Hey, I'm new to road biking, and was wondering if anyone could give me any information regarding the Cannondale CAAD3 and CAAD4 frames. Are they older frames, because all I find at the Cannondale website is CAAD5, 7, and 8. By the way I did ride BMX for about three years, so I'm not completely clueless when it comes to bikes, but there is a lot to learn about road bikes. Thanks

I believe CAAD4 is from the mid to late 90's...what year it was phased out I'm not sure. Hopefully the bump leads to some better answers.

Cannondale have one of the best reputations as far as alu frames go.
They regularly pass a "famous" fatigue test performed by a German engineering company, and the CAAD 3 and 4 both passed back in 2001:
https://www.efbe.de/erenn.htm (scroll down)

If you're buying a 2nd hand alu frame, check closely for cracks. Cracks aren't always obvious, and often only show as suspicious paint movement.

check out Road Bike Review for old reviews. I'm not sure what year the CAAD 3s and 4s are, so perhaps start here:
https://www.roadbikereview.com/Search...ction=Products

Reviews of Cannondales are strange: some people find them as hard as nails, yet others will say the exact same bike is a smooth as butter

IMO, the CAAD3 was the harshest riding road frame C'dale ever made, and one of the worst tooth-rattlers ever from any mfg. I had the R1000 back then, but not for long.

I'm glad they're gone.

Cannondale's archive: https://cannondale.com/bikes/archive/

caad4 was discontinued just this year, their top frame in '01. 2000 was the last year for caad3.

Thanks for all the info guys. Having all these people for information is really helpful when you're new to biking.

I have a CAAD 4. It's just a CAAD 5 with a standard headset rather than a integrated headset (geometry is exactly the same too). Some people actually like the CAAD 4 more than the CAAD 5 because of this. I'd still take a CAAD 5 though, I don't think integrated headsets are a negative.

The CAAD 4 has the curved seat stays like the CAAD 5, the CAAD 3 doesn't.

Big difference between the CAAD 4 and CAAD 3. They are two different generations of frames rather than just tweaks like the difference between a CAAD 7 and CAAD 8 (that's the next generation up from the CAAD 4/5)

CAAD 6 was some kind of in between model. They didn't make very many of them (very rare). I forget which group it fell into.

Wurm, I currently ride a CAAD3 Silk Road 500, and absolutely love it. The older aluminum tubing can be very harsh, but my particular bike (which I cannot seem to find on the net anywhere....hm) has fat tubing and a huge headset which helps absorb shock for the rigid aluminum. I also have a carbon fork, stem, and seatpost to help with the shock as well. This bike is the smoothest I've ridden - aside from Felts. But what 21 year old can afford a Felt, really?

You just bumped a thread that was 5 years old.

G'Day. I'm not having a crack at ya; I'm just curious how you came to post on this old thread. Did you find it on Google, then join and post, or did it come up in the forum search? This seems to be happening more lately on various forums

Google, haha. Was trying to find info on my frame and came across this thread..didn't even notice how old it was. Um, oops?