If there was one trend that was impossible to ignore while walking around the Sea Otter Europe trade show this weekend, it was 32in wheels.
I counted at least eight 32in bikes dotted around the show in Girona, Spain, spanning everything from cross-country race machines to increasingly polished gravel prototypes.
Many of these bikes looked remarkably production-ready, with some picking up racing pedigree at the event.
In fact, while I was walking around Sea Otter looking at them, some of the industry’s biggest names were racing their own 32in prototypes thousands of miles away at the Soldier Hollow XC World Cup in Utah.
If there was ever a weekend that suggested 32in wheels are coming, this was it.
A 32in bike won at Sea Otter Europe
Perhaps the most convincing evidence, from a racing perspective, came from Leon Kaiser riding an Avona Callis 32, on which he crossed the line first in Sea Otter Europe's 109km UCI Gravel World Series race.
The German arrived at the finish in a four-rider group before beating Paul Voß and Fabian Rabensteiner in the sprint to take his first UCI Gravel World Series victory.
That result feels particularly significant because gravel is looking to be an obvious home for the new wheel size.
Just as 29in wheels offer improved rollover compared to 27.5in wheels, moving to 32in should, theoretically, enable a mountain bike bike to carry speed more easily across rough terrain.
Avona was far from alone in experimenting with the 32in wheel size at Sea Otter.
Berria had its 32in gravel prototype on display, while Megamo showed the latest carbon version of its Silk 32 gravel bike alongside a 32in Track XC prototype.
There was also a 32in gravel prototype from Forestal and Origine's increasingly developed 32in XC bike.
Even DirtySixer, a brand that was building oversized-wheel bikes long before the current 32in craze, had a machine on display.
Taken individually, any of these could be dismissed as an interesting experiment. However, seeing so many manufacturers independently investigating the same wheel size at one show makes that harder to do.
We’ve already seen a 32in world champion's bike
KTM’s 32in Scarp Evo 4 prototype has been particularly difficult to dismiss as a publicity exercise, with Andreas Seewald riding one to victory at the UCI Mountain Bike Marathon World Championships only a week before Sea Otter.
That made Seewald the first rider to win a mountain bike world title on 32in wheels.
His Scarp Evo 4 32 prototype uses Duke Lucky Jack SLS5 32in wheels, prototype Schwalbe tyres and a prototype Fox RAD fork developed for the larger wheel size.
So, while the bike I was looking at in Girona might still have 'prototype' written on it, we're now talking about a wheel size capable of taking a rider to the rainbow stripes.
Over in Utah, Trek debuts a 32in XC prototype
Perhaps the biggest indication that 32in is gaining momentum wasn't at Sea Otter at all.
While I was walking around the show, Trek was debuting its own 32in XC prototype at the Soldier Hollow World Cup in Utah.
We covered the bike when Trek revealed it ahead of the race, complete with a previously unseen 32in RockShox SID Flight Attendant fork, prototype Pirelli tyres and what appear to be prototype wheels using Berd spokes.
More importantly, Trek didn't simply send one rider out on the bike for a few publicity laps.
Gwendalyn Gibson, Evie Richards and Riley Amos all raced the new platform – and Gibson finished second in the elite women's XCO.
Richards finished seventh, and Amos eighth in the men's race, giving Trek three top-eight finishes on the new wheel size on its debut weekend.
At 164cm tall, Richards' use of the bike goes some way towards addressing one of the most obvious questions surrounding 32in wheels: whether manufacturers can make the enormous wheels work for shorter riders without compromising geometry and fit.
Scott also sent a 32in Spark prototype, adding another of mountain biking's biggest XC brands to a list that already includes KTM, Thömus and Cube – all of which have raced 32in bikes during the 2026 season.
This feels different
We've been here before with new wheel sizes.
Mountain biking spent years arguing about 26in, 27.5in and 29in wheels, and there will inevitably be plenty of riders who see absolutely no reason to make wheels any bigger.
There are legitimate compromises, too. Larger wheels and tyres can add rotating mass; packaging them into smaller frame sizes is more difficult, and achieving sufficiently low cockpit heights on XC race bikes presents another challenge.
There's also the small matter of an entirely new ecosystem of tyres, rims, forks and frames being required – and 32in-compatible components appear to be getting developed at a rate of knots.
Fox and RockShox now have prototype forks out in the wild, Schwalbe and Pirelli have tyres – and Duke, Newmen and others are developing wheels.
When it comes to racing, the results are encouraging – but whether riders want a new wheel size is another question entirely.
However, after this weekend, it's increasingly difficult to dismiss 32in wheels as a passing fad. There's serious investment going into the new wheel size, and the results suggest there may be something to it.
