Arizona-based bike brand Vassago has been here before. In 2005, founder Kris Fowler “started Vassago to do 29-inch wheels specifically,” the brand’s current owner, Tom Ament, told Singletracks. That was the same year that Niner got its start with a similar focus on big-wheel bikes.
Ament purchased Vassago from Fowler in 2011 and has been designing, selling, and even building some of the brand’s steel and titanium frames ever since. Now, as another larger wheel size gains momentum, the company is introducing a new bike, the Vassago Maximus Ti.
The ultimate wheel size for short track XC racing?
Ament decided to build his first 32er frame because one of his customers, Rich Dillen, aka Dicky, was curious about the emerging wheel size. “He was going to use it for like short track type races,” Ament said. Other customers learned about the project and requested their own 32ers as well. “I rode one around for a little while, and then I just had an influx of people asking about these bikes, so we launched them.”
Looking at the geometry and early builds from customers like Dicky, the Vassago Maximus Ti is clearly primed for cross-country style racing. With a rigid fork, the bike boasts a conservative 67.5° head tube angle and reach numbers that top out at 500mm for size XL frames. Ament notes one advantage for racing is that the wheels roll faster than standard 29er hoops. “And it seems like you can push a little bigger gear, and you have to initiate the turns just a millisecond faster because the bike is a little bit longer,” he said.
One of the things that sticks out about the Vassago Maximus Ti’s geometry is the length of the chainstays, which are 450mm across all frame sizes. Though some manufacturers are starting to offer chainstay lengths that vary based on frame size, only their largest 29er frames see stays that long. For smaller riders, long stays pose a real challenge, though that’s not even the hardest nut Ament needed to crack.
“The biggest thing was to keep the bottom bracket low enough,” he said. The 95mm bottom bracket drop on the Maximus Ti geometry table is a big number, though with the higher axle height, that works out to a 316mm bottom bracket height, which is right in line with the average hardtail mountain bike.
Beyond that, there are “just some geometry changes to ensure the bike steers right without having a bunch of wheel flop and all that. And also keeping the front end low enough.”
The Vassago Maximus Ti uses “short ZS headtubes to accommodate lower stack heights,” though there’s a limit to how short a head tube can be while still fitting a fork with a tapered steerer tube. Some 32er riders are already experimenting with negative-rise stems to lower the bar height to a comfortable level.
Preparing for the future
It’s still early days for mountain bikes with 32″ wheels, and there are still a lot of unknowns. Will the wheel size be adopted mostly by taller riders, or riders of all sizes? Will it catch on beyond obvious applications like cross-country racing, moving to enduro as 29ers did?
Ament notes that early 29er bikes felt awkward and riders didn’t have great suspension fork options, and perhaps as a result, it took several years before the wheel size gained momentum. And moving from 26″ tires and wheels, which most riders were familiar with at the time, to 29ers was a much bigger jump than going from a 29+ tire to a 32×2.4″ tire today, he says.
With that history in mind, the Vassago Maximus Ti is designed to fit tires up to 32×2.6″ wide, even though all of the 32-inch tires currently available top out at 2.4″ wide. In another nod toward future-proofing, the frame features sliding dropouts so the bike can be set up as a single speed or with the latest UDH-compatible geared drivetrain. Longtime riders will recall that many of the earliest 29ers were singlespeed bikes, just like the Maximus Ti Dicky built up.
Vassago offers its own carbon fork designed for 32″ wheels, while some builds make use of rigid ENVE forks. The Maximus Ti is suspension fork compatible, and Ament says he expects to see more fork options becoming available in the next year or so.
Sold out, but riders can still get a Vassago Maximus Ti
Though the Vassago website lists the Maximus Ti as sold out (listed at $2,399 and on sale for $1,999), buyers can still reserve one via email. “I normally sell through my frames before they’re made,” Ament told me. “I can only have so many frames made, so if I do have inventory in stock, I put it on the website.”
At one time, Vassago had a network of dealers and local bike shops across the country selling their bikes, and Ament said that model proved to be challenging. Now, with a focus on high-end bikes, the operation is much more sustainable. Maximus Ti frames are produced in Taiwan, and Ament expects the bikes to arrive in about a month or so.
Ament told me he was an early 29er adopter himself, though he didn’t particularly like the larger wheel size at first. This time, with the 32-inch-wheeled Maximus Ti, it sounds like it’s love at first ride.
“The bike is really fun to ride,” he said.
0 Comments