first, a moment of silence to honor those who gave their all for this country.....

After snapping off a few images, I stood still to take some time to reflect on the matter of Memorial Day. The wind gently lifted the US flags and I could hear them flapping in the breeze. The pine trees, standing like sentinels, whispered as the air moved through their needles. A lone mourning dove softly cooed. 

I stood frozen for a moment. I won't hide that a tear rolled down my cheek. 

Then it was time to move along.

ah.....Maybe I should get a move-on!

Those clouds and the slightly stronger winds said, "Rain is coming soon!"

I suddenly noted that there were clouds on the Western horizon. It wasn't supposed to rain until afternoon, but this looked like rain was coming sooner than that. I figured I'd best be heading back to Waterloo. The wind seemed to pick up too. Not good signs here for me! 

Looks like almost two inches there.

I had to find a spot for a nature break. I saw a line of taller trees along what looked like an old fenceline ahead which was far away from any surrounding farms. I decided to hop off there and do what I had to do. 

I noted what looked to be a rain gauge on a fence post. I decided to check it out before I left that spot. I had heard from some rural residents that they had seen five inches in a 24 hour period earlier last week. This gauge had nearly two inches of rain water standing in it. I don't know if it is checked regularly, but I assume so, since if it had not been checked regularly it would be overflowing with just the rain we've had in the past week. 

Some fields haven't been planted at all. It may be getting too late now....

By the time I got just South of Raymond, it didn't look promising!

I ended up zig-zagging my way back toward Waterloo instead of riding straight to Young Road and facing a six to seven mile slog into a stiff Northwest wind. This helped keep my legs fresher and my mind more positive. Plus I got on some roads I haven't been on in a while because of my angular approach. 

Another planting rig. It's almost time for these to be put away for the year.

The Cedar River looking quite full once again.

By the time I got to the Eastern fringes of Waterloo I could feel occasional drops of rain in the wind. Then it was a full-on sprinkle. By this time I was within a mile from the house and it was 10:30am in the morning. I ended up with just over three hours out and a nice ride before the rains came back. 

Ironically about an hour later we had bright Sunshine again. But clouds ended up coming back and we had showers throughout the remainder of the day. It was nice to know that I had gotten a ride in during the nicest part of the day. 

The next ride? Hopefully in Kansas. Stay tuned....