After showcasing two 32er bikes at SPOKEN this year in Sydney, as soon as we landed back in Melbourne it was time to get them out on the trails! Jimmy Rostlund, Curve’s Technical Lead and seasoned framebuilder had first dibs on taking the Big Kev of Steel 32” for a rip on the trails, and these are some of his first impressions. Rather than being lazy and building our flagship 32” gravel bike around a repurposed 29er MTB fork, we took a serious look at the geometry, using what we learned from our 36” Titanosaur project. We think a 32” gravel fork should look very different to what’s currently on the market. After some early test riding, we couldn't be happier with how the geometry feels.
This is what Jimmy had to say…
After experimenting with a 36" gravel bike, the Titanosaur, a few years ago, you'd think that we would have been right at the pointy end of the 32" craze that took off as soon as high-quality tyres started appearing on the market. But just because you didn't see us unveil a prototype 12 months ago doesn't mean we were snoozing on it.
We've always had a very deliberate methodology and vision when developing our geometry and sizing, so we carefully did our homework when developing the geometry for our first 32" gravel bike prototype. We drew upon our experience from the Titanosaur project, but also from earlier models like the OG GMX, which was our first go at sticking 29" MTB wheels on a gravel bike.
Making a 32" gravel bike the right way means dialling in the geo in a way that makes sense for the wheel size. It's a bigger wheel, so it's only natural that the bike will be bigger overall - to us, it made no sense at all trying to fit a 32" wheel while maintaining the same wheelbase as a gravel bike designed for 700c/29" wheels, which is not unusual to see from other builders experimenting with this new wheel size.
We also didn't want to make a bike with a re-appropriated suspension-corrected MTB fork, even though we already have our Seek 500 fork which will technically fit a 32" wheel, because that requires compromises we were not willing to make. So when we set out to design and build our 32" Big Kev, we commissioned a fork based on the specs we determined to be reasonable for the project, instead of working around suboptimal length and offset specifications.
To keep one of the bike handling key metrics, "ground trail", in the goldilocks range when moving to a larger wheel, there are essentially only two things you can do - steepen the headtube angle and/or increase the fork offset. We are also conscious of introducing unwanted downstream effects, such as toe overlap.
Similarly, we didn't make the rear end as short as physically possible because that would have been silly - when the front-centre grows, so should the rear-centre.
So what are our findings after spending a fair bit of time riding the bike? In short, it handles pretty much exactly like we hoped it would.
Even though it's a larger and longer bike, it can take on twisty singletrack with no issue. Tight 180-degree turns on bike path switchbacks? No problems! Once you're on the bike and have gotten used to the look of the larger wheel that pokes out in front of you, the bike feels just about the same as a regular Big Kev. When you get it up to speed, the momentum from the larger wheels helps maintain that speed. And because it rolls over uneven surfaces better, less speed is lost when the terrain gets bumpy.
The bike really shines when going fast - at speed, it becomes stable and reliable without being unwieldy. All in all, it's simply a confidence-inspiring ride.
We still have a way to go before this enters production, but for our first go at a 32er we are very close to what will be our final production geometry. To stay up to date and find out the latest developments on the 32” platform, make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter!