Claud Butler Primal

Claud Butler's Primal is just about the cheapest gravel bike we've encountered but anybody with limited funds won't feel short-changed as it provides an impressive ride experience across a wide range of terrain. However, while it puts forward a good argument for being all the budget drop-bar bike you might ever need, a look at the price-point-focused spec sheet suggests it's not necessarily all the drop-bar bike you'd ever want.

A Claud Butler gravel bike for a little over £500, eh? Bet you're not exactly salivating at the prospect. Well, you might want to hold fire on your prejudices there, kemosabe, because this is a multi-surface drop bar bike whose performance belies its budget price. The Primal is a fantastically fun machine that takes open roads, urban rat runs or even moderately slippy and slidey trails in its stride. It's comfortable, reactive to your efforts and quite a joy to ride.

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Boasting a fairly solid-looking aluminium frame, it should come as no surprise that power delivery is decent. It can't rival high-performance road bikes but, as a jack-of-all trades, there's enough reward for your effort to keep you enthusiastic, whether climbing or sprinting on asphalt, or even tackling roots and rocks off it.

That enthusiasm is heightened by excellent overall control and stability, and there's a very reassuring quality to the bike's handling. I tested the Primal on roads and rather lumpy but dry trails, and I never felt like it was ever going to come unstuck. Again, it's a more relaxed proposition than the kind of pinpoint precision of a top-end sports bike, but it nevertheless instils in you a confidence that the bike is always going to head where you point it. Even when you're bumping along, balance is exemplary.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is comfort. The combination of moderately chunky 38mm tyres and – for me at least – a perfect position in the saddle meant the Primal felt great to ride. Over rough surfaces, very few things felt too hard or jarring, and on a long, smooth road cruise, the Primal is a veritable drop-bar armchair. In fact, while I could wax lyrical about its off-road performance, I suspect the majority of most Primals' lives will be spent on tarmac and there's very little to criticise there – this feels like a thoroughly capable mile-muncher.

Frameset

When it comes to that performance, the aluminium frameset can take the vast majority of the plaudits. However, while I'll talk about the frame in a moment, the fork is something of a slightly compromised hero because, although it helps keep the front end on course and contributes to the surefooted control, it can clunk and crash a little with big hits and feels just a little less sophisticated than the rest of the frameset.

The main body of the frame is budget beauty, though. I'm not naturally a big fan of non-round tubing, and there is some serious square-edging going on at the top tube with a fair bit of tear-drop manipulation at the down tube, but it all goes together rather well.

The use of internal cable routing and undersized rear triangle also keeps the Claud Butler up to date with most contemporary frame design expectations, although it does miss out on a tapered head tube.

It's a small point, but the Primal looks very handsome in the flesh – significantly more enticing than online catalogue images might suggest.

Claud Butler says the Primal could be a decent tourer or commuter and there are rear rack mounts to make good on this promise. However, it's a bit of a shame that the fork doesn't feature low rider mounts, although you can fit mudguards front and back.

The all-up weight of just over 12kg is okay, and it would hard to criticise too much, anyway, as the Primal doesn't feel heavy or leaden in the saddle.

Drivetrain

Here's a titbit of trivia that's of interest to no one but me. One of the first bikes I ever tested, almost a decade ago now, was a Claud Butler Criterium budget racer. That was available back then for a cheap-as-chips £329 and came fitted with Shimano Tourney A050 bar-top mounted plastic butterfly gear shifters. Proof, if any is needed, of my stratospheric career progression over the last 10 years can be found in the fact that on this 2020 test machine I am spoiled with luxurious Shimano Tourney A070 Dual Control levers. Don't worry – I won't let it go to my head.

Of course there's a touch of sarcasm there – this, after all, is Shimano's lowest possible road groupset. But that plain fact does Tourney a little injustice. Yes, you only get a 7-speed cassette with 11-28t sprockets, and it's paired with a fairly basic compact chainset, but you should still find enough range for most purposes.

Perhaps most surprisingly, gear changes are far more assured than its bottom-rung status on Shimano's hierarchy might have you believe.

