I'm hoping that the CAAD10 at least costs less than the CAAD9, seeing as how the labor will be 1/5th as much, and the new 105 groupset is going to be cheaper and lighter than the old one.

I like the CAAD10 105's color scheme... red is always a good choice. Black is nice too. I could have gone for red/black or blue/black though.

not even sure what to say to this the vast majority of high end bikes are made overseas in your "sweat shops"

+1

the fork weighs 390g supposedly.


and the geometry is identical to the caad9 according to the catalog.

Chad

those are not considered high end.
this is high end.
http://www.pistapalace.com/pics/kraken_big.jpg

and the weld statement was cleared up by the videos i posted. so -1.

If I had to guess, the welds are probably done by robots. Robotic welds are robotic welds, no matter where they're done, as long as sufficient quality tests are done... which involve cutting the welds in half and looking on the insides for depth and pores.

But I have to say that the fact that they decided to cheap out and go overseas during the worst recession since the great depression does not speak well of the company. Chinese labor is starting to get so expensive that paying Americans to do their jobs again has become viable, yet Cannondale decides to outsource anyway?

That said, under-the-tape 105 for the win!

A CAAD9/10 is a Ferrari. That is a rocket ship. Any bike that costs more than $500 is high end, IMO.

I LOVE the blandness of the CAAD9-7

so the only bikes you consider high end are TIME's...that's intelligent.


Chad

http://www.walmart.com/ip/700c-Mens-...d-Bike/5585800

Only $1 away from high end.

:roflmao:

considering a cookie cutter frame high end...that's intelligent.
i was using TIME as an example.

+1

so every bike made in the east is cookie cutter gotcha.

so do tell me what other frames/bikes you qualify as "high end"

I'm assuming Pinarellos aren't in, de Rosas, cervelos, etc.

Chad

They didn't "decide" to go overseas, they were sold to a company that already did their manufacturing overseas.

The Carbon Six is being dropped? Aside from the differences in fit geo, is the new 105 entry-level SuperSix a better make?
The CAAD10 is growing on me, nationalist economic rants notwithstanding.

it kinda gets tough with companies. the "big three" will make some of the highest models in house but still have other models shipped overseas, so i would be more specific and go by models of bike. but with a company like TIME, all bikes, including entry level are hand made in france. i think cervelo is putting out one of the most high end bikes out right now in the project california, everything is done in house by hand, they are not afraid to show the videos of the process and it's a very beautiful thing, very high quality, and the cost reflects that.

Yeah, I just got one of the last ones. In fact, the Rival CAAD9 I jsut got yeaterday was the last one they had in inventory (in my size). There are probably some warranty frames in the factory, but at the shop I got to rockstar status getting one of the last US made CAAD9's. In road bikes, the 9 is by far our best selling frame.

I had a fire at my house, lit up all my bikes and wheels, so I am slowly replacing everything. It's staggering how much stuff I had when I quoted it out. And you should see what a hot fire does to a carbon frame.

Even Look, which make outstanding bikes and pedals outsources manufacturing. Their last factory was built in Algeria.

Ouch.

hope you didn't lose anything too meaningful. Hope you were covered.

I'm guessing one of the cf bike fell over and the spontaneous explosion caused the fire.

$500 is high-end for bicycles in general. $499 is low-end for road bikes, of course...but that's because of economies of scale, and because road bikes are overpriced.

I know. I'm expressing my displeasure with Dorel's decision. But as far as I'm concerned, Cannondale could have made the decision internally to keep their manufacturing domestic.

Very unlikely. Once you're owned by a corporate monolith you lose a lot of decision making authority. Chances are pretty good that Dorel has strategic agreements with this factory which give it price breaks in return for having all of their welded frames manufactured there.

Although I take a certain pride in my "Made in USA" sticker I doubt there's any real quality difference. It's not like Americans are genetically engineered to be better welders than Asians. It's just metal. The factory gets the specs and makes the frame, it isn't rocket science. Welding isn't exactly bleeding edge technology. These Chinese Cannondales will last every bit as long as their American counterparts. But there is something lost in this, the aesthetic attention to detail with the un-ground welds. That's just an example of Dorel cost cutting. I can only assume that this cost cutting will be reflected in Cannondale's R&D. That probably won't affect this generation's frames but the next generation's frames will probably fall short of their competition. I don't think Dorel is capable of fostering a high-end bike company (high end meaning anything that isn't sold through Wally World).

I continue to have my hopes though. If Dorel supplies cash and lets C'dale do what it does then they'll be fine. But if they influence the engineering decision making (as evidenced by the un-ground welds) then C'dale will be another Schwinn. It just might take a few years.

No SRAM equiped CAAD10, that's disappointing.

It's pretty amazing how few SRAM equipped models there are in the '11 lineup. Only two Red models. One Apex. No rival... Ouch. A ton of compact cranks too. That used to be an option, but now it's standard on anything but HIMOD's.

ok some of you guys need to look up the term "high end", denoting the most expensive of a range of products. i would say $10,000+ is a starting point.

To me it's more of a matter of principle. If you put a giant sticker on your bikes that says HANDMADE IN THE USA for the better part of your companies history, you'd damn well better keep it that way. Chinese-made products aren't inherently inferior (at least not any more), but taking away American jobs to save a few dollars per unit on a product that sells for $1500-8,000 seems really trashy to me.

I mean, the Trek equivalent to the CAAD9 (the 2 series, I guess) generally costs $100-200 less than the Cannondale equivalent. If they want us to pay a premium, they should build them here.