A stupid quick question. I would just like a quick history of the the Cannondale company and its early road bikes and successes and failures.
Thanks,
j

I have not seen any "history" of the company on the internet. E-Bay provides some interesting history, in that many of Cannondale's earliest bikes show up for auction, still in good riding condition.

Failures? Cannondale has grown steadily since its earliest days to become one of the two biggest builders of bikes in the USA. Trek and Cannondale, together, build 80% or more of the road bikes made in America. Their continued success is a direct result of Cannondale's fanatical devotion to producing safe, reliable, high quality bikes. However, devotion to quality comes at a price. The typical Cannondale road bike is priced out of reach for riders who are looking for a road bike in the $300 to $700 price range.

there's a brief history blob on their site
https://www.cannondale.com/company/history.html

The reason I ask is that I have a Criterium, with 105 hardware all the way around. From the best I can guess is that it is probably late 1980s early 90's at the latest, although it rides like it is much younger than that. I bought it for a song from a pawn shop 3 years ago ($99!) and assumed that it was 1998-99 at the very oldest, but I think I was wrong on that. I was just amazed that the bike I am in love with, and have put a couple thousand of miles on, and the bike that turned me into a raging road cyclist, was so aged. I was just curious as to how the company evolved and how they seem to be totally off the map in terms of big name tours and endorsements. From what I have experienced, when I get into the 21st century and upgrade I would only be looking at getting another C'dale.
Have there been any quality issues as of late? My roomie has a Trek 1000 and it is a flailing piece of garbage. Just curious.
j

Cannondale had a huge failure a few years ago when they tried to start selling motorcycles. They lost so much money on that project, that they had to declare bankruptcy. Ever since then, the company has been a shadow of its former self.

Two? What's the second? I thought Cannondale was the only US production builder.

Is this a joke? The motorcycle thing...

it's my understanding that Cannondale, Klein and Principia are the best and strongest aluminium frames avalilable.

Theres a lot of Cannondales in any cycling race, on and offroad, and they have some very recognizable major teams at just about every event, with some big name riders... I wouldn't say they are off the map at all. I think every semi-major race I have been to has had both Cannondale riders and a demo booth.

Not really true--they are doing as well, if not better than they ever were previously. We carry Fisher, Lemond, Orbea and Cannondale, and of those we sell more Cannondales than any other brand, except for sub $400 Fishers.

Hello,

Well, yes the motorcycle thing was real. After the mountain bike boon of the late 1980s, Cannondale thought that they could build offroad motorcycles. I understand that they were decent motorcycles, but obviously they didn't sell.

Back to bicycles, Cannondale started out building the first successful, welded aluminum, production, road bike frames in the early to mid 1980s (I can't quite remember). They developed some interesting manufacturing techniques to keep the frames straight during the welding process and to keep good material properties near the welds. Prior to Canondale the only production aluminum frames on the market were glued frames like the Alain.

Canondale also got into the mountain bike business at the start of the sport. One of their early (or maybe first) mountain bikes had a 26" front wheel and a 24" rear wheel. The premise was that the bike would climb better with this combination.

How do I know all of this? I worked at a large bicycle shop during the mid 1980s and I bought one of Canondale's mountain bikes (really large discounts for emplooyees). The bike did climb pretty well but it decended like a pig (or was it my technique?).

Thanks.

Cleave

Cannondale did make a decent motocross bike, but when people grow up with Japanese bikes, it's a tough market to get into. I think the R&D cost is what killed them, they just could not sell enough bikes to recover the millions they never budgeted for.

It seems like they made ATV as well.

Oh well, back to bikes and better then ever...

John

Considering 26/24 is somewhat popular in the sport of downhill mountain biking - I'd aay it was your technique. Sorry.

IIRC, there was an early Canondale ad for their early road bikes...bear with me since I have to describe the picture...

