Big-wheeled bikes often get criticised for sluggish handling. People claim they’re too long, steer like a barge, and simply aren’t as fun to ride. With riders now experimenting with 29″ vs 32″ wheels, these claims deserve a closer look.
In this article, we’re going to investigate how larger wheels shape a bike’s handling characteristics – that’s everything from stability and momentum to steering behaviour and grip.
If you missed part one of this series, that’s where I broke down the science of big wheels and why they’re faster. It’s worth starting there.
Since wheelbase plays a major role in how a bike handles, let’s start by finding out whether a 32er actually needs a longer wheelbase than a 29er.
Will Bigger Wheels Make a Bike Longer?
Front Centre Horizontal Length
You might expect the front centre to grow significantly to fit a larger wheel, but in practice, it barely needs to change.
Going from a 29er to a 32er reduces tyre-to-pedal clearance by about 32 mm, but even compared to the shortest modern XC bikes, you won’t run into toe-overlap issues. So in practice, a 32er can use the same front centre as a 29er.
Rear Centre Length
For the rear centre, most modern XC bikes use a horizontal length of 430 to 440 mm, and the good news is that 32-inch wheels can fit within that range too, so long as we use a few clever frame design tricks.
The first step is bending the seat tube so the larger wheel can clear it. Next, we need to create space where the tyre, chainring, and chainstay meet, which can be done with sculpted yokes.
The cleanest solution is an elevated chainstay, which sidesteps most packaging constraints altogether. English Cycles is currently building a 32er with a 425 mm rear centre – shorter than almost every XC bike on the market.
So basically, with the right design choices, a 32er can match the wheelbase of a 29er, which means we can rule that out as a handling drawback. Let’s now examine how 32″ wheels impact ride stability.
How Will 32″ Wheels Affect Ride Stability?
Low-Speed Stability
On a 32er, you sit just a touch deeper between the wheels, simply because your centre of mass is a little lower compared to the height of the axles (assuming the bottom bracket height stays the same).
This subtle shift means that at low speeds, a 32er tips from side to side a bit more slowly. As a result, it could feel slightly harder to balance in tight, slow, or highly technical sections compared to a smaller-wheeled 29er.
That said, the effect is small, usually only a 1 to 3% increase in effective roll inertia, so I suspect most riders will not even notice it.
Low-Speed Stability Summary
29″ Wheels
✅ Slightly quicker to initiate lean
✅ Slightly better low-speed balance
32″ Wheels
❌ Slightly slower to initiate lean
❌ Slightly worse low-speed balance
High-Speed Stability
As your speed rises, the gyroscopic forces from the larger and heavier wheels increase rapidly, and they soon become a far bigger source of stability than the small change in COM position. Gyroscopic forces resist rotational changes, which makes the bike feel noticeably more stable at speed.
In practice, this means you’re less likely to be deflected off your line, you’ll carry more speed over rough ground, and the bike gains a more “planted” feel on the trail.
Numerically, a 32″ wheel carries about 24% more angular momentum than a 29″ wheel at the same speed. You’ll start to notice this somewhere between 10 and 20 km/h, and at higher speeds, the 32er begins to feel more and more like a steamroller as the angular-momentum gap grows.
The downside is that this extra high-speed stability comes with reduced agility – leaning the bike requires a bit more rider input. Whether that’s a positive or negative depends on the speed at which you’re cornering, how tight your trails are, and whether you prefer a more “playful” or more “planted” ride feel.
High-Speed Stability Summary
29″ Wheels
✅ Lower gyroscopic forces
✅ More agile feel
❌ Less high-speed stability
32″ Wheels
❌ Higher gyroscopic forces
❌ Less agile feel
✅ More high-speed stability
Forward Pitch Stability
Pitch stability describes how resistant your bike is to tipping forward under heavy braking or when your front wheel hits rocks, holes, or other obstacles. More pitch stability means more confidence on steep descents.
One way to quantify this is by looking at the endo angle on a given slope – the angle through which the bike can rotate forward before you reach the tipping point. A larger endo angle basically means it’s harder to go over the bars.
Because the axles sit slightly higher relative to your centre of mass on a 32er, the endo angle increases by about one degree, which is similar to adding ~30 mm of front-centre to a 29er. That’s a meaningful bump in pitch stability without altering wheelbase.
In short, for a given wheelbase length, bigger wheels give you noticeably better pitch stability, letting you ride steeper, more technical terrain with less risk of being pitched over the front.
Pitch Stability Summary
29″ Wheels
❌ Smaller endo angle
❌ Easier to pitch over the bars
32″ Wheels
✅ Larger endo angle
✅ Harder to pitch over the bars
Anti-Looping Stability
It’s the same story at the rear of the bike, but here, we call it the looping angle. This is the angle that defines how far you can tip backward before you reach the point of looping out.
In practical terms, a bike with a larger looping angle can climb steeper terrain more effectively. This is because there’s more weight over the front wheel, meaning it won’t lift off the ground as easily, giving you better front traction when the gradient kicks up.
