BMC athletes have been spotted riding a prototype cross-country race bike equipped with 32in wheels at the Andorran round of the 2025 XC World Cup.
This marks the first time we've seen a 32in wheel mountain bike on the World Cup circuit, and follows an earlier sighting of 32in tyres from Maxxis at Eurobike 2025.
The bike in question appears to use a lugged carbon and alloy construction, with large tube junctions and a horizontal shock layout driving a twin-link suspension design.
According to Pinkbike, who broke the story, a BMC spokesperson said the bike won't be raced at this weekend's event, with test pilot Titouan Carod due to ride a typical BMC Forestroke.
Regardless, it's a significant moment for 32in wheels, which could soon enter the mainstream. Here's everything we know so far.
What do we know about BMC's 32in wheeled prototype?
The 32in wheeled bike is a BMC prototype using what looks to be a lugged and glued frame construction.
The tubes are likely made from carbon fibre and then bonded into aluminium alloy lugs that have been machined.
The headtube is a lug, as is the bottom bracket area and rear dropouts, but the seat tube to top tube join appears to be made from one piece of carbon fibre.
The bike's oversized wheels force a dramatically low-slung frame silhouette, sacrificing bottle space to maintain standover clearance and geometry balance.
It's possible this part of the frame has been 'reclaimed' from an existing BMC model to create the 32in prototype.
Less travel?
The suspension appears to use BMC's twin-link design, creating a floating virtual pivot point usually used to tune anti-squat and anti-rise.
As was the trend when 29ers took off, it's likely the 32in wheeled BMC will have less travel than its 29in wheeled counterpart (if there is one).
The shock's mounted horizontally and attached to a yoke at the rear, which is driven by the upper link, and a machined aluminium strut that's attached to both the top tube and down tubes.
Limited space
Because 32in wheels are quite a bit bigger than the 29in models used on most bikes, the frame looks like it has been 'paralellogrammed', or 'squashed'.
The downtube and top tube sit close to one another – to keep standover height sensible while allowing space for the 32in front wheel – but the tradeoff here is there isn't a great deal of space for a water bottle inside the frame.
At the rear, the chainstays have grown in length to accommodate the big rear wheel, but the seat tube angle has also been slackened.
Doing so helps keep the stays as short as possible while still giving the bike a sensible top tube length, but that slack seat angle may lead to pedalling inefficiencies.
This is most obvious when you see how far forward of the bottom bracket the seat tube sits.
Crazy cockpit
XC racers are known for loving a bit of handlebar drop, but this proto BMC takes things to another level.
Presumably because the wheel's axles are now higher from the ground, BMC has tried its hardest to lower the bars even further.
In doing so, their stem clamps both above and below the head tube; potentially a normal stem wouldn't provide enough drop without having too much reach to get the bars low enough.
Big rubber
Although the tyres' hot patches (the logos) have either been intentionally removed or not added in the first place, the fingerprint-link tread pattern looks just like the one on the labelled-up Maxxis Aspen tyres we spotted at Eurobike.
The two-by-two shoulder knobs are the biggest giveaway, but the rest of the tyres' tread also gives us a clue.
We suspect these'll run Maxxis's fastest-rolling MaxxSpeed compound, have the brand's lightest EXO casing sidewalls and, if the tyres we saw from Eurobike are anything to go by, by 2.4in wide.
We have contacted Maxxis and BMC for comment – as we get any more information from either, we will update this article.
