A gravel suspension fork from Canyon Bicycles and DT Swiss was spotted earlier this spring, and it has since been officially launched and tested by journalists.
The F 132 One fork was on display at the Unbound Gravel brand expo ahead of the race this weekend. BikeRadar spoke with a DT Swiss engineer to hear the backstory of the fork’s development.
Why Canyon chose to work with DT Swiss
The project began in 2021 when Canyon approached various suspension manufacturers with their desire to develop a suspension fork for gravel bikes.
“We were the ones where they really had the feeling that they could give the right inputs, that the co-development would work,” said Philipp Keller, suspension testing engineer at DT Swiss.
Canyon and DT Swiss wanted to develop a fork that was more gravel specific than offerings from other brands, not just a miniature mountain bike fork. Keller said small bump sensitivity is crucial in gravel riding and racing, and that’s what the new fork is designed around.
“For gravel, your main obstacle that you ride over are small rocks, so therefore you really need a fork that is sensitive on the first few hits, the really small bumps and vibrations,” Keller said. “That is really the point where we try to optimise the fork for exactly this sensitivity, because that's the main part about the gravel fork, where you need the traction and also the comfort when you're doing your hours on gravel.”
Settling on suspension travel
The design process for the gravel suspension fork began with deciding how much suspension travel it should have. DT Swiss used its cross-country mountain bike fork to test different travel levels, and ultimately decided on 40mm. Keller said that suspension travel is a tradeoff because as the travel increases or decreases, so does the stack height of the bike.
Gravel was and is still evolving as a discipline, but the F 132 One has design features that speak to both racers and adventure-seeking gravel riders. A remote control lockout allows racers to adjust their lockout on the fly, while optional bikepacking adaptors allow riders to strap bags on their bikes.
Once prototypes were made, Phillip and his team went ahead with stress testing the forks.
“We destroyed a lot of them just to make sure they hold up to the task that they are developed [for], which is quite versatile,” he said.
The ‘one’ in the fork’s name refers to DT Swiss’ top tier of products, while the 132 refers to 32mm stanchions used for the fork.
The fork is now only available for purchase with a Canyon Grail, but it will be available for purchase à la carte next year.