Once again, because the wheel axles sit slightly higher in relation to your centre of mass on a 32-inch bike, the looping angle increases by about one degree.
To get that same level of anti-looping stability on a 29er, you’d need to lengthen the chainstays by around 18 mm. So just like up front, the bigger wheels give you more climbing stability without altering the bike’s wheelbase length.
The downside of a larger looping angle is that it becomes a bit harder to pop the front wheel up. That means hopping, manualling, and clearing obstacles all require more effort. To make a 32er pop up as easily as a 29er, you’d need to shorten the chainstays by about 18 mm.
Anti-Looping Stability Summary
29″ Wheels
❌ Smaller looping angle
❌ Easier to loop out
❌ Less planted front wheel
✅ Easier to pop the front up
32″ Wheels
✅ Larger looping angle
✅ Harder to loop out
✅ More planted front wheel
❌ Harder to pop the front up
Momentum
Next, let’s look at how bigger wheels hold momentum.
The tyres and rims aren’t just bigger and heavier on a 32er; the weight also sits further from the hub. That gives them more inertia, which makes the wheels resist speed changes.
In other words, the wheels are a bit harder to get moving… but once they’re rolling, they don’t want to slow down. This helps carry more speed over small rises and makes the bike feel more stable on rough terrain.
And on rougher surfaces, that extra angular momentum can make the bike carry more speed and feel more stable because you get pinged off line by bumps much less.
My calculations show that 32″ carbon rims and comparable tyres require around 13% more energy to spin up than their 29″ equivalents. But because wheels are only a small fraction of the total system mass, the real-world acceleration difference is minimal.
Momentum Summary
29″ Wheels
❌ Holds less momentum
❌ Less stable over bumps
✅ Quicker acceleration
32″ Wheels
✅ Holds more momentum
✅ More stable over bumps
❌ Slower acceleration
Steering Feel
The larger and heavier 32″ wheel also produces more gyroscopic torque, which influences steering feel.
A rider can usually apply several newton-metres of steering torque through the handlebars. At low speeds (under 10 km/h) and with gentle steering inputs, the torque difference between wheel sizes is well below 1 Nm – far too small for anyone to notice.
At higher speeds or during rapid steering, a 32″ wheel adds roughly 1 to 2 Nm of extra torque at the bars compared to a 29er. Most riders will likely perceive this not as heavier steering but as increased high-speed stability, especially given that handlebars often provide 30 to 50 Nm of leverage.
If you really wanted to counter it, adding a few centimetres of handlebar width would pretty much do the job. We can also compensate through geometry tweaks, such as changing the head angle or fork offset.
And realistically, we’ll need to adjust both if we want our 32ers to feel like 29ers, because the bigger wheel naturally adds more trail and more wheel flop. But we’ll cover that in part three.
Steering Feel Summary
29″ Wheels
✅ Less steering torque
✅ Easier to steer
❌ Reduced feeling of high-speed stability
32″ Wheels
❌ More steering torque
❌ Harder to steer
✅ Increased feeling of high-speed stability
Traction and Tyre Performance
Let’s assume you’re using identical tyres on a 29 and 32″ wheelset. Which wheel size will achieve more grip?
Before we start, I want to make it clear: when it comes to tyre grip, the biggest factors are always going to be the tread pattern, casing construction, pressure, and rubber compound of the tyre – not factors around the wheel size itself.
The only somewhat scientific test I found that compared the cornering grip of 26 and 29-inch bikes using the same tyre model and air pressure was by Mountain Bike Magazin in Germany. They used an accelerometer and speed sensor to measure the traction limit through a flat corner.
The results suggested that cornering grip was identical between the two wheel sizes at equal pressures. But the equal pressure thing might have been the problem, and here’s why.
Tyre Footprint
The tyre footprint is the contact area the tyre makes with the ground at any instant in time, and its size mainly depends on three factors: vertical load, casing stiffness, and air pressure.
The interesting thing is that if you’re running the same tyre model at the same pressure, say a Schwalbe G-One at 20 psi, the total contact area will be about the same whether it’s mounted on a 20-inch folding bike, a 27.5 plus bike, or a 700C gravel bike.
So, on the surface level, the footprint should be the same for 32″ and 29″ wheels, right? Well, that’s not the full story.
A better way to compare tyre performance is by looking at either the hoop stress or tyre drop because these reflect how the tyre structure responds to internal pressure and load. When hoop stress or tyre drop is matched across bikes with different wheel sizes, the tyres ride very similarly.
For tyre drop, we measure how much the tyre compresses under your weight.
Because 32-inch wheels have a larger air volume, they actually need slightly less pressure to achieve the same tyre drop or hoop stress – about 1 psi lower on a 2.4″ tyre. That reduction in pressure boosts the 32″ wheels’ contact patch by roughly 5% compared to a 29er (20 vs 21 psi).
