Cogs, change: The Mitte came to us as an adventure tourer. Just as the team from the small Berlin custom shop tested it in 8 days, covering 840 kilometres and 12,000 metres in altitude on Moroccan gravel roads across the Atlas Mountains. That's what it says in the brochure and on the website that accompany the bike from the centre of our beautiful German capital. The baby-blue aluminium frame with ovalised tubes and sliding dropouts is certainly no lightweight. But it doesn't have to be: it has to carry luggage on the rear and front racks, it has to be stiff enough for long gravel roads, carrying and pushing passages. And it also has to be able to cope with being transported there. The Tourer has an aluminium fork with a slightly longer pre-bend and greater tyre clearance in the frame. A lowrider can also be fitted here. The 7° inclined stem points upwards, Curana mudguards protect against bad weather and swirling dirt, and a Racktime carrier at the rear is ready for transporting panniers.
If you pick up an Allen key, remove the mudguards and racks, reverse the stem and then get on the pedals, the knobbly 35 mm tyres carry you briskly over hill and dale: after-work laps, cross races with friends, forest trail tours - the Mitte can do it all as a crosser, powered by the 2x11 Ultegra drivetrain and tamed by powerful hydraulic discs.
Next change: Replaced the tapered aluminium fork with a lower carbon one and remounted the discs. The dropouts were pushed all the way in at the rear and the lightweight racing tyres fitted: Now we have a compact racer. The seat and steering angles are each one degree steeper, the bottom bracket sinks about eight millimetres lower and the wheelbase shrinks by a good two and a half centimetres. The bike is immediately more manoeuvrable and more agile. The Kregl company from Berlin sells the frame/fork set and components for the conversions described for 2550 euros as a package. That's a narrow high-volume price and therefore a very fair price. The bike is convincing in all its guises and is fun to ride. As a pure racer, it is too heavy, but for someone who likes to screw things together and invest a good 45 minutes in the conversion, there is a lot of potential in the concept. You get a good idea for free!
The complete article was published in Trekkingbike issue 5/2017. You can download the issue in the Trekkingbike app (iTunes and Google Play ) or in the DK-Shop order.
