Is the Kettensäge gravel bike from cult German brand Standert the ultimate gravel race-ready weapon?
Standert of Berlin recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. In that short amount of time, the brand has grown from its humble beginnings as a café and bike shop in Berlin to a global cycling bike brand. With a cult following of fans, snapping up its bike drops in record time, Standert founder and CEO Max von Senger says the brand is redefining the art of modern cycling, and has now dropped its best gravel bike to date, the race-ready Kettensäge – translation, the Chainsaw.
Standert says they have taken the racing DNA of its popular Kreissäge (Circular Saw) RS road bike and translated it into a gravel racer. The Kettensäge is aimed to be the ultimate gravel race bike, made in Italy with Dedacciai Aegis aluminum tubing, and packed with technical advantages to make the difference, a no-compromise gravel bike made to go fast over gravel roads, trails and tarmac. We had a look over the details of the stunning looking Standert Kettensäge...
As mentioned, the Berlin bike maker has adapted the road race performance from its alloy road race the Kreissäge RS for off-road riding, and the all-new aluminum Kettensäge is built with premium 7000-series Dedacciai Aegis alloy made in Italy. Standert reckon that modern race bikes don’t all have to be made only out of carbon, and its collaboration with Dedacciai combines state-of-the-art light tubing, designed for racing and high-performance aluminum bicycles matched to the Standert-proven racing performance taken from the road. The frames are welded by hand and hand painted with a claimed weight of 1,590g, the carbon fork at 400g, and the complete bike depending on spec chosen around 9.4kg on a 54cm model.
The gravel bike geometry on the Kettensäge is similar to their more adventurous Erdgeschoss (Ground Floor – sorry, no saw reference) gravel bike but gets more of a race-ready fast gravel geometry with a longer reach of 390mm on a 54cm model and a 71.5-degree head tube angle to give an aggressive riding position on the bike. Standert also includes its 'Project Compact' seven stock size range from 48 to 60cm, designed to fit gravel racers tall and small.
As it aims to be a race-ready gravel bike, the Kettensäge doesn’t go for full bikepacking mounts. Instead, it has two standard bottle cage bosses plus direct bolt-on top tube bag mounts and the fork has fender mounts, so could also be a capable multi-day gravel adventure bike, but Standert has the choice with their more adventure themed stainless steel Erdgeschoss gravel bike.
The best gravel tire of choice for most fast-gravel racing riders is a 40mm tire, and that's what comes on complete Kettensäge bike builds in the form of Challenge Getaway tires. It can also accommodate up to 700x45c tires.
Other features of The Kettensäge include fully integrated cable routing, with a straight 1.5-inch headtube, routing all the cables through the headset into the frame. Inside the headset, integrated cups have CeramicSpeed SLT bearings that come with a lifetime warranty.
The Kettensäge also gets a wider MTB-width 73mm threaded T47 bottom bracket optimized for 1x gravel bike drivetrains and is also compatible with mechanical or electronic 2x setups. Flat mount disc brakes, 12mm thru-axles with light SRAM Maxles, and the future-proof UDH (Universal Derailleur Hanger) mounting for the rear mech complete the standard Standert, with customization choices available on wheels, groupset and finishing kit.
Pricing and availabilty
Standert Kettensäge gravel bike showing the three color choices
The Kettensäge comes in stunning colorways, from the Team Edition dark green with pink graphics, Give ’em Hell Caramel tan and Yolo Barolo red with orange logos. The Kettensäge frameset in any color, with the bottom bracket standard of your choice starts at €2,000.
A complete Standert Kettensäge starts at €4,700 with a Shimano GRX 2×11 build. The SRAM Rival/Force XPLR AXS wireless 1x starts from €5,000. There are also plenty of possible upgrades to choose including DT Swiss carbon wheelsets, and the choice of 3D-printed Fizik saddles.
The new gravel race bikes are available to order now direct at standert.de and ship anywhere in most color and size combinations, with delivery times between one to two months depending on choices of components.