It was just the frame laying on its side, and squatting on the rear triangle (feet near the chainstay and RD hanger) was a woman in full bking kit. There was some tag line about "aluminum for strength and stuffness" I don't remember exactally. It was maybe 1987. I remember that the tubes on those early bikes were HUGE. There were a lot of rumors about them cracking in very cold weather...probably BS.

here you go, from Wikipedia

"Cannondale started its foray into aluminum racing frames in the 1980s with their CAAD series frames. The earlier models sported oversized down tubes for increased stiffness and resulted in frames that are super-stiff and super-efficient, but considered by many to be extremely uncomfortable. It nonetheless gained popularity in the US criterium circuit, helped by its generous warranty policy.
Later editions of the CAAD series sported S-bend aluminum seat stays introduced in the CAAD3 model for improving comfort. The CAAD6 and CAAD7 models reversed the oversized aluminum tubing design and instead used better shaping to retain the efficiency and improve comfort. Interestingly, this change coincided with the transformation of Team Saeco's (a Division 1/ProTour cycling team that rides on Cannondales) from being essentially a lead-out train for uber-sprinter Mario Cipollini to a more balanced team, with grand tour and all-around riders like Gilberto Simoni and Damiano Cunego. Cannondale has recently been criticized for its insistence on using aluminum instead of considering carbon fiber, which is emerging in popularity. Its change in warranty policy has also been criticized.
The six13 model was introduced in 2004 which uses carbon tubed sections in the main triangle but still uses aluminum rear triangles, contrary to the usual practice of using carbon rear triangles and aluminum fronts. It should also be noted that the Union Cycliste Internationale has established a 15 lb (6.8 kg) minimum weight limit. Cannondale advertised its light weight frameset with the slogan "Legalize my Cannondale". Because of the light weight riders would have to add weight to the bike for it to be permitted for competition use.
Cannondale also developed a proprietary bottom bracket technology called Hollowgram which is featured in its high-end bikes since 2001. The crank and bottom bracket set weigh 80 grams less than Dura-Ace.
In 2005 Cannondale announced its first all-carbon frame in a model named "Synapse." This is also the first Cannondale road bicycle to be built outside of the United States, in China.
Cannondale has also developed a suspension fork called the Lefty. It started with the "Headshok" forks. It uses bearings to reduce the friction for super smooth travel, the bearings telescope inside the steerer tube of the fork. This eliminates flexing of the fork legs, and also eliminates "stiction". which is a tightness at the top of the travel that must be overcome to initiate travel, and also reduces overall performance.
The "Lefty" is an unusual looking fork, because it only has a left side or leg. It uses the same technology of the Headshok, but wanting more travel led to moving the the telescoping unit off to the side to have enough room for the travel. The Leftys' are lighter ,stronger and steer more precise than any competitors forks with the same amount of travel.
Cannondale was the first to produce a crankset that uses externally mounted bottom bracket bearings. As well as being the only company for years to use a 1.5" headtube diameter. Both of these technologies are just now being utilized by other manufacturers with great acceptance. While they are a decade old technolgy for Cannondale.
"

Only correction to the Wiki is that the CADD series came out in the early '90s. Before that they had the 3.0 which was the first small-tube frame with the cantilevered rear drop-outs (which tended to break). The model even before that was the original fat-tube model from the '80s without any model number or name designation, although we tended to call them 'beer cans'.

Totally incorrect and wrong and maybe the dumbest comment I have ever read out here.

uhhhh....Trek.

Yea and they ramp that down a notch every year...no longer making the rear triangles for the AL/CF bikes here and no longer making all of their CF bikes here either. Most if not all of the AL frames are not made in Taiwan.

Cannondale on the other hand is also startign to go overseas as they don't want to spend the cost to bring up CF production in the US.

Along with the motorcycle failure was an early CF frame failure. I forget what it was called but apparently it fell apart alot..I believe it was a MTB but I am not sure...I didn't even know about it until I was talking to my dealer when I was looking at the Synapse.

My 2006 Cannondale Six13 is:

• The best racing bike I've ever ridden or owned

• Universally raved about by everyone I know who has ridden one

• Universally raved about in positive bicycle reviews

My LBS is selling the bejesus out of this bike. And they're currently back ordered 4-6 weeks. By those indications Cannondale would appear to be doing fairly well these days. But who really knows? The bike biz ain't easy. Which makes Trek's long term success building bikes domestically all the more impressive. They have been making money doing this for a couple of DECADES now.

I recall Cannondale's origins in the early 1970's when I was in high school. As I recall they started out making handlebar bags for touring bikes. They were in Connecticut.

I think you're thinking about the Super Raven... the original CF Raven seemed to hold up okay, but the Super had some recalls and didn't last long in the lineup.

I spotted this Raven about 6 months ago. It looked impressive.
Steve.

It is interesting how little history there is out there about this company. I cant remember the owners name but he was a nice guy. He loved to fly. When I was a kid I used to refuel his twin engine Cheyenne at Danbury airport in CT. He would ride his bike out to the air port lock it up and fly off to see clients.

After they went bankrupt in 2003 a company in Bethel CT bought them keeping the Cannandale name.