Canyon Makes LeBron James a One-Off 3XL Bike with 32-Inch Wheels

Thirty-two-inch wheels are all anyone can talk about in cycling right now. Seemingly everyone has been debating the merits of running larger wheels, trying to decide if the performance benefits outweigh the extra weight and altered handling.

One place where 32-inch wheels undeniably make sense, however, is for tall riders. Like really tall riders. LeBron James tall. The 6’9” NBA superstar is a Canyon investor, and it turns out a perk of that investment is getting a custom bike made just for you.

James debuted his new one-off 3XL Canyon Grizl CF complete with 32-inch wheels on a ride in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, alongside friends from his high school basketball team.

The bike isn’t simply a scaled up version of a production size Grizl. Canyon says its engineers had to create a new carbon layup to handle a rider of James’ size. His athletic 250-pound build puts added stresses on a frame.

“The geometry might land in the right place, but the loads don’t scale the way the dimensions do,” said Wolfgang Kohl, Canyon’s lead engineer, gravel. “Everything needed to get re-engineered or the bike simply wouldn’t function as a responsive system to the rider.”

The parts from standard sized production bikes don’t necessarily scale to the needs of larger bikes either, so Canyon developed thru-axles that are custom CNC-machined with boost spacing, as well as a custom seat clamp. And then of course Canyon also scaled up the wheels to 32 inches to match the larger frame.

The result is a bike that looks proportioned more closely to a size 54 or 56 frame with 700c wheels. Custom bikes for taller riders often have odd looking proportions, in part because they rely on parts and sizes that are meant to work best for smaller bikes.

“On most bikes I’ve ridden, I was aware of the bike, where it didn’t fit me, what I was working around,” said James through a press release. “This is the first one that I didn’t have to think about. That’s what I love most about riding. It’s just you out there and everything else is gone.”

James is a longtime cycling proponent, having been spotted biking throughout his two-decade long NBA career from Ohio to Miami to Los Angeles. Philadelphians might spot him on this custom bike after his move to the ‘76ers for the upcoming season.

If you’re a 6’9” rider who isn’t an NBA superstar and want this bike, don’t get your hopes up just yet. It’s a one-off bike made just for James, not meant to be a production model (at least for now).

Canyon has treated this bike as an R&D project, using it to develop new production methods that the brand says will find its way into other models in the future.

The bike is built up with a SRAM Red AXS XPLR drivetrain with a, 38T chainring and  10-46T cassette; DT Swiss XR1700 32-inch wheels; and Schwalbe G-ONE RX tires.

Geometry: Size 3XL Canyon Grizl CF

• Seat tube length: 625 mm
• Top tube length: 642 mm
• Stack height: 680 mm
• Reach: 470 mm
• Head tube length: 194 mm
• Chain stay length: 476 mm
• Wheelbase: 1201 mm
• Head tube angle: 71.2 deg.