By now, hopefully you’ve had a chance to check out the first part of our 32″ bike roundup from MADE. Clearly, there were a lot of 32″ bikes at the show this year. A lot of builders mentioned their 32″ bikes were from existing customers who wanted to try out the new wheels for themselves. For others, it was a personal curiosity. Regardless of motivation, all of the bikes were striking in their own unique ways, which is the beauty of a show like MADE.
Black Sheep 25th Anniversary Soft Tail Gravel
This was one of my favorites, from the lines, to the color, and the softail design. Without any pivots or excessively worked sections of titanium on the chainstays, this Black Sheep frame doesn’t look like it will be that active, but the seat stay junction is mounted to a titanium flex plate mounted to the seat tube. That claims to deliver 39mm of travel at the rear wheel and can be tuned with different ti leafs.
The build also featured some unique handlebars, and Industry Nine 32″ Hush wheels with custom anodized hubs.
The Deathsplosion stem is built with three flat titanium plates instead of the typical round tube. Will this flex more and provide some give to the front end? It’s pretty short for it to move a lot, but maybe it would take the edge off?
Jeremy Sycip Builds a PR32ATOR
Jeremy Sycip is still building incredible bikes, and when a customer asked for a 32″ build he put his signatures touches into the frame and fork – including his trademark penny on the seat stay caps. In this case, the steel pennies were provided by the customer.
The build featured a Microshift drivetrain with Sword shifter and an MX rear derailleur, and Growtac Equal brakes.
Seeker Says ‘No’ to MTB Parts
This was one of those builds that unless you looked closely, you’d probably miss the most interesting part. Seeker’s Chris McGovern says he had a customer who was 6’8″ and a perfect candidate for 32″ wheels, but they wanted a bike without any MTB parts. Thanks to a 3D printed drop stay yoke, they were able to make that happen. As a result the bike has a 142mm rear end, 86mm T47 bottom bracket, and a gravel chainline. Even with such a large rider, they claim the wheels are plenty stiff with the 45mm deep, 32mm inner width carbon rims from Hifi.
Sage Hides the Graphics in Cerakote
Another big bike for a big rider, Sage made this custom gravel bike with a number of hidden touches.
There’s the obvious stuff like the owl logo in the 3D printed dropouts…
But unless you looked at just the right angle in the right light, you’d miss the fact that the cerakote finish has a ghosted camo pattern in the white along with frame graphics like the Made in the USA logo on the downtube. The finish goes over the top with cerakoted bolts, matching accent pieces, and even a one-off white 3D-printed sadle from Velo.
A Tale of Two Rare Earths
Rare Earth had two polar opposite 32″ gravel builds, both outsanding. Check out all the details here.
Onguza 32″ Gravel
This Onguza was part of the MADE Show bike pre-gallery, but it deserves to be seen again. From a distance it seems a bit plain, but then when you start checking out all the little details, it really starts to grow on you.
Multiple Mosaic 32″ Builds
Another one we saw in the lead up to the show, Mosaic was on hand with an army of bikes including a few 32″ builds.
The new GT i55 32 is a purpose built 32″ gravel race bike that makes use of their new Zero 32″ gravel fork as well.
Mosaic had a number of these beautifully finished bikes in different colors around the show. This orange really popped, and the build was impressively light with the new Sparrow50 Gold wheels from Berd.
Moots Testing the Waters
Just like the 32″ flat bar round up, Moots is included here with another prototype. There was no information provided, but you’d have to guess that Moots would at least offer something in the future.
Cal Poly State College Build by Alex Knight
Even the kids were getting in on the 32″ action! OK, well, college-aged kids anyways. Lezyne was hosting a number of students from Cal Poly State in their booth, and this 32″ gravel bike stood out for obvious reasons.
Built by Alex Knight (who happens to be 6’4″ and looked like he could still grow a foot), Alex said he couldn’t buy a bike like this at the time so he might as well build it. Made with steel chromoly tubing, Alex took advantage of 3D printing for the chainstay yoke and dropouts. Digging the color-matched Lezyne headlight. Very well done.
Manzanita 32″ Gravel
One last build that we ran out of time to get outside for photos, this Manzanita 32″ gravel bike. Commisioned by a customer, this very yellow build is Nick’s offering into the world of 32″ wheels.
