The Sea Otter Classic bike show was full of new road bikes, gravel bikes and new 2026 cycling tech trends. Here’s a roundup of all the latest cycling tech on show including what appears to be incredibly good value road and gravel bikes from XDS and X-LAB with the new GT8 gravel bike, 32″ wheel gravel bikes galore and new road bikes and new gravel bikes.
Let us know your favourite road bike, gravel bike or cycling news in the comments below…
This video contains paid promotion on behalf of The Insurance Emporium, for more details head to:
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Presented by: Jamie Williams
Videographer/Editor: Edward Westrop & Andrew Daley
0:00 Intro
0:16 32″ Gravel Bikes
3:30 X-LAB/XDS
5:25 New Chinese Bike Tech
8:15 Titanium Aero Bike
9:00 Aero Front Light
10:13 Aero Bike
11:17 VERY Wide Tyres!
11:50 Insurance
13:00 Lightweight Bikes
14:00 Rim Brakes Sram
18:00 Outro
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30 Comments
Did you know that when you speak poorly of Moots, a puppy dies?
No to 32.
Yes to Allied!!!
Still waiting for the full Cube Attain review – it's been 2 months since the preview 😊
So gravel bikes just re-invented the 90's hybrid bike right? Only the hybrids had better handlebars for riding on mild dirt trails.
Sram Force 10-speed rim brake for the win.
Maybe the bike industry should be making more bikes that actually fit women.
32 is not the new standard, maybe for very tall people for everyone else, it’s just the industry trying to flog us something new sadly
Let's go back to 650B please!
This is a gimmick 👎
Ref 32" the gear inches will be higher as well ,I'm 6ft 3 & I won't be getting them ,there will be too many issues like getting them on a car rack ( they'll be too wide maybe) will they go out of true easier etc .
x lab could be the BYD FOR BIKES…
X-Labs cannot come too early to EU market to push prices back towards being sane again with lower/mid spec bikes.
That Enve is fab. And it's "Mellay"
9:31 "Kom-ett"
13:28 wow, that's… pointless
14:26 no Pinarello is nice looking
If an adult is 5 ft tall and under they should be on 650b – up to lets say (6'-6") 700c . 32" is for people who are TALLER than that. There is a reason that kids bikes still have 26" wheels !
The wonky geometry to get 700c onto Small and XS bikes is the same result you'll have to get 32" wheels onto a 54/56 bike. It is not for everyone.
"Horses for courses "😊.
Honestly, we need to talk about this.
We’re seeing more and more bikes being pushed with 32-inch wheels, driven by marketing teams who, let’s be real, probably don’t ride much themselves. But who is this actually for?
Increasing wheel size means what in reality? 👉 More weight
👉 More bulk (try fitting that in a car…)
👉 Reduced handling for many riders
👉 And little to no real benefit for a large part of the cycling community
It’s being sold as innovation—but is it solving a real problem, or just creating a new marketing trend?
What many cyclists actually want isn’t a fixed wheel size or the latest “must-have” feature. We want: ✔ Bikes that can be properly fitted to our body size
✔ The ability to choose components based on how we ride
✔ Not to pay for parts we don’t need (like wheels we won’t even use)
Every rider is different. Every use case is different. So why are we being pushed toward more extreme, one-size-fits-all standards instead of truly customizable setups?
Before buying into the hype, let’s ask the real question: do 32-inch wheels genuinely bring value—or are they just another sales pitch?
The cycling community deserves better.
For extra tall riders, 6' 5" or taller maybe. But these have to be much heavier than 700cc so I don't see any advantage just like the hookless or worthless rims. Just marketing hype to sell a different bike/wheels/tires and to make more money in a failing industry.
32” wheels a big no and I’m tall, inverted stem well the geometry is all wrong then !
Favourite x- lab. Are they going to have to make everyone else drop their prices
tyres will be more expensive than the tyres on my car
Saw that at Sea Otter. The world has more short people than tall. Western brands are on purpose deciding to just ignore 5 out of 8 billion people. They are too poor? While I'm a regular road rider, I was at Sea Otter participating in the World Brompton Championship, yeah with small wheels!
It's so funny the blue silver xlab is like a 4/10 colorway for me, and then that next xlab gt8 shown is the absolute perfect paintjob to compliment that frame design. looking beautiful in muted dark grey with that line pattern, wild difference!
Also as others have said please don't assume an extra size option means that the current 650b and 700c wheels are going anywhere.
So your take on Moots has me curious. It looked like a beauty to me. 🎉
Another gimmick to sell bikes to all the gear no idea mob
6'5" tall here (194cm). 32" wheels, the sooner the better.
0:47 Those proprtions just look comically absurd!
Only for big guybig guys IIm waiting for this my whole life’s! Thank you industry for solving problems. Beeing larger than 1,80m is a thing. Next task – build shoes with a wide toebox- for longer rides. Than solve the gavel problem- by looking t the salsa cutthroat Andy finally stop the marginal gains game… thx.
Gotta keep on pumping out more shite for people to obsess over!
*Pandemonium
<also, 29er's are not going away because it's just a 700c wheel on a mountain bike, etc.>
<the 32in wheel bike; it will be huge! will it even fit in your house!?(reminds me of the old Conestoga wheel bike used by early settlers in murica)>
<if X-Lab makes road and gravel bikes at 1/3rd the price of the legacy manufactures(Pon Holdings, Trek, Colnago, etc), it would be great for the average consumer, since they priced out of the mid-tier market at +5,000$ USD>