chambers078

After riding my F95, my girlfriend is now dying to move up from her 1970s takara road bike (almost too heavy for her to carry). Our anniversary is coming up, and I plan to buy her a decent bike.

She's no racer and wont be going on tons of long rides, mostly commuting. I just hate to see her struggle with her ~50 pound bike. I also think she'd ride with me if she had something she could handle a little better.

After perusing craigslist for a while, I came across a cannondale cad2 in her size. It has mavic wheels and shinamo components and looks to be in excellent shape. The pretty red paint job doesn't hurt either. The downtube shifters are a pain, but the ones on her current bike are horrendous, so she would probably find these quite an upgrade.

Now I know cannondale has an excellent reputation and I'm not too worried about the quality of the bike, but I was hoping some of you could shed some light on this particular model. (ride characteristics, weight, any common problems, etc)

The going price is $300 which seems reasonable. The lady selling it also seems desperate to get rid of it so I plan to offer $250 and see what happens. I attached a picture below. Thanks in advance for any insight!



The bottle holders and foot straps are included, she's keeping the computer.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, I will be taking my girlfriend along to look at the bike before actually purchasing it. It fitting her well is obviously the most important aspect.

adriano 

the perspective makes my head asplode.

chambers078

Hehe, I thought I'd do everyone a favor and not post the upside down picture the seller sent me.

mvnsnd

If it's in as good shape as it looks, I think it would be wise to just get it. It probably has an 8 speed cassette and the rear is indexed. Maybe an aluminum fork. Seat looks fairly far forward, so bring some allen wrenches when you go check it out. The Caad frames are generally good.