That's mainly thanks to a rear mech that – although relatively low-rent in terms of Shimano's hierarchy – actually looks pretty funky and functions very well.

If there is one weak-ish point in the system, it's those Dual Control levers that feel just a little floppy and imprecise compared with higher end kit. It's far from being a big deal, although it's a definite area where you feel a slight sense of penny pinching.

Brakes and wheels

A bigger deal comes into focus when we consider what else those levers are connected to: Tektro mechanical disc brakes. Considering how positive this bike feels at speed both on and off road, it's a shame that I was constantly having to slightly temper my enjoyment to take into account potential stopping distances. Not only do the brakes feel spongey but they simply have nowhere near the outright stopping power one would want.

That's a real pity, because most of the other important parts in the system would suggest more effective deceleration is perfectly possible. The frame, as I have mentioned, is eminently controllable. And the Schwalbe CX Comp 38mm tyres are just about perfect for this bike, offering good comfort, fairly efficient rolling resistance with a slightly reduced central tread, and very decent grip with heightened nobbles at the tyre shoulders. Add in the K-Guard puncture protection and you've even got a little something for commuters. For a bike that aims to do almost everything, they're a sensible choice.

The wheels on which they sit are nothing particularly exotic, but then very few hoops on £500 bikes are and, overall, I was quite impressed with these. They roll very nicely and, despite being classed by Claud Butler as road rims, never felt overly fragile even when twigs and gravel were pinging off them.

They do use QRs rather than thru-axles, though; an added bit of stiffness at the hubs might spice up the ride even more and improve that braking performance.

Finishing kit

One of the areas where lower-budget brands have really come on in recent years is with their harmonised finishing kit, so here we have an anodised blue CB-branded steerer tube top cap and even matching blue highlights on the saddle.

In function, while not greatly different to most saddles fitted as standard these days, it feels perfectly fine with no need for an instant swap out.

Most of the aluminium hardware is standard stuff, too, although I do have a particular complaint about the cockpit setup. As a fastidious cyclist who likes his handlebar perfectly central to the nearest nanometre, it's something of a frustration that the stem has no cutout and the bar is decidedly short in the way of markings. It makes centralising it a little bit of guess work.

Value and conclusion

There's a slightly illicit thrill that comes with taking a drop-bar bike off road: you're doing something a little naughty, something you're not really supposed to do. Strangely, that thrill only intensifies when you realise your drop-bar bike doesn't just handle the trail, it positively revels in it. Add in a further realisation – that all this fun has cost just £530 – and the Claud Butler Primal looks almost unbeatable.

However, while it's easy to praise the Primal in isolation and there are very few dedicated gravel bikes at this kind of price, it's worth noting that – on the spec sheet at least – spending a little more can get you a lot more bike.

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For example, the Merlin Malt-G seems to be perennially on sale around the £700 mark and provides a carbon fork, Mavic wheels and a huge jump up to Shimano Tiagra 10-speed gears. More mainstream, the Genesis CDA 20 is £699.99 and comes with Shimano Sora gears and a refined ride. And the £750 Boardman ADV 8.8 also features Sora kit with improved Tektro mechanical discs.

> The best gravel and adventure bikes you can buy for under £1,000

You don't even have to search too far to find something that trumps the Primal, there's something in Claud Butler's own catalogue. For just £649.99, you could buy the Radical, which follows the same overall design ethos as the Primal but offers a better engineered frameset with tapered head tube, a better Shimano Claris drivetrain, and even improved Tektro mechanical disc brakes.

And that's probably the biggest problem facing the Claud Butler Primal. If it was the only bike you could buy, it will do almost any job you ask of it with some aplomb. It's fun, sufficiently quick, comfortable and boasts great manners both on and off road – I've really enjoyed my time with it. But there are a lot of well-resolved gravel bikes on the market and unless your budget is strictly limited to around £500, it would take a strong will not to want to spend more.

Verdict

Excellent budget gravel bike that offers fun times on road, track or even the commute