Mountain Biking - Cannondale's "Lefty"...

Hi all. Ok, first off I realize that there's not a whole lot of support for Cannondale out there (I'm not really sure why, I guess people think they're overpriced) but I'm sure I can get an answer to my question...

I've got a really suped of Jekyll 800 with full XT components - the works. Will the "Lefty" fork and such work with any Cannondale frame or just the newer (last 5-6 years) and how hard is it to transfer stuff from one bike to another. Say if I bought a "Scalpel" or "Prophet" frame - how hard would it be just to take my existing stuff off my bike and put it on the new frame? I'd probably have my LBS do it, but it is an option. Just wondering if anyone else has done this and how it resulted?

Thanks in advance...

The only reason I stay as far away from Cannondale as humanly possible is because of the proprietary, one-off crap they put on their bikes. The Lefty is the perfect example. How many parts on that system are non-standard? I know very little about it but I'd say at least the fork and hub and probably the headset. When that stuff needs to be replaced, it can be difficult.

To justify all that customized stuff, I'd personally have to see a DRAMATIC improvement in performance. I just don't see it with C-dale.

My second MTB was a Cannondale. Even this simple rigid bike was made with a non-standard 1 1/4" head tube. It was tough to find headsets and forks for this bike even when 1 1/4" head tubes were fairly common. Today, it's nearly impossible.

My wife's diamondback, on the other hand, was bought at the same time and every part on it is easily and inexpensively replaceable today.

Yep proprietary is a plain stupid effort to drain revenue out of the consumer and provide limited less cost effective options as a solution. Like an Apple computer. ha ha ha ha

The only proprietary pieces on your Jekyll is the Lefty w/ matching front hub and collar mounted rear shock. In terms of a transfer to another Cannondale frame, you should have no problems. Both the Scapel and Prophet both use the Lefty, so that should just be a straight sway. A new frame is going to come with a new rear shock anyway, plus the fact that both frames you mentioned used different mounting systems.


Every other part minus those mentioned would work on any bike. The only question I would is if the steerer tube on the Lefty is long enough to work with either of the new frames. I willing to bet that C-dale kept the headtube length on their frames the same for ease of transfer. If that falls though, they do have some deals through a Headshox/Lefty upgrade program.

Forget all the Cannondale hating (I own 2, including a Jekyll), they're great bike but not for everyone.

Yep proprietary is a plain stupid effort to drain revenue out of the consumer and provide limited less cost effective options as a solution. Like an Apple computer. ha ha ha ha

ROFLMAO nice, yeah I hate Cdale too, all their junk is Cdale specific......kinda like shimano.....