An Adventure ride with a race bike fit – is this new stainless steel bike from Berlin inadvertently more exclusive than Berghain?

Standert, is to bicycles in Berlin, as Berghain, is to Berlin Techno. They’re achingly cool whilst being very specifically ‘of the city’. Standert is also almost as stylish as Berlin’s most famous nightclub, whilst also somehow, perversely, being relatively affordable.

Their new bike, the accessibly-named Erdgeschoss, is built to, in its words, “Bring the farthest corners of the globe just that little bit closer”.

You might need to bring the bars closer however, as the stack and reach are as long, and lower, than a Specialized Aethos, at 568mm and 391mm respectively, meaning this bike is still, as are many of Standert’s offerings, discerningly hardcore in terms of who they’re designed for. A little like Berghain.

Berlin may be full of young, fit, hip, and cool folk, but this is clearly not a bike for a middle-aged Londoner, unless you like your adventure bikes served with plenty of spacers, or a short stem to give you some of that gravel bike control back.

The handling geo is a little more all-road than adventure too, with a trail figure of 63mm, from the 47mm rake and 72 degree head angle, albeit user switchable via a flip-chip, to 52mm with the Columbus Adventure fork specified upfront. A rear end of 425mm is also pretty keen, given the generous tyre clearance of 50mm on a 700c wheel and up to 52mm on a 650b wheel.

But there is some adjustment. Whilst the bike is UDH compatible, and launched as such, it also unusually features a sliding dropout. I reached out to the brand, which in the press release, suggested this was to ensure you could control chain tension in the event you lose the rear mech.

I called them on that, given UDH’s superior robustness, wondering how and why you’d seek to solve a problem that, candidly, no longer really exists except in pretty extreme event-ending events, and the response was pretty detailed, and unusually satisfactory. They confirmed that they felt the get you home flexibility of the system, where chain tension was adjustable in an emergency was valid, but they also said:

“We've always used sliding dropouts on the Erdgeschoss to allow adjustable chainstay length, providing a more stable ride when carrying panniers or racks. Gravel terrain varies greatly depending on location.”

Fair enough, we thought, you can make the bike a little longer when the terrain demands it, that's no bad thing.

They went on to say;

“Perhaps we’re simply the first to keep sliding dropouts when introducing UDH to a platform. As a nice side effect, riders with larger feet can also improve the notoriously tight heel clearance when using SRAM’s Full Mount derailleurs.”

Both explanations seem far more useful than the ability to fit a near-unbreakable mech, then when it fails, split the chain, shorten it, and run the bike home in a ten-tooth sprocket, MacGyver style.

And, Standert customers wouldn't be the first to point out that you can catch your foot on a short chain stay bike with a UDH rear mech installed, such is the nature of the more forward design.

More importantly, in my view, the Erdgeschoss will also be available as a frame-only option, so the sliding dropout will suit those looking for a hub gear setup also. By incorporating a UDH dropout, with the slider, it seems you do add a ton of flexibility in the frame-only build option, which at €2399 is pretty reasonable for one made from stainless steel. Especially when you consider the ability to switch out various setups, which is a definite positive for a bike of this type, especially one that's made of a real forever material, like this one.

Reynolds and Columbus have both persevered with stainless steel alloys over the years, and the world’s best handmade builders reserve it for their deepest-pocketed customers too, often beating titanium to the title of most expensive bike in some builder’s ranges. It’s just not very cheap stuff.

Which is why this launch is noteworthy, beyond it being a very pretty new gravel bike. It’s not hard to spend a whole grand more than Standert is asking for the Erdgeschoss on a Columbus XCR tubed stainless bike, for example, Condor’s Acciaio Stainless road frame retails at £3499.

Genesis’s Croix De Fer stainless frame is an archetypal adventure platform, and perhaps a better like-for-like, made from Reynolds 931. That comes in at £2499, which despite being a pretty good value stainless steel option, is still dearer at first glance, than the new Erdgeschoss.

How has Standert manged to keep the cost down? Well, the Erdgeschoss uses a Taiwanese-made stainless steel tubing, which it says is, in mechanical properties terms, equivalent to Reynolds 931. That’s some claim.

They say the tubing in the Erdgeschoss is made by its Taiwanese tubing manufacturer, Satin Technologies. By building the frame in Taiwan, using locally produced, proprietary steel tubing, they’ve clearly been able to hit better numbers than almost any stainless steel frame I can think of. If it is indeed mechanically similar, and the famous ride quality associated with 931 or even XCR can be replicated here, it could be very compelling indeed.

At 2130g for a 54cm frame, the frame itself is a good deal weightier than a Genesis CDF Reynolds 931 frame, which comes in at around 1900g. A frame designed with lighter, racier duties in mind, such as Cinelli's XCR or Condor's Accaciao Stainless using Columbus XCR, are around the 1650g mark, so we could infer from those examples that there's less butting in the tubeset Standert are using here.

Notwithstanding those theories, the Erdgeschoss, which I’m going to struggle to say out loud, means, we’re told, “Groundfloor”. Standert could have found a recipe here for getting into decent stainless tubing at a groundfloor price, and that could be a really wonderful thing indeed.

Stainless won’t rust, of course, so if you want a bike that’s going to make the world a little bit smaller, as it suggests, with the added versatility of that sliding dropout that’s compatible with the most eccentric setups, and the most modern, then this could be a real forever bike. If you can make its geometry fit you.

Frameset and full build options will be available. Framesets complete with a Chris King headset, retail at €2399, and complete builds in ‘Golden Brown’ feature SRAM Rival XPLR groupset, are available for pre-order now at €4499, with SRAM Force AXS XPLR, in ‘White Rabbit,’ starting at €6499.

Build Specifications

Erdgeschoss - SRAM Force AXS XPLR (White Rabbit)

Groupset:

SRAM Force AXS XPLR

Chainring: 42T

Cassette: 10-46

Finishing Kit:

Bar and Stem: Zipp Service Course SL XPLR

Seatpost: LC Carbon (27.2mm)

Headset: Chris King inSet i7

Saddle: Fizik Terra Argo X3

Wheels and Tyres:

Wheels: DT Swiss GRC 1400 30

Tyres: Pirelli Cinturato Gravel M 45mm

Tubes: Pirelli Cinurato TPU Smartubes

Frame weight:

Frame 54(only): 2130g

Frame 54 + UDH + Seat clamp= 3270g

Fork 54: 555g

Complete bike weight:

SIZE 54: 9.7KG

Erdgeschoss - SRAM Rival AXS XPLR (Golden Brown)

Groupset:

SRAM Rival AXS XPLR

Chainring: 42T

Cassette: 10-46

Finishing Kit:

Bar and Stem: Zipp Service Course SL XPLR

Seatpost: LC Carbon (27.2mm)

Headset: Chris King inSet 7

Saddle: Fizik Terra Argo X3

Wheels and Tyres:

Wheels: DT Swiss G1800

Tyres: Pirelli Cinturato Gravel M 45mm

Tubes: Pirelli Cinurato TPU Smartubes

Frame weight:

Frame 54(only): 2130g

Frame 54 + UDH + Seat clamp= 3270g

Fork 54: 555g

Complete bike weight:

SIZE 54: 10.6kg

Colours

Golden Brown

White Rabbit