After endless teasing, 32in wheels for MTB are now a thing, and they look set to make a big impact in the world of XC racing in particular. Promising better roll-over performance and lower rolling resistance than 29ers, 32in wheels address every shortcoming of 29ers and have literally no downsides.
It now seems only a matter of time before we see the emergence of 32in-wheeled gravel bikes, and I for one will welcome that moment wholeheartedly, because frankly I’ve had enough of 700c.
Why 32?
The problem with 29er or 700c wheels is that they’re smaller than 32in ones. Bigness is a key spec detail for wheels, and it doesn’t take a degree in mathematics to understand that 32 is three more than 29.
The principal disadvantage of 700c as a wheel size for gravel is it’s just been around too long, so there are too many compatible bikes on the market and too many good second-hand components.
Geometry and spec for 700c-wheeled bikes is pretty dialled now so there’s little room to market new innovations such as going slightly longer, shorter, slacker, steeper, wider, narrower, harder, softer, wetter, rougher or ribbed.
32in wheels promise to reset the tech arms race, giving bike journalists something to write about, commenters something to moan about, and riders bikes to ride, I guess, but that’s really not that important.
So what are the key advantages of 32in wheels? Well, they have a larger contact patch than 700c, and you can never have too much contact. The gyroscopic effects of a larger, heavier wheel will make your bike more stable, so there’s less of a worry about falling over.
Big wheels also roll over bumps better than small wheels, and bumps are generally agreed to be bad, so 32in is a no-brainer here. Ideally, we don’t want to feel the terrain we ride on at all. In summary, more grip, less rolling resistance, more inches.
Worries about unnecessary extra weight or the arbitrary nature of a three-inch increase in nominal diameter are easily overcome by not thinking about them.
What’s in it for me?
I’m looking forward to the gradual phasing-out of support for the equipment I own. There’s too much choice in tyres at the moment, and it would be great if that could be whittled down to just a few legacy models that won’t ever see new R&D investment.
I want the warm fuzzy feeling my current bikes give me to be replaced by a nagging unease that I’m being slowly left behind by technology.
My perception of those bikes’ broad capability and versatility deserves to be erased by a vague sense that they’re preventing me from fulfilling my true potential as a rider.
It’s only right that bikes that once felt refined and technologically accomplished should now seem clunky, chattery and limiting to my wellbeing. Maybe they were never all that good in the first place and I’ve been deluding myself? Their flaws are my flaws. I am nothing, I am dust.
I enjoy being an early adopter of new tech whose standards haven’t had a chance to mature yet. I’m hoping we’ll experiment with a few different axle standards for 32ers when it emerges we need wider hubs to brace bigger rims, and we’ll try a variety of frame designs as engineers try to package big wheels without throwing fit and handling out of whack.
Ideally we’ll have 32in wheels for every size of rider, even those for whom 700c is arguably a bit big, and who only ride them because it’s the de facto standard.
32in wheels are a healthy reminder that to stand still is to go backwards. That complacency about the bikes we ride deserves to be punished with forced obsolescence. That everything dies in the end.
I look forward to 32in-wheeled gravel bikes because I am a cog in the machine, and I know my place. So we beat on, boats with the current, borne ceaselessly into the future.
