Stevens Super Prestige Disc Di2 review

A top-flight cyclo-cross bike ridden by leading Continental professional riders, we've put German brand Stevens's Super Prestige through its paces here in the UK

(Image credit: mike prior)
Cycling Weekly Verdict

For a machine ridden extensively at the top flight of professional cyclo-cross, the Super Prestige Disc Di2 is relatively modestly priced. It’s well specced too, with the Ultegra Di2 hydraulic groupset proving a highlight, its precise shifting and light braking well suited to off-road conditions.

Reasons to buy
  • +

    Top-flight cyclo-cross bike at a reasonable price

  • +

    Quick handling through obstacles

  • +

    Electronic groupset works well in tricky conditions

  • +

    Good-quality wheelset

  • +

Reasons to avoid
  • -

    Not particularly light

  • -

    Non-tubeless tyres

  • -

    White accents will need a lot of cleaning

  • -

    Expensive to replace the rear mech

  • -

You can trust Cycling Weekly. Our team of experts put in hard miles testing cycling tech and will always share honest, unbiased advice to help you choose. Find out more about how we test.

Hamburg-based bike brand Stevens is little known in the UK. It didn’t have a UK distributor for a few years before being picked up by East London-based Hub Velo at the end of last year.

But it’s a brand with a larger presence on the Continent, in particular on the cyclo-cross scene, with its Super Prestige model ridden by Dutch national champion Matthieu van der Poel and women’s world champion Sanne Cant.

>>> Pro bike: Mathieu van der Poel's Stevens Super Prestige

Ultegra Di2 hydraulic gives precise shifting even in muddy conditions
(Image credit: mike prior)

Stevens offers the Super Prestige in the top-spec Ultegra Di2 model priced at £3,200, which we have tested, and an Ultegra mechanical variant priced at £2,499. There’s also a canti version for the diehard; most cyclo-cross professionals have switched fully to discs this season.

>>> Is it the end for cantilever brakes?

Stevens’s frame is high-modulus carbon-fibre with a chunky down tube, wide bottom bracket shell and tapered seat tube and seatstays to add some compliance. The full-carbon fork is also chunky and sits in a relatively slack 72° head tube.

Plenty of clearance around the seatstays
(Image credit: mike prior)

There’s loads of clearance around the high fork crown and the bridgeless seatstays, although at the chainstays it’s relatively tight and I did find some clogging on muddier courses.

Along with its flat-mount hydraulic disc brakes, Stevens provides the thru-axles which are now more-or-less standard on disc-brake bikes. They’re 12mm front and rear, with 142mm spacing at the rear. Thru-axles help with rigidity of the wheel-to-frame connection and also with disc rotor alignment to prevent rub. We never found rubbing to be an issue.

>>> Disc brakes: everything you need to know

Stevens decks the bike out with its own-brand Oxygen Scorpio finishing kit. This includes an alloy stem and a bar with quite a deep drop. There’s also an Oxygen Scorpio-branded carbon seatpost and an Oxygen Triton white saddle.

White own brand saddle on carbon stem soon looks dirty
(Image credit: mike prior)

Needless to say, along with the white bar tape, the saddle quickly shows the effects of splattered mud. The 33mm Challenge Grifo Pro open tubular tyres look pristine in white too, but again they’re unlikely to stay that way for long. The matt camo green paintwork with its white detailing does look smart, and the Super Prestige Disc is certainly a pretty-looking bike. It’s also available in white/red.

>>> A road bike thru-axle standard: are we there yet?

Stevens specs a quality DT Swiss R24 Spline disc wheelset. Despite the Challenge tyres fitted to the test bike, it’s tubeless ready and it should stand up to some abuse too.

Shifter wire is routed through the seatstay to reduce the risk of disconnection
(Image credit: mike prior)

I was impressed with Ultegra Di2’s performance off-road. Having electronic shifting takes away the fuzziness that can develop once a cable-actuated derailleur becomes clogged with dirt. Even when dirt-covered, gear changes were precise and the ability to shift under load along with self-trimming of the front mech helps you keep moving over more tricky terrain.

>>> Are electronic groupsets necessary?

The light touch of the shift levers is nice too. I didn’t find I was making any mis-shifts despite the closeness of the up and down shifters, although it does take more care than with a manual system particularly when wearing winter gloves. The hoods are slightly wider than on Shimano’s mechanical hydraulic levers too, adding a bit more comfort over bumpy terrain. They also have a textured top surface which helps with grip.

Watch: Shimano Ultegra groupset review

Braking is effective with good modulation and a light touch, as you’d expect from a hydraulic system.

The Super Prestige Disc provides a nice ride off-road. Through tricky terrain it’s edgy enough to allow good navigation without feeling like a handful. It feels comfortable, although with a 101cm wheelbase there’s not quite the stability you find on some bikes with longer wheelbases and there was a little toe overlap.

Super Prestige comes with tubeless-ready DT Swiss wheels
(Image credit: mike prior)

It’s relatively comfortable to shoulder too, although the underside of the top tube has a couple of curved edges that dig in a bit more than some other brands’ frames.

>>> Should you change to tubeless tyres?

It’s also not the lightest cyclo-cross bike out there, coming in at 8.63kg with the stock wheelset. With a cassette going down to 28 teeth, it’s also quite high geared for steeper uphills.

For a top-flight cyclocross bike, the Super Prestige Di2 Disc is reasonably good value, particularly as it comes with expensive electronic shifting. But beware of the cost of replacement if you do wreck the rear mech in a race – at full RRP it’s £220!

Thank you for reading 20 articles this month* Join now for unlimited access

Enjoy your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription

Join now for unlimited access

Try first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

Paul Norman

Paul started writing for Cycling Weekly in 2015, covering cycling tech, new bikes and product testing. Since then, he’s reviewed hundreds of bikes and thousands of other pieces of cycling equipment for the magazine and the Cycling Weekly website.

He’s been cycling for a lot longer than that though and his travels by bike have taken him all around Europe and to California. He’s been riding gravel since before gravel bikes existed too, riding a cyclocross bike through the Chilterns and along the South Downs.