Standert's New Dropout Trick is Quietly Genius
Standert's updated stainless steel Erdgeschoss gravel bike combines UDH compatibility with sliding dropouts, creating a truly "future-proof" frame.
I spend a lot of time thinking about the concept of a "forever bike." Is there such a thing? The industry moves so fast, with new standards emerging every year, that a bike bought five years ago can feel almost archaic. It's a frustrating chase.
That's why I was so interested to see the update to Standert's Erdgeschoss gravel bike. It was already a serious "buy it for life" contender. It’s made of stainless steel—a material that shrugs off rust and abuse—and comes equipped with sliding dropouts, making it a tinkerer's dream. You could run it singlespeed, with an internally geared hub, or with a standard derailleur.
But now they’ve added a feature that seems almost contradictory to that versatility: a UDH, or Universal Derailleur Hanger.
This is the part that got me curious. The UDH is a specific standard, designed for a fixed axle position, primarily to work with SRAM’s new Transmission groupsets. Sliding dropouts are, by their very nature, not fixed. How did Standert make the two work together?
It turns out they engineered a new stainless dropout insert that integrates the UDH standard. It’s a subtle but really clever piece of design. This one small change means you can now run the absolute latest drivetrain tech (like a T-Type derailleur) on a frame that is also compatible with a singlespeed setup for a rugged bikepacking trip. You aren't forced to choose between "future-proof" and "versatile"; you get both.
They didn't stop there. Standert also moved to a T47 bottom bracket, which combines the stiffness of an oversized shell with the reliability (and silence) of threads. Thank goodness.
All the other adventure-ready features are still there: massive 700x50mm tire clearance, mounts for absolutely everything (racks, fenders, four sets of 3-pack mounts), and full internal dynamo routing. They even updated the paint, leaving the entire rear triangle as raw, polished stainless. It’s a practical and beautiful choice—why paint the part of the bike that gets all the chain slap and gravel pings?
The frameset isn't cheap, at 2400€, but that price tag does include a Chris King headset. When you consider the material, the engineering that went into those dropouts, and the sheer adaptability, it feels less like a simple bike frame and more like a long-term platform. It's one of the most thoughtfully designed frames I've seen in a long time—one that genuinely seems to respect both the future and the past.
