This my friends is a bike I’ve long lusted after but never been able to afford and/or justify owning – a Moulton TSR22 and it’s brand new and all mine 😊😊😊😊 These somewhat (alright ‘very’) niche machines have changed very little in their overall design since their inception in the late 1970’s and are still handmade in comparatively small numbers in the Moulton factory in Bradford on Avon. I’m not really going to go into the history or reasoning behind the very distinctive and different design, there’s plenty of information on the very comprehensive Moulton website if you’re interested at: http://www.moultonbicycles.co.uk , but what I will cover is briefly why I’ve always wanted one and more importantly how this very different take on two wheeled locomotion actually rides, and yes I did buy it without ever having ridden one, but I just love to live dangerously……

First off with a price tag of over £2500 (and this is about their cheapest model!) the Moulton is a ridiculously expensive bike considering the sum of its parts. Ok, its got a handmade steel frame, and even though the frame is obviously a bit more complex to make than your average big brand chuck it together mass produced robot welded offerings…… they only make it in one size and they’ve been knocking them out or over forty years so they should have the production pretty well down by now. The components are nothing really special with a Shimano 105 cable operated drivetrain and pretty cheap looking Tekro branded V brakes, but at least because it’s 105 and not a more expensive Shimano offering you don’t have to worry about the crankset unexpectedly imploding at an inconvenient moment 😳. The finishing kit is similarly ok but nothing exceptional with old school alloy GB branded bars and a pretty uncomfortable Fizik saddle, so why so expensive then? Well because it’s pretty exclusive and rare and saps like me that really want one will pay for the privilege is my only real conclusion. Even secondhand they hold their valve really quite remarkably with over twenty year old ‘well loved’ examples still commanding strong prices on eBay and similar sites.

So what’s the appeal? The rarity? the exclusivity? the looks? the knowing nods from fellow aficionados? or is it the best kept secret in cycling because its actually rides better than a conventional bike? Did Dr Alex Moulton actually unlock the secret cycling sauce 40 years ago after all but its just that hardly anybody noticed?I can’t really say for certain or really articulate exactly why I’ve really wanted one for years, but I was definitely hoping as I loaded my shiny new steed into the boot of my car that I hadn’t made a very expensive mistake.

Right I’ve done just over a 100km on the Moulton now, enough to get a feel for the bike and give some first impressions. Have I made a mistake and am I in anyway disappointed? No, most definitely not.. ‘phew’… this is a machine I’m absolutely loving so far. It’s not perfect and it does have a few foibles, but overall I’m happier than a mouse trapped behind a Tesco cheese counter.

Let’s cover the good bits first. Right off the bat this is a very distinctive looking machine, which you are either going to love or hate in the looks department. It might be my inner engineer coming out in me but I’m firmly in the loving the way it looks camp. It certainly gets you noticed by your fellow cyclists when your riding it, I’ve never had so many double takes and stares when I’m out on the road, and I’m pretty sure its the bike not my chiselled calves which have been responsible 😂. Older riders know what it is and seem to appreciate it, with comments usually along the lines of ‘haven’t seen one of those for years’ or ‘wow I didn’t realise those where still in production’. Younger brothers and sisters in lycra just seem a bit bemused by it, with one young lad pausing along side me on his carbon fibre super steed to tell be it was pretty fast ‘for a folder’ before zooming off into the distance.

Yes, yes, yes, but how does it actually ride I hear at least 3 people asking? Smooth and supple is the phrase that first springs to mind. The leading link front fork is the star of the show, it does a great job of ironing out the smaller imperfections of our pretty knackered UK roads. Those nasty little badly patched potholes and rough bits of tarmac surface which seem to comprise 90% of the road surface on the minor country lanes I usually ride on get dispatched with contempt on the TSR, where as on my normal road bike I’d be getting shaken to bits through the bars or constantly having to make minor course corrections at speed to miss the worst of them. Don’t get me wrong, the Moulton’s suspension doesn’t make you invulnerable, hit a decent pothole or lump in the road and you still very much feel it, but overall the bounce front and back does a great job at keeping my fillings firmly in my teeth.

The third big thing I like about the TSR is something I wasn’t really expecting the bike to excel at, it handles really well. You can really Chuck it into a corner, crank it over and the bike changes direction faster than a terrier going for a postman’s ankles. I guessing it’s a combination of a pretty steep looking head angle, a comparatively long stem and a riding position that (at least the way I’ve set it up) pushes quite a lot of weight through the front tyre. Anyway it makes it fun with a capital F. There is of course a bit of a trade off in high speed stability but once you get used to the slightly twitchy steering it’s fine.

Ok, so what’s not to like? well it’s a bit noisy when on the move, especially if it’s a bit windy. My second big ride on the TSR was a rather wind swept 70km loop around the wild plains of Cheshire. Slightly disconcertingly you can actually hear the wind whistling through the ladder type space frame tubes and cables as your riding along, it’s not a huge issue but it does make you wonder what the noise is the first time you hear it. In addition the cables and their connectors which allow the bike to separate in two rattle around a bit as well and on my bike one of them has been positioned a bit too close to one of the frame tubes which results in an annoying rattle, this is something moving the cable joiner will fix and is most definitely on my to do list.

The biggest issue is the weight, the Moulton is not a light bike. It weighs in with pedals at almost 12.5 kgs and when the road turns upwards you can most certainly feel the difference. In comparison my Ti framed Sabbath road bike even with its distinctively mid spec components and pretty heavy Fulcrum wheelset comes in at just under 9 kgs on the scales. The Moulton is closer to my big steel framed full suspension Cotic MTB which comes in at 14.5 kgs. In addition if you get out of the saddle to try and push the bike up a climb the suspension ‘bobs’ quite a lot especially the front fork which you can feel robbing you of a few vital (especially if you’re me) watts. The best way to climb on this bike in in the saddle and smoothly spinning up the climbs. It wouldn’t be my choice of steed if I was spending a week in France climbing the Col’s of leTour, but its not so much of an issue on the cow poo infested lanes of Cheshire in the UK, if I lived in the Lake District or somewhere similarly hilly it might be more of a problem….. or I could just get fitter I suppose, that would definitely help!😂 What does help you to spin up the hills is the 10-32 cassette that comes as standard so even pretty steep climbs can be dispatched by just sitting and twiddling the pedals, but be aware – if your on a group ride or club run with lots of folk on normal road bikes you will probably get dropped on any significant climbs.

So in conclusion I’m a very happy rider, the Moulton TSR22 is everything I hoped it would be, a distinctive and fun bike to ride that’s going to keep tempting me to ride it this winter when I’d usually be tucked up inside riding the turbo trainer on Strava. If you’re thinking of taking the plunge go for it – I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.