Reignited Fun In My Rides

I used to be a road cyclist until I got clipped by a car and decided to focus more on mountain biking, but I went too hard on the mountain bike and hurt myself too many times taking hard falls onto my hip and eventually developed knee pain. I also severely sprained my ankle trail running about a year ago, so between mountain biking and trail running the two sports were taking too much of a toll on my 47 year old body. I decided to hang up the trail running shoes and sell my road and mountain bike and get a do-it-all gravel bike.

I’m a cheap scape so I started shopping budget bikes. After watching Bike Sauce’s YT video comparison between the Primos Dame, Stare 4130 and the Poseidon X, I decided to give the Dame a chance. It’s exceeded my expectations and suddenly I’m remember what a fun bike ride is like. I’m not chasing numbers on Strava because it’s not a lightweight at 28lbs and I’ve lost my fitness level I was at, but instead I’ve been slowing down and just enjoying being on a bike and taking in my surroundings more.

I’ll be honest, I don’t have really any gravel close to me other than a few park roads that are less than an 1/8th mile, so I’m primarily riding my Dame on roads, greenways, grass and single track. What I love most about it is it’s a very capable bike on all types of surfaces. I feel like my 12 year old self on my GT Interceptor BMX hopping curbs and being a menace at my local park.

Anywho, the bike has been a blast and I’m enjoying every second of it. I did have to go tubeless after my first ride on a green single track trail. I’m over 200lbs so I got a pinch flat on a big root, but I was planning on having it set up tubeless at some point anyway so now it’s nice and cushy and no more worry about those pesky tube snake bites.

For $899 it’s impossible to find a better equipped steel gravel bike. The LBS mechanic who set up it up tubeless was shocked it came from Primos with the Continental Terra Hardpacks. That tells you right there Primos went the extra distance to make the Dame a legit gravel bike.