I recently bought the primos SuperDame: carbon fork, electronic gravel groupset and hydraulic braking. My most recent upgrade was a superteam carbon wheel set and gravel king panaracer semi slick wheels! I am trying to make this my “do it all” bike and am trying to reduce the weight overall. One thing I am also dealing with is I find myself spinning out and topping at 24ish 25ish mph. Would yall recommend a carbon or lighter material chainring that can give me some more speed at the expense of some climbing ability- my approach is that will reduce my weight and fix my lower top speed?
A little new to cycling, so any pointers would work! Leaning more road, but of course want to keep and stay true to the gravel roots.
by Naive-Skirt8135
10 Comments
My chain ring is 40 teeth at the moment (fyi)
You don’t need a lighter chainring, just some more teeth up front.
This won’t be solved by a carbon or other material chainring. You’re spinning out because you’re not great at spinning high RPM, your gearing is simply not meant for those speeds, or a combination of both.
Gearing will be fixed by understanding your front chainring and adjusting accordingly. Either via new front gearing (more teeth) or new cassette (less teeth on smallest cog) or both.
Spinning out at 24mph sounds like a bit of rider ability though, what RPM is that?
I’m have nothing to offer. But just got the SuperDame in the Napster color. I love it!
If it’s pretty flat where you live, 42 or 44t might be the solution. I think you should also learn how to / practice spinning faster. Sounds like you’re riding at 60rpm if your top speed is just 25mph.
You need a bigger chainring up front. Something lighter doesnt equal more speed if you have limited gear range.
Also, any reason your seat is slammed forward and your levers seem to be pointed a bit down?
Almost never get a carbon fibre chainring. The material doesnt hold up to what happens to a chainring particularly well. A lighter chainring probably wont do much for you either but a bigger chainring will certainly help. This will however make your climbing gear harder as well. How big is your cassette currently. Could be worth swapping that out for something a little bigger too if you can.
I’ve ridden this bike and did a review on it. It’s a lot of bike for the price and I was very impressed with the geometry. I do recommend as others may have pointed out that a 44t or at least a 42t should have came standard. I definitely don’t recommend upgrading to a carbon fiber chainring as the gains are marginal. Enjoy, I absolutely had a pleasure riding this bike and was surprised how it kept up with 2k/3k builds
Here’s a hot take, you need a 2x drive train to make this the bike you want
While you should be getting 5 or 6 more mph out of that system before spinning out, the Dame is on the heavy side and power takes time to build, so it’s understandable you aren’t seeing the speed you want. A bigger chain ring might help. Going to a 2x system might help. But what I’m gonna recommend you do is keep the bike as is and practice sprint intervals.