So yes, the 32-inch wheel ends up with a larger footprint than the 29-inch wheel using the same tyre. This allows a tyre to conform better to the terrain, providing more grip and more comfort.
Tyre Footprint Summary
29″ Wheels
❌ Smaller tyre footprint
❌ Less grip
32″ Wheels
✅ Bigger tyre footprint
✅ More grip
Tread Engagement: More Knobs in Contact
The tyre footprint shape also changes with the wheel diameter. A larger diameter wheel has a longer but narrower tyre footprint. But the variation in shape is probably much smaller than you’d expect – or have been made to believe.
Between 29 and 32-inch wheels with 2.4″ tyres, it’s likely a 5% difference in each dimension – longer but narrower for the 32. But when we factor in the reduction in tyre pressure needed to achieve the same tyre drop, the contact patch length grows to about 10% longer.
This is nothing huge, likely 5mm more length or so, but it might be just enough additional length to engage one extra row of knobs, which means more grip relative to the 29er.
Having said that, I think the bigger improvement in traction is from something else – a larger wheel is less jolted over rough terrain because, as we discussed in part one, the angle of attack is reduced. This allows the 32er to maintain a more consistent grip when the trail is loose or bumpy.
Tread Engagement Summary
29″ Wheels
❌ Shorter contact patch
❌ Fewer tyre knobs engaged
❌ Less grip
❌ More jolted over rough terrain
32″ Wheels
✅ Longer contact patch
✅ More tyre knobs engaged
✅ More grip
✅ Less jolted over rough terrain
Cornering Traction
And lastly, we need to look at cornering traction. Cornering traction really comes down to how a tyre spreads sideways forces into the ground.
With a 32-inch wheel, the contact patch is about 10% longer. That extra length means the tyre distorts less and the tread blocks shear less under load, which boosts cornering stiffness and reduces the slip angle needed to make grip.
At the same lean angle on the trail, a 32er is simply operating further from its traction limit than a 29er, which means you can lean a few more degrees before the tyre begins to drift sideways under load.
Kinematic modelling suggests a 10 to 12% bump in usable cornering grip – and you’ll feel that most on loose-over-hardpack and off-camber sections where every bit of extra bite matters.
Cornering Traction Summary
29″ Wheels
❌ Lower cornering stiffness
❌ More tyre distortion
❌ Less usable cornering grip
32″ Wheels
✅ Higher cornering stiffness
✅ Less tyre distortion
✅ More usable cornering grip
29″ vs 32″: Which Wheel Size Is Best?
| 29″ Wheels | 32″ Wheels | |
|---|---|---|
| Low-Speed Stability | ✅ Quicker to initiate lean ✅ Better low-speed balance |
❌ Slower to initiate lean ❌ Worse low-speed balance |
| High-Speed Stability | ✅ Lower gyroscopic forces ✅ More agile feel ❌ Less high-speed stability |
❌ Higher gyroscopic forces ❌ Less agile feel ✅ More high-speed stability |
| Forward Pitch Stability | ❌ Smaller endo angle ❌ Easier to pitch over the bars |
✅ Larger endo angle ✅ Harder to pitch over the bars |
| Anti-Looping Stability | ❌ Smaller looping angle ❌ Easier to loop out ❌ Less planted front wheel ✅ Easier to pop the front up |
✅ Larger looping angle ✅ Harder to loop out ✅ More planted front wheel ❌ Harder to pop the front up |
| Momentum | ❌ Holds less momentum ❌ Less stable over bumps ✅ Quicker acceleration |
✅ Holds more momentum ✅ More stable over bumps ❌ Slower acceleration |
| Steering Feel | ✅ Less steering torque ✅ Easier to steer ❌ Reduced high-speed stability |
❌ More steering torque ❌ Harder to steer ✅ Increased high-speed stability |
| Tyre Footprint | ❌ Smaller tyre footprint ❌ Less grip |
✅ Bigger tyre footprint ✅ More grip |
| Tread Engagement | ❌ Shorter contact patch ❌ Fewer tyre knobs engaged ❌ Less grip ❌ More jolted over rough terrain |
✅ Longer contact patch ✅ More tyre knobs engaged ✅ More grip ✅ Less jolted over rough terrain |
| Cornering Traction | ❌ Lower cornering stiffness ❌ More tyre distortion ❌ Less usable cornering grip |
✅ Higher cornering stiffness ✅ Less tyre distortion ✅ More usable cornering grip |
In summary, if your trails are fast, rough, or open, a 32er plays to its strengths: more stability, more traction, more momentum, and more confidence on steep terrain. And if your riding is tight, twisty, or playful, a 29er still feels more responsive and easier to flick around.
Ultimately, the right choice comes down to your trails and your preferred riding style.
If you haven’t seen the first article on why bigger wheels are faster, check that out next. Alternatively, here is my article on 20 exciting new 32″ MTB and gravel bikes.
Or stay tuned for the final article, where we explore the design constraints of 32-inch wheel bikes.
