Spending three days walking around Australia's Spoken show revealed all sorts of goodness. Each and every stand offered something to gawk at and to discuss the technical intricacies of. However, if there’s one name that appeared more than any other, it was Baum.
Based in Geelong, Australia, Baum Cycles is the most established and iconic amongst the Australian builders. Having been in business for 28 years, Darren Baum (and the Baum team) has undoubtedly had the largest impact in bringing premium Australian custom bicycles to international awareness. Along the way, Baum has mentored, assisted, or at least paved the way for other internationally renowned names such as Prova Cycles and Bastion.
Baum always brings something new and exciting to talk about to boutique bike shows, and much like Spoken 2024 or Made 2024, Spoken 2025 was yet another reminder that the company isn’t keen to sell on its legacy. Among the usual impeccable titanium builds, there was a new gravel bike with massive tyre clearance, a 32-inch-wheeled gravel bike, a full suspension mountain bike, and of course, the usual flawless road bikes.
With a manufacturing capacity for up to 200 bikes a year, seeing a Baum in the wild is a rare occurrence. And yet, there were more at this year’s show than any other single brand. I deliberated about whether I should spread these Australian-made titanium bikes out among several galleries, or whether I should go all-in. I’ll let you figure out which path I took. Clearly, Baum’s Been Busy.
Baum XTM gravel bike
With its first dedicated gravel bike coming out six years ago, Baum may have been slow to fully embrace the booming segment. However, they’ve been at the leading edge since.
At Made 2024, Baum showcased its DBM (Drop Bar Mountain) bike which earned plenty of attention for being a gravel bike with 29 x 2.4" tyre clearance. However, as the name suggests, it borrowed heavily from the mountain bike world, including Boost rear wheel spacing and a mountain bike crank width.
For Spoken, Baum revealed the XTM, another wide-tyred gravel bike that’s less off-road centric then the DBM, one that’s aimed to be a bit more pure gravel in its purpose, geometry, and fit. According to Baum, it’s a bike well suited to an approximate 80/20 split between off-road and road usage.
Similar to the new Allied Able or No.22 Drifter, the new XTM officially clears 700 x 57 mm rubber (29 x 2.25") with 6 mm of surrounding clearance when built to fit a gravel-width SRAM XPLR Wide crank (47.5 mm chainline). As a custom bike, it can also be built around Shimano GRX’s wider 50 mm chainline to clear up to 63 mm of rubber (29 x 2.4"). The bike is designed around 1x electronic shifting with a 46T maximum chainring.
That tyre clearance was achieved with a new 3D-printed titanium yoke at the chainstays and a curved seat tube. Additionally, the frame features Baum’s own UDH dropouts, 3/2.5 in-house externally butted titanium tubing, and a semi-integrated headset. The bike uses Enve’s Adventure fork.
Baum will all too happily build you this bike with brake hose routing external of the headset, but you can also pay extra for concealed cabling via Enve In-Route steering components and a Chris King Aeroset headset.
Like all Baums, paint is done in-house. There are seven standard frame sizes, plus the option for full custom. Complete bikes start from AU$16,192 (approx US$10,500).
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Baum DBM 32
Rumours have been whizzing around the industry that 32-inch wheels are coming to mountain bikes. Escape Collective recently caught up with key names from Trek to discuss what they’ve been up to, and we’ve since heard of numerous other big brands experimenting with the wheel size. If you need proof it’s coming, Maxxis has put its Aspen 32 x 2.4" tyre into production.
The past few years have had whispers of bigger wheels for gravel, with custom builders such as Zinn having produced 32" bikes, while the likes of Moots had showcased a marginally smaller 750D wheel size at Made in 2023 (a wheel size that 32” will arguably kill off). And while most the big brands in the industry are looking to the 32” wheel size for cross-country mountain bikes, Baum is testing the concept for gravel bikes.
Sticking with the DBM (Drop Bar Mountain) naming, Darren Baum has built up this 32” prototype in his own size. At roughly 6’ (183 cm) tall, the founder believes he’s toward the lower height range for whom this wheel size will ideally fit. Below that – while still to be confirmed – there are likely to be too many geometry compromises.
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