Originally Posted by zensuit
It's kind of funny how Cannondale has gone from an upstart, progressive bike builder that brought very light, stiff frames to racers who otherwise wouldn't have had a race worthy bike because they couldn't afford the marquee names, to a company that people see as evidence of an unfeeling corporate robot-shop. 'dales were an "outsiders" bike for many years before they became one of the "big 3"
Cannondales actually had a "cool factor" to race and ride on when they first started. I had a a black one that I stripped all the decals off and stuck a WWF Panda Bear sticker on the headtube. It had all Campagnolo Gran Sport with titanium rear derailluer pivot polts. Loved that bike. It rocked, pun intended.
At the same time I owned that bike, I had an Angel Rodriguez road bike with the first Dura Ace indexing group. The Cannondale was a great crash and burn race bike and the Rodriguez was my long distance bike. The Rodriguez was very comfy over the long haul.
Kleins were nice but very high priced at the time. Until Klein worked all the bugs out of his heat treatment process, the early Kleins had a subtle bow to the top tupe.
Cannondales never quite matched that.
