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Chiru Kegeti gravel bike evolves epic-ready titanium hardtail 29er for bikepacking adventure

Chiru Kegeti adventure-ready 29er MTB or gravel bike, titanium hardtail mountain bike adventure gravel bike
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The latest iteration of the titanium Chiru Kegeti adventure gravel bike has evolved quickly over the past few years we’ve followed it, from an oversized gravel prototype to what is now essentially a dropbar 29er mountain bike-packing hardtail. The bike started out as an ultra-endurance project for Chiru founder Pierre-Arnaud Le Magnan to race one of the toughest self-supported adventure bikepacking races, but has developed into a versatile monster gravel bike that would be as much fun shredding local singletrack as trekking far from civilization.

Chiru Kegeti adventure-ready 29er MTB or gravel bike?

Chiru Kegeti adventure-ready 29er MTB or gravel bike, titanium hardtail mountain bike adventure gravel bike
c. Chiru, photos by Lindarets

We saw the earliest prototype of the Kegeti back in 2018 before it even earned its name as Pierre-Arnaud was headed to the inaugural Silk Road Mountain Race. Developed to fit bigger 700c wheel and mountain bike sized tires to handle rough off-road racing, it was essentially a scaled-up Vagus gravel bike. But in order to get the 29er MTB tire clearance and geometry needed for the Silk Road, the Kegeti needed to use a suspension corrected rigid carbon fork by the time it was ready for production last spring when we caught up with it in Taipei.

Chiru Kegeti adventure-ready 29er MTB or gravel bike, titanium hardtail mountain bike adventure gravel bike

That resulting bike takes its name from the first major climb of the 1800km/1121mi race across the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. It’s what we used to call a monstercross bike, or maybe now a monstergravel bike. It’s essentially a modern hardtail mountain bike designed around a gravel dropbar handlebar.

Kegeti adventure gravel geometry

Chiru Kegeti adventure-ready 29er MTB or gravel bike, titanium hardtail mountain bike adventure gravel bike geometry

That essentially means it has modern slack for gravel geometry, and gets a slightly shorter reach & more upright stack than a modern XC hardtail would to keep a controlled position while riding in the drops. This latest update moves to longer headtubes for a comfortable, upright fit on the bike to handle technical terrain.

And of course the side benefit of having to use a suspension corrected fork is that the Kegeti becomes even more versatile. Build it up rigid for the most lightweight setup and smoother adventure racing. Or slap on a light XC or marathon mountain bike suspension fork on, and it is ready for even more technical trail riding.

Chiru Kegeti adventure-ready 29er MTB or gravel bike, titanium hardtail mountain bike adventure gravel bike

But this isn’t sporting some short, reduced travel gravel fork. Instead, the Kegeti gets a proper 100mm fork. Now distributed in the US by Lindarets – the designers behind everything from the early GoatLink to a number of dropper levers and other gadgets developed with Wolf Tooth – you can spec complete bikes with a 100mm RockShox SID in order to take on the gnarliest gravel or off-road adventure racing out there.

Chiru Kegeti adventure bike Tech details

Chiru Kegeti adventure-ready 29er MTB or gravel bike, titanium hardtail mountain bike adventure gravel bike

But no matter how you choose to build up the Chiru Kegeti, you are going to end up with an epic-ready titanium adventure gravel bike. The Kegeti is welded from cold-formed & butted 3/2.5 ti tubing. The 12mm thru-axle Boost-spaced mountain gravel bike gets a T47 threaded bottom bracket, internal tapered headset, and now features internal cable routing even for use with a stealth 27.2mm dropper seatpost.

Chiru Kegeti adventure-ready 29er MTB or gravel bike, titanium hardtail mountain bike adventure gravel bike

The adventure gravel bike includes lots of attachment points: three sets of standard water bottle cage mounts on the main triangle, a set of top tube bento box mounts, direct bolt-on frame bag mounts under the top tube, bolt-on mounts under the downtube for additional external cable routing or bolt-on mudguards, plus standard rack & fender mounts.

It gets clearance for the biggest gravel tires your adventure should ever need – up to 700c x anything / 29×2.4″ knobbies.

Kegeti pricing & availability

Chiru Kegeti adventure-ready 29er MTB or gravel bike, titanium hardtail mountain bike adventure gravel bike

The adventure-ready Chiru Kegeti gravel bike is available now in four stock frame sizes, with the option for custom geometry for an additional charge if needed. In the US, Lindarets offers frame & rigid fork sets starting at $2250, complete GRX rigid bikes from $4330, and GRX+SID builds from $4655. (The frame-only direct from Chiru will set you back 2090€ in Europe, to let you pick a fork & build to suit you.)

But Lindarets is also happy to build to suit. They say their complete package bike pricing is mostly just to give you an idea where to start. Each bike is built up to order, so whether you are looking for a bikepacking rig, gravel+, or just a dropbar XC mountain bike, they’ll get you set up for your own personal style of adventure.

Lindarets.com or ChiruBikes.com

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J'Anky Teal
J'Anky Teal
4 years ago

THIS. If the dirt roads near me was buff a normal gravel bike would be fine. But after a few hours numbness gets old and a suspension stem just doesn’t cut it. I might find some 2in XC race tires and a bigger chainring but this looks pretty good.
Where is the lockout lever for the fork?

Marc L
4 years ago
Reply to  J'Anky Teal

Thanks kind of where we’re at: lots of great roads interspersed with brutal sand and washboard.

The fork is cabled to the 2x GRX front shifter. The cable pull is just about perfect and it’s really nice to be able to lock from the hoods when you stand up and unlock from the drops on descents.

Bart
Bart
4 years ago

I don’t know….if your terrain needs that much suspension, you are better off with a straight bar to better handle the rough stuff. At this point why not just use a XC MTB bike> Lower the bars and put some bar ends or inner bars for more hand positions.

K-Pop is dangerous to your health
K-Pop is dangerous to your health
4 years ago
Reply to  Bart

Many people run many different set ups for adventure biking. Take 10 bikes from the recent AMR in Morocco and you have 10 different solutions. Be thankful you have options.

K-Pop is dangerous to your health
K-Pop is dangerous to your health
4 years ago
Reply to  Cory Benson

I already saw the gallery, Cory. I think you meant just for @Bart. Also had a handful of friends and acquaintances at AMR on wildly different setups, that’s why I mentioned it. I’m actually pleasantly surprised that there’s less subjective commentary from the peanut gallery about what an adventure bike should or should not be. Maybe people are finally starting to learn that bike and gear choices for this genre runs the gamut.

Marc L
4 years ago

Bart,
You could- though the suspension in this case is for rough roads/fatigue rather than technical terrain. Far, not gnar. Chiru makes a flat bar version (the Divider) but here in the desert it’s nice to have a low position to get out of the wind. If I were to do the GDMBR again, this is the sort of setup I’d choose. But it’s a personal preference thing.

TheSeus
TheSeus
4 years ago

Gravel is getting weird.

K-Pop is dangerous to your health
K-Pop is dangerous to your health
4 years ago
Reply to  TheSeus

Weirder the better. Keeps the boring people at home.

sabi
sabi
4 years ago

Concerning the Kegeti geometry chart here:
is the Stack data for the frame with the rigid or with the suspension fork?

Marc Basiliere
4 years ago
Reply to  sabi

Sabi,
The rigid fork has the same length as a sagged 100mm suspension fork, so the short answer is “both”.

sabi
sabi
4 years ago
Reply to  Marc Basiliere

But the normal suspension fork has 500mm, not 485mm (-> rigid fork) – so Stack will be 15mm higher then, or am I wrong?

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