Whenever a new bit of gear is introduced for gravel – and especially when that gear even vaguely resembles a mountain bike component – people tend to get up in arms. It’s “not necessary” or it is “just ’90s mountain biking” get thrown around immediately.
Fox’s new 32 Taper-Cast – in borrowing heavily from the XC-focused 32 Step-Cast – is the perfect target for such ire. It might also be the best thing to happen to gravel since high-volume tires. Sure, it’s not necessary to ride gravel. But the amount of control, comfort and speed it can add to your riding is amazing. There are downsides – it’s not light and it’s not inexpensive – but the upsides offer way more to gravel riding than, to be honest, I was expecting.
Fox 32 Taper-Cast: Features
Fox offers the Taper-Cast in two travel lengths, 40mm or 50mm. There are also two different dampers, depending on what level of 32 TC. The Fit4 damper, with three positions allowing for Open, Medium or a basically locked-out Firm mode, comes on the Factory and Performance Elite forks while the Performance line comes with Fox’s Grip damper.
Unlike Fox’ previous gravel fork, the AX, the 32 Taper Cast is custom-tuned to the shorter travel design. All versions of the TC use the same drop-crown profile and a reverse arch improve downtube clearance. It can use 160mm or 180mm flat-mount dib brake rotors. Several features, like integrated fender mounts and lower-leg air and oil bypass channels, carry over from Fox’ highly regarded mountain bike suspension line.
There’s clearance for 50cc tires (700cc. The fork isn’t compatible with 650b wheels), options for 45 or 50-mm offset and has an axle-to-crown measurement of 435.5mm – 445.5mm.
The fork has a claimed weight of 1,226 grams. This makes it, unsurprisingly, Fox’s lightest fork ever. But it’s still not exactly light compared to, say, a rigid fork.
Fox 32 Taper Cast Factory in the wild
Over the past several months, I’ve put the 32TC through all kinds of gravel, tarmac and occasional singletrack riding. As mentioned, I wasn’t sold on the concept of gravel suspension when I started. That quickly changed when I realized how much the cute little baby shocks, with just 40 mm of travel, could change my riding.
Descending
The performance of Fox’s new gravel fork can be separated into expected benefits and unexpected benefits. Obviously, it makes going downhill easier. It doesn’t come close to turning chunky gravel into…
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