I had a chance to talk a bunch with James from blacksheep about his 32”bike at bespoked in Dresden. I also had my favorite giant customer there for another funny photo opportunity!
Just for reference I’m 6’0” tall and Tim is 2M10. He looks great with this bike and I can just straddle it on flat ground with mt long legs for my height.
Hahn Rossman
I agree that this diagram is a fleeting moment, I think it happens to some degree quite often on some bikes/trails and I think it’s normally something the rider has prepared for, one way or another and doesn’t cause any issue. however, I do think, in the million-variable balance of a nice bike, negative trail is something to err away, maybe from as much as one can,failing that,atleast to some degree.
what surprised me was that the drawing suggests this is going to happen LESS with the larger wheel, which wasn’t intuitive to me at all on first look.
bit more detail on how i ended up making the choices i did:
i dont have much experience with suspension, but have been messing with front end geometry for a few years now - ive moved to longer front centre - at least 800mm and tried to steepen the head angle rather than slacken in order to improve trail feel and reduce flop. its a similar journey to peter verdone in some ways though not as extreme. in general i would say as my f-c has lengthened (im 1.8m tall) the bike has been better for my riding. to the stage that i struggle to ride shorter bikes and feel in control when it gets steep ish. but i have not loved slack head angles. at one point i had a moxie and on doing a long highland trail loop, hated the fact i couldnt ride no handed on ‘enhanced gravel’ trails for some respite at the 8-10 hour mark. that got me paying much more attention to the cake and eat it scenario that is sterering geometry.
obviously various things affect trail and flop, and on one bike i think i started to go ‘over the top’ - it has a 29+ 774mm diam wheel, 69 head angle and reduced offset fork of 40mm - mech trail 99, flop 35 and it feels very very light at the front end on trail. totally manageable but i went back to 68 head angle, 44mm offset on a 29+ wheel with the next one. and i would say it is the sweet spot, for me in my terrain. mech trail 101mm flop 38mm.
32” is bigger again than 29+ - 814mm cf 774mm so this increases trail and flop so i went to a 52mm offset to bring that back. mech trail 100mm flop 38mm
it a) should mean i like the handling and b) isolates the wheel size as the real change to evaluate
steven at willow has built the frame and i should be riding it by the end of next week.
the elephant in the room is how you get the bars close enough to the saddle at that sort of front centre at 800mm i can use a 35mm stem with the meriwether ti 20 degree bars i love, but at 820mm f-c this 32/29 mullet requires a bar/stem - essentially a 12mm stem to function. the afore mentioned 69 degree 29+ reduced offset also required one and i firmly believe stems under 35mm are required for mountain bike steering geometry to progress.
intend have one as do mondraker and there is the rulzeman as well.
anyhoo, will report back!
kinda cool.
Steven at Willow smashed the frame build…. im slowly getting the parts on and we’ll see how this beast realigns my riding…
Some of you may know that I’ve been working on getting some aluminium 32” rims made and these have now made it into production. They’re made in the EU, first batch is 32H only. 30mm internal.
Will update when I have an exact date that I’ll be able to ship them but I expect this first batch will go fast so drop me a message if you want to reserve some.
More details here : Willow Disk30 32" aluminium rim — willow bike
@JMY Have you modeled the 32” Aspens in your Seek 430 Fork to see if it fits by chance? I’m on the hunt for the shortest fork that fits the 32’s and so far the 470mm Columbus Adventure at the top of the list.
I have, and unfortunately, it won’t fit.
It’s a bummer.
A 430mm AC may be difficult to achieve on a carbon fork (or any fork TBH), as there would not be much meat between the tyre OD and the fork steerer.
Intend new 32” fork is out at testing. Should be available soon from what they told me.
I saw that fork at Bespoked. It was on the modified hardtail that Bike Ahead Composites displayed (they were literally just across from our booth there).
https://www.instagram.com/p/DP0V8mSjNzq/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
I would love a 110/120mm full suspension 32” but don’t know cad well enough to do to get 3D parts printed. If someone has some already that wants to share that would be greatly appreciated.
More info.
New rim option
These too.
If you’re looking for something a little less spendy than a carbon rim, then I have these rims due in next week.
Know the weight of those? I may need to order a set with a set of tires.
I expect them to be around 650g for the production rims. I’ll weigh them properly when they arrive.
Know when tires will be in?
They were supposed to be leaving the factory end of October. I’m going to chase them up next week.
This is a 32/29 bike. @stevenshand made it. its a pretty modern geometry - im 1.8m (5’11”) and have a saddle height of 740mm from mid bb. 68 head angle, 820 f-c 440 r-c 76 seat angle. 70mm bb drop, and we kept a fairly long 130 head tube with the enve fork in the 52mm offset position to keep trail/flop where we wanted it. the barstem is a @Meriwether ti set up - 20 degree backwards sweep and nomnomnommed to fit directly to paragon steerer clamp. this way I could keep the same trail and flop as my recent 29+/29 bike (though the f-c is a little longer) and I can kind of isolate the effect of the front wheel.
I made a ti headset wedge so I could bury the top cane creek slam set even further as the wheels are very big - true 814 diameter. keeps bar height perfecto.
so how does it ride?
spectacularly. Steven made an absolutely beautiful, light and balanced frame. the geometry is spot on. the 32” front wheel is the bomb. if you read someone saying it won’t make much difference, or its a pain having a new standard or anything really who hasn’t actually ridden one id be very circumspect. the roll over is incredible. the axle bb drop increase excellent in technical terrain. the speed the thing carries very quickly exposes any fitness issues- you literally want to keep peddling as fast as you can as you barrel along. keeping the trail/flop the same means the steering / handling geometry felt completely natural. the tyre itself may be slickish, but the traction punches well above its weight. (a dissector 2 seems to be on the way and a few from other manufacturers) im down at 12 psi, no issues so far and its therefore really comfortable.
negatives? not really finding any so far - even the wheel - built with the nextie unicorn (38mm external iirc) and sapim lasers with dt alu squorx nips 2 x both sides has been solid and feels plenty stiff enough (note mike curiak at lace mine is waiting on a number of 30mm internal nextie rims in a lighter format if you want to drop even more weight off and a carbon rim as well as alu versions above (for interests sake - I dropped 350g from my usual 29x3 maxxis dhf/nextie JF with lighter spoke set up)
I must admit I am now very curious about a full 32 bike. id wanted the mullet to keep the r-c down but the wheel diameter on the front is really advantageous in most situations and im wondering if the loss of arse clearance/longer stay will be a worthwhile trade off…we’ll see!
I really close to dropping a deposit on one of these. I wish I could build my own FS 32er but don’t have the CAD skills to do it and my body can handle a hard tail anymore.
