Raleigh Tokul 3 a great place to start

Back when I got started mountain biking, there weren’t a whole lot of choices to make. You got a diamond-framed, flat top tubed, rigid bike with 21 gears and 26 inch wheels that were about two inches wide and you pointed it at the nearest patch of dirt and started pedaling. Specialized and Trek were your major choices, though there were certainly options from Ritchey, Gary Fisher, Breezer and others if you knew where to look. There weren’t people to tell you that you couldn’t ride a given bike a given way because you just went out and rode.

Things have gotten a little more complicated.

There’s a wide breadth of wheel sizes, tire widths, frame sizes, suspension travel, riding styles and a wealth of opinions about what you should ride and where you should ride it.

Someone joining our sport would be legitimately alienated.

Really, though, all you need is a hardtail, and the Raleigh Tokul 3 is a great one to start with.

More on the bike in a second, but let me paraphrase my hardtail manifesto from a few years back:

1. Dollar for dollar, you get more when you buy a hardtail. Suspension linkages (and the licensing thereof), shocks, associated tubing, bushings and the like just cost more money.
2. Hardtails are lighter. Linkages, shocks and tubes add weight that you have to carry up the trail.
3. You’ll be a better rider. When you ride a hardtail, you learn to move your body around to weight and unweight the bike and learn how to handle obstacles.
4. Your energy goes up the hill, not into a shock. Even a garden variety hardtail can climb like an excited mountain goat, and if you don’t like to climb, it’ll get you to the downhill section of the trail faster.
5. Singletrack was designed for hardtails. Most of us aren’t doing black diamond bike park trails or wide open fire roads.
6. Hardtails distill the fun of mountain biking to its core.

Now, to the Tokul 3….

The Tokul 3 represents the modern train of thought in hardtail design. Its’ 6061 aluminum alloy frame, while not the lightest out there, offers longer and slacker geometry with 120mm of front travel that can handle some of the more rugged singletrack out there.

While it’s not a 27.5+ bike, the Tokul comes with 27.5 x 2.6 tires on WIDE 50mm (can that be right??) rims.

The groupset is a very capable 11 speed SRAM NX set with Tektro hydraulic brakes and a selection of Raleigh parts to round out the cockpit.

I rode the Tokul a couple of times, but mainly turned it over to my 13 year old daughter, who’s just starting to get into the sport. The Tokul 3 is right in line on price, build and quality that I’d be shopping for at this point in her riding progression.

She’s been riding (and growing into) my mid-nineties Kona Kilauea for a couple of years now. That bike is just a little too tall and too long for her, but will be perfect in another year. Still, I wanted to give her the chance to try something new.

The Tokul 3 in size small had a lower standover height and shorter reach than the Kona, making for easier handling and confidence on the trail. While the Tokul had narrow for some 740mm bars, I would have likely cut them down a little for her if I was keeping the bike.

At both the bike park, local trails and even the road, she really enjoyed the bike and was sad to see it go. It’s definitely informed my shopping decisions for the future, but all said, the Tokul 3 also left me scratching my head a little.

It’s a Bit of a Tank….

The spec’ed weight is 31.72 pounds. I spent a good bit of time looking at the build kit to see where that weight is coming from. After a little research, I learned that the SR Suntour XCR-32 coil spring fork is a little more than 5 pounds of that weight. Add in some OEM spec cockpit pieces and those 50mm wide rims and you can see that the bike could benefit from some more svelte parts options down the road.

That said, I understand why Raleigh made the choices that they did. It’s a well equipped bike for under $1000 and the price would have ballooned with a lighter and racier fork.

Reliable Braking and Shifting

Once we got a bent derailleur hanger issue addressed, the bike set up easily and the SRAM NX drivetrain and Tektro Auriga brakeset performed reliably through all of our adventures. For the geometry of the bike and it’s more trail-focused setup, I would have liked to have seen a 12 speed Eagle group on the bike, but again, that would have pushed up the price.

All In All, A Good Bike

If someone came to me looking for their first (real) mountain bike, the Tokul 3 would definitely be on my short list of recommendations. A sturdy frame, reliable build kit and modern geometry would allow them to build their skills and fitness and when the time came, provide a good jumping off spot for later upgrades. And if they decide they don’t like the sport, it should at least maintain some good resale value.