The popular 8bar Mitte convertible all-road bike is back again, now simpler, more versatile, and this time in comfortable & durable Reynolds 520 steel. Developed as the only bike you need before all-road was really a thing, the Mitte is an affordable disc brake road bike that can be set up as an urban commuter, a comfortable endurance road bike, a mixed-surface gravel or cross bike, or even a mixed-surface adventure bike. I can personally get behind 8bar’s motto for the new bike, “because life is too short to ride on the main roads only”.
8bar Mitte Steel all-purpose, all-road adventure bike
When the urban & fixed gear specialists at 8bar first introduced their do-it-all-road Mitte road bike back in early 2016, the all-road concept hadn’t really taken hold yet. And some people questioned how well a single bike could transition from road to cross to adventure gravel bike with essentially just a swap in tires & adjustable geometry tweaks. Testing out its capabilities, 8bar founder Stefan Schott & his team loaded up those early pre-production alloy bikes and rode the Mittes across the High Atlas mountains of Morocco to be sure the design was dialed.
Now a couple of years later a steel version has evolved. The Mitte Steel is simplified by dropping the two fork concept (who was really going to swap forks & then put 23mm tires on a bike like this) and fully embracing the more relaxed endurance road geometry and fat tires even for road riding.
Mitte all-road adventure bike with adaptable Geometry
The new steel bike adopts the more popular cross/adventure setup with the longer fork length & 72° headtube angle, vs. the one degree steeper setup with a shorter road fork that debuted with the alloy Mitte. That’s what most adopters of the original Mitte 3in1 bike preferred, and is the direction the gravel & all-road bike segment has evolved over the last two years.
Geometry is then otherwise mostly unchanged from the more versatile fork setup of the original CX/ADV setup. The new chainstays are a tad bit longer in steel (+5mm), now sliding from 420-440mm to alternate between snappy steering & more stable handling depending on your preferred riding style.
8bar Mitte Steel all-road Tech Details
While the Mitte Steel adopts modern drop bar geometry and disc brakes, it still is a butted chromoly steel bike with a lugged crown fork, so it isn’t ultra-modern.
With relatively skinny steel tubing, the bike does stick with a classic 1 1/8″ steerer tube, and conventional external cable routing – with continuous brake housing along the top of the toptube. It also gets disc brakes, but stays with post mounts and quick release axles (although the slider rear dropouts do build in a bit more future proofing.) It also sticks with tried & true classics like a 27.2 seatpost and BSA threaded bottom bracket.
The new steel Mitte frameset does include plenty of braze-ons, including full coverage fender compatibility, rear rack mounts, and an extra bottle cage mount on the outside of each fork leg.
Resulting frame clearance emphasizes the Mitte Steel’s versatility – room for 40mm road slicks, 38mm gravel tires, or more knobby 35mm cyclocross tires allowing extra space for mud.
Mitte Steel framesets & complete bike pricing
Pricing remains essentially the same for the new steel bikes as is has been for the alloy Mittes. Standard paint in black or matte silver retails for 600€ for the frameset, while 8bar’s shiny Space red or Space blue paint brings that up to 650€.
The new Mitte Steel is also available as a complete bike, in several different builds from 8bar’s customizer. Start at 1600€ complete with a new Tiagra groupset, 2000€ with 105, or 2200€ with Ultegra for a drop bar road double build.
Or go for a 1450€ Deore triple or 1800€ XT triple for a flat bar, low-geared mountain bike drivetrain touring setup. Then urban bike builds from 1340€ with a Tiagra/Alfine mix or from 1640€ with an Alfine internally geared setup.
There are even Mitte Steel singlespeed complete bike builds with either drop bars or urban riser bar setups, starting from just 1167.50€ with the current holiday sale at 8bar now.
