for like three seconds i thought you meant a steel road bike with clearance for 32s and i was like yeah nice
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The defending champ at Unbound gravel race this weekend is apparently riding this thing. I presume boutique sterl 33ers are out there?
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The oddest thing so far is the 32" from Eddy Merckx. It’s cool but also seems so random. I rode Merckx's new 32in steel gravel bike – it was fast and handled cobbles magnificently | BikeRadar
I’m not really sure what my opinion is. There seems to be an incredible amount of money in the amateur gravel space that I can easily see enough people buying bikes from model year 2027 forward. At the same time I think the industry will try their best to slowly introduce new bikes with the wheelsize but that may not actually work if demand is great enough.
A couple years ago It took literally one youtube video to explode XC tires on gravel bikes (after 20+ years of work by others elsewhere) and I think the potential is there for 32".
Modeling what happened then to now; John Karrasch, Cloxxi (plus his various alter egos?), and a couple others are laying enough groundwork to provide ample material for a repeat. Maybe they’ll time it the same as last time, right before Unbound 2027.
I went to a bike race in April 2024, everyone had normal gravel stuff, Dylan Johnson dropped his Unbound video with XC tires at the end of May, and then at the next race in the series in June I saw more Race Kings, Thunder Burts, and Lauf forks than I could ever imagine.
Of course an entirely new bike and wheelsize isn’t the same as slightly larger tires, but there’s still a lot of velocity right now. Maybe it’ll be enough.
Or maybe not. At races today I’ll be riding in a group, look around and realize there’s $40-$50-$60,000 worth of bikes just that I can see near me. It doesn’t seem like any of these were a stretch purchase but at the same time, is the modal gravel racer 35-55 going to want to spend high 4 figures or low 5 on an entirely new bike, to replace one a couple years old? Does the industry and it’s peripheral characters have enough power to influence after the massive upheaval the past 5-6 years? Can they be convinced the difference is big enough? Can the bikes fit enough people?
Perhaps 32" will be pro-only for a little bit. Give the gravel privateers and professionals their much wanted cachet; separate them from the amateur field in a public obvious way. I think we’ve all had enough of their desperate attempts to do so at the individual level. Then in a couple years when everyone is happy they got enough use of their 700c Allied Able or Crux 5, they can upgrade to the recently released 32" models.
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Haven’t registrations for lower tier/local gravel series been on the downswing? Unless there’s a novel use for normies, it seems like no one will move more units than say fat bikes do. This feels like bringing a next-gen cross bike to market when cross series participation was fading.
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Isn’t this basically the story of the Canyon Inflite?
I guess the novel use is imitating professionals? Which seems to be about how things were developed and sold for a long time, and still today (?).
Although “spend $10,000 to beat the other TRT Boomer at the local 3 hour gravel race” is also a fairly large market segment IMO.
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You might have to also price in a new hitch rack!
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When is the Twoer bike company gonna get founded?
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The funny thing is you could leapfrog 32 and just go 36. Right now! It’s been there waiting!
You know what’s more efficient than riding 32" wheels?
Drafting off the guy with 32" wheels.
It’s like everybody forgot we’re not doing ITTs here.
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That’s how he won last year. Well, a 2-up TT. I heard the weather forecast is ass. That might bite him on the bum eh?
I meant 32mm tires lol
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I hadn’t thought about the bigger wheels packing up with 10% more heavy sticky mud.
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It bears repeating.
But in all seriousness I want a 32" fixed gear scorcher thing (deal with it, pears). Momentum and rollover for dayyyys.
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how does he make money selling handlebars without a website?
Tarck llc should get the nto the twoer market with a taf run from maxway
Tarck twoer has a certain ring to it
Twoers
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780D +/- 12
some 6’4+ folx in the old country are pretty stoked on 32" and the prospect of having a bike with conventional proportions.
I’ve yet to see a 32" prototype anything built for a proper tall person though.
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https://www.instagram.com/p/DYmuYQZDtpr/
cjell mone built a cool one for a 6’5"er
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