It seems nothing has changed in the nigh-on 30 years I’ve been involved with bikes. Every type of new tech introduced has been met with equal parts excitement and disdain from the cycling community.
When suspension started to arrive in mountain bikes, it was decried as a heavyweight, expensive fad, before becoming integral. That pattern has been repeated multiple times over the intervening years.
I remember having conversations in the office around disc brakes on mountain bikes, arguing we didn't need them because V-brakes were so good. The same happened with STI levers on the road (complex and expensive). Meanwhile, carbon fibre frames were apparently only good for one season and then they’d 'go off’.
Electronic gears and road disc brakes still have their detractors. On mountain bikes, it was the 26in wheel versus 29in, and not forgetting 27.5in (650b), wheel wars.
And now we’re going through the same debate with the latest advance in bicycle tech, 32in wheels, which are beginning to appear on mountain and gravel bikes, spurring the vitriol of many commentators.
It’s the same old tropes. The ‘industry’ is seen as forcing something new on the unsuspecting public, as if it’s some singular hive mind. However, that’s far from the truth.
Different outlooks
In all my time visiting the biggest bike brands in the world, the first thing you notice is they all have different outlooks. Some embraced disc brakes and electronic gears straight away, some were more traditional. It’s the same with 32in wheels.
My colleague Stan Portus’ article on what the cycling industry thinks of 32in wheels shows a divergence of opinion. Some brands back the new wheel size, but others don’t think it will benefit the industry.
I recently had the chance to spend time riding a rather lovely titanium 32in-wheel equipped gravel bike called the Pterodactyl, from small independent UK brand Singular.
Sam Alison at Singular was one of the first designers to embrace fat-tyre, drop-bar bikes. His Peregrine debuted in 2006, long before the explosion in gravel. Sam told me he started experimenting with 32in wheels on rigid mountain bikes, and then with drop bars once he’d seen and felt the benefits.
Having ridden the bike, and a prototype from Eddy Merckx, I can see why designers are excited about the new oversized wheels.
The Singular bike rolls beautifully and choppy surfaces are smoothed out impressively. The larger diameter means a shallower angle of impact on roots and rocks, so the bike rolls over obstacles with fewer slowing bumps.
The larger wheel size means each pedal revolution moves you further, so it feels faster. The Pterodactyl’s designer’s roots are in mountain biking and so it also handles technical terrain impressively well. I expected the big wheels to feel cumbersome, but they don’t.
Not for everyone – and that’s not a bad thing
This isn't to say 32in wheels don’t have any downsides. You need to think about gearing choices, for one thing. But most importantly, because the wheels are significantly larger than 700c, it’s not a one-size-fits-all proposition either. If you’re shorter than around 5ft 10in, I don’t think the wheel size will be right for you.
I think taller riders will embrace it, though. I have a couple of riding friends much taller than me (I’m 6ft 2in), who’ve always struggled to find bikes that fit, and even when they do, they’re not exactly good-looking.
Elongated head tubes and steepened angles make them look like farm gates. Large-sized bikes with 32in wheels just look more in proportion. This might seem like a frivolous concern, but when you’re spending a lot of money on a bike, it’s nice if it’s pleasing to the eye.
I’d like to see fewer brands making the same bike from XXS to XXL, using essentially the same components (wheels and gearing).
We have lots of solid wheel and tyre options across the three wheel sizes for road and gravel, so why not have 650b wheels on smaller bikes, 700c across the medium sizing, and larger 32s for taller riders?
If you’re a medium-sized rider, you get the best expression of the design and engineering. If you're outside those parameters, there’s always an element of compromise. Big bikes look ungainly, small bikes get either toe overlap or slackened steering angles to avoid it. I prefer my bikes to fit perfectly.
I know this might seem like a seismic shift from the current bike industry model of mass-producing bikes each year in multiple models and sizes – and I accept that this is perhaps just a pipe dream.
However, with the number of brands we’ve seen in serious trouble after the last cycling ‘boom’, perhaps moving away from the stack 'em high and risk overstocking policy is no bad thing?
