Intend goes big with first production 32-inch fork

For the past year, 32-inch wheels have hovered at the edges of cross-country racing like a rumour you could almost ignore. Prototype bikes. Spy shots. Show builds that felt more like flexes than forecasts.

Then Intend showed up with a fork you can actually buy.

The German suspension brand has quietly become the first company to bring a production 32-inch fork to market with the Samurai 32, an inverted XC fork designed specifically for the new wheel size. It offers 100 to 130 mm of travel, weighs a claimed 1,620 grams and, perhaps most importantly, already exists outside of CAD renders and World Cup paddock whispers.

“We started with the first 32-inch Samurai forks beginning of last year,” founder Cornelius Kapfinger says. “over the season we sold already a couple of forks for show bikes and testing.”

That early trickle turned into something harder to dismiss.

Not a problem, just a race

If you’re looking for a tidy explanation about what problem 32-inch wheels solve, Kapfinger isn’t going to give you one.

“There is no problem to solve,” he says. “The whole 32-inch stuff is for sure some kind of ‘fear that the others do it sooner, so then lets do it faster then the others.’”

That blunt assessment cuts through a lot of industry marketing. For Kapfinger, 32-inch wheels aren’t about reinventing trail riding. They’re about racing, perception and being first.

“As a racer you need to have the fastest stuff you can get, ideally before the others, or at least at the same time,” he says.

Once frame brands started showing prototype 32-inch bikes publicly, Intend’s role became obvious. Someone had to support the wheel size with a fork that wasn’t just a one-off.

“There had been a few inquiries for the prototype forks,” Kapfinger says. “I ordered parts for five forks, and then we sold another two forks, so I changed the order to ten, which were sold within a few months, all to the big bike companies.”

For a small manufacturer, that was enough.

“For us as a small company the B2B inquiries were already kind of series production.”

Why inverted still makes sense

The Samurai’s inverted layout looks tailor-made for oversized wheels, but Kapfinger is quick to downplay the connection.

“There is no special advantage for the 32″ forks and USD (upside-down),” he says. “but yes, I hoped that the visibility of our 32-inch forks make the people think it suits better for the bigger wheels.”

In his view, USD forks…