For a while now, David Folch has been beating the drum for bigger bikes for bigger riders. Not just big bikes, but big wheels and tires as well. As a tall man himself, the concept was born after David crashed a bike with 700c wheels which he attributed to the design which tried to build a much larger frame around the proportionally smaller wheels. When we first met up with David, he was pushing the standard DirtySixer – a bike built around the huge 36″ wheels and tires. There are people in the world who can benefit from a bike that big (like Shaq), but David felt that there were still a lot of riders who needed a bike with wheels bigger than the standard 29/700c, but smaller than the 36ers. That gave rise to the new DirtySixer 32er, which uses 32″ wheels and tires, naturally. Fitting somewhere between the 36ers and a standard XL, the 32ers are making their way to Kickstarter for delivery later this year…
Built to fit riders from 5’8″ to 6’8″, David jokingly refers to the 32er as the ‘Point Guard’s bike’ where as the 36er is for Centers or Forwards. For the non basketball followers, that just means the 32er is still for tall people, just not quite as tall. Because of that, the bike still has a number of special parts from the 32″ wheels and tires to the 180mm to 200mm Joseph Kuosac cranks. If the Kickstarter is successful, David hopes to eventually open his own molds for better 32″ tires as well as sourcing an improved tubeless ready rim which are both big investments.
Like his other bikes, the 32ers are built by Ventana USA with aluminum frames and a rigid steel fork. The front dropout is spaced like a fat bike with a 150 x 15mm thru axle, while the rear sticks to a 170mm QR dropout to allow for use of the new 170mm Rohloff hub. The frame features custom dropout plates that are thicker than average, and production frames will be very similar to the one above, though they will not have the same chainstay yoke used on the prototype.
Now on Kickstarter, David has set his goal at just four complete bikes which start at $5,099 for a 32er AllRoad 1×11 build with flat bars. Road bike builds start at $5,499 and add 48cm drop bars. Made in the USA, the stock color is Sky White, though a number of custom colors are available for an upcharge. If successful, bikes should be delivered by August. DirtySixer is also offering their 36″ MTB and Road bikes again on Kickstarter at the same time if you are a little too tall for the 32er.
