For years, gravel cycling tech has been surging ahead of road-specific innovations. Visiting Sea Otter Girona last week presented a host of new and interesting tech changes, though one or two of these could be a long way off achieving approval from the masses.
32″ will be 2027’s hottest tech
It is with the contentious tech that we’ll start. A small selection of brands, including Megamo and Avona were showcasing gravel bikes with 32-inch wheels.
Avona had the most success with their rider, Leon Kaiser, winning the men’s UCI race. You can check out his setup here, but what struck me was how good the frames are looking in medium sizes.
I also caught a glimpse of Avona’s design in the small size and while I didn’t manage to grab a photo (sorry), the geometry looked well balanced. I will be very interested to see how brands can deliver 32-inch wheels for smaller riders.
The Megamo’s frame looked like a mostly finished product, though the Vittoria tyres were marked up as prototypes. These, however, are a set of the brand’s T50 tyres and I doubt it’ll be long until their launch.
The reason that the 32-inch wheel size is significant lies in its lack of compatibility with existing frames and tyres. For mass adoption of the larger wheels to take place, riders would need to buy a new frame, the wheels, and pick from an initially small selection of tyres.
While I fully expect to see a rush of pro athletes experiment with the 32-inch standard, I believe that recreational riders will need strong evidence that larger wheels will genuinely benefit their riding – not just racing at pro speeds. Given the cost involved in switching, the bike industry’s usual line of “trust me, it’s faster,” just won’t cut it.
Darimo’s full carbon cranks are truly bonkers
If you’re ever at a bike show and Darimo are in attendance, you’re in for a treat. The German lightweight specialists are always coming up with something fun and I was very keen to get my hands on their finished Sigma carbon cranks.
The left crank arm and spindle are now one piece. It’s a lovely piece of carbon engineering, but the fun didn’t stop there.
Darimo has a prototype carbon chainring for the Sigma cranks that they’re still working on. The brand told me that work is currently going into the material used for the chainring teeth.
Darimo’s founder, Damia, was kind enough to share plenty of details with me and says that they’ll have axle lengths for road, gravel, MTB and MTB wide, while crank lengths will range from 150mm to 172.5mm.
Obviously, Darimo had a set of weighing scales on hand. A pair of cranks weigh 251g, while the 46T chainring is just 86g.
Whaleroad’s 14-speed road groupset
Stopping by at Cykl bike’s stand, I got pointed towards a very interesting groupset from Chinese brand Whaleroad on the Montpellier brand’s gorgeous titanium frames.
The 1×14 R7 road groupset pairs, in this instance, an 11-46T cassette with a solid chainring.
But aside from the tightly-spaced cassette, and wireless rear derailleur, I was most interested in the removable battery which can by charged via USB-C.
While I wasn’t able to ride the bike to which the groupset was fitted (it was a large), I did have a play with the shifter buttons. The click here was very nicely damped, yet still encouragingly positive.
Conti goes wider on value clincher road tyres
I love riding top-end tubeless tyres, but their cost means that 2nd-tier clincher tyres are my choice for higher wear duties, such as commuting.
Continental has a new 32mm width for the Grand Prix tyre. Launched a few days ago, this was the first time I’d got my hands on them and under the warm Girona sunshine, the tyre felt impressively supple.
Other golden tech nuggets
1 thought on “Big wheels, new tyres, boutique brands, and a 14-speed groupset: gravel tech is much more fun than road right now”
> If you’re ever at a bike show and Darimo are in attendance …. The German lightweight specialists are always coming up with something fun
Darimo is a Spanish company. Just saying.