himespau 

It could be a frame welded in 84, but painted/sold in 85. Happens a lot.

mtnbke

One thing I've learned from having tandems, is that most cyclists misinterpret how a bike rides with the wheel set, wrong tire sizes (23s aren't always faster than 25s or even 28s), and improper inflation.

Cyclists can be idiots. They want a huge saddle to bar drop because that "looks" like a real road bike. Meanwhile, that aggressive position is not comfortable and only really appropriate for someone getting paid to get as aero as possible. Hence, 99% of cyclists ride bikes that are too small and they can only ride in their hoods. So right there any feedback from essentially every roadie is suspect because they don't have a clue about bike fit, and they are perched on top of the bike in a single hand position on the hoods and couldn't ride 10%, 25% or 50% of their mileage in the drops if you paid them to do it. Moving along…then you have the issue of every idiot on the road thinking he needs to run 23s because they have lower rolling resistance due to the narrower contact patch. The contact patch of a bicycle tire, limiting the conversation to anything that can be confused with road bikes, is so small as to make gains from the 2mm difference of the tire almost null. However, the increased rolling resistance evident in narrower tires at higher pressures, including much higher pressures (120-140lbs) actually makes the 23s have higher rolling resistance than 25s and in some cases 28s.

Its about proper fit, proper tire, and proper inflation. I guarantee you that half the fools who think they know how some bike felt that they didn't like didn't have a clue about how that bike really rode. They probably were riding it with significantly too narrow of a tire, and too high of pressures. The point being it wasn't' the bike that was harsh, it was the tires, and their ignorance.

So much of cycling is vanity and prejudice. Most people that rave about this or that have no adequate reference frame. They are validating what they own, or can own. The whole "craftsmanship" of steel ethos is hilarious because it takes orders of magnitude more skill to fabricate aluminum bicycle frames to the order of vintage Yeti, Klein, Cannondale. Any fool can learn to braze a lugged steel bike in a day. Steel is the easiest material to weld. Where is the craftsmanship? There is infinitely more craftsmanship in hand laying noxious and toxic epoxy & carbon layers than in any steel Rivendell. So much of cycling is marketing and nonsense. Its a pastime full of people posing, to the point they compromise their fit and comfort on the bike for a "look" of say a Brooks saddle or an aggressive saddle to bars drop.

If we made people pony up $10,000 each to see if they could identify the "better" bike and we camouflaged the bikes in foam wrapping and put identical builds on them all I promise you that more people would lose money than not. Sure there are the real connoisseurs that just know how a particular distinctive geometry or tubing feels. However, that's not 90% of the opinions out there, that's a very small minority. Many people just repeat utter nonsense that they heard from a source with an agenda.

Cannondale's aren't just a one-size fits all bucket. Every iteration of the CAAD from the original Sport Touring bikes and forward from the 3.0 Series bikes became optimized to a greater degree. Read becoming more lighter than becoming less strong and less stiff. The 3.0 Series frames from the Standford engineer "rethink" was the initial response to Cannondale hiring him to take them to carbon. His response was that there was so much improvement to be made with their aluminum bikes. Those 3.0 series frames he did were the lightest, fastest, strongest frames in the world at that time, and that's not an opinion.

Are Cannondale racing bikes as comfortable as steel racing bikes? No, but that's not a fair question, as there is no such thing as a steel racing bike following the Cannondale/Klein paradigm shift to aluminum. So are you correct that aluminum might not be as comfy as steel. Sure. No doubt. However, let's qualify the conversation then. Are we really talking about how racing bikes feel, or talking about how one efficient, light, strong stiff racing bike compares to what has essentially been relegated to being a heavy road comfort cruiser in comparison? It isn't a racing bike if the technology is obsolete to the point it can't be raced on competitively. There isn't a steel racing bike on the planet that with riders being equal could keep pace with Klein/Cannondale bikes over a large sample size in a gran tour (rollers, sprints, mountains, time trials). That is exactly the reason that the conversation becomes disingenuous. Its like someone with a fat tire cruiser saying that vintage steel racing bikes are harsh. Well yes, compared to their fat tire cruiser, but the vintage steel race bike is so much faster by comparison.

Aluminum is NOT the end all and be all. In fact, I can't see a reason that bikes should ever have been made from aluminum at all. You can do everything you can do with aluminum better with magnesium, and it just so happens to be the worlds best material at isolating and eliminating vibration. I can have that conversation and be intellectually honest about that.

Check out these links below, because there is a punchline to them:
https://tandemgeek.wordpress.com/201...bigger-better/
https://tandemgeek.wordpress.com/201...bq-tire-width/

He's a great guy in our tandem forums. Very knowledgeable and thinks honestly about things cycling. However, the punchline is that even though he knows they'd actually have less rolling resistance with the 25s, he kept on with the 23s forever because of a negative experience with 25s once. He runs very high pressures on his tandem 23s I think. Like 145psi.

In all that conversation he makes a specific point of being baffled when people make the Cannondale (in this case he's talking specifically about the tandems) as being "harsh." TandemGeek has probably ridden more tandems, wheel sets, tires and components than any tandem captain I've ever heard of. He makes the point that he didn't realize how "harsh" he was making his bikes (not Cannondales, he's got carbon) due to his preferences for narrow tires, specifically Vredsteins, and at very high pressures.

Ever hear the expression, it ain't you its me? It ain't the Cannondale, in many cases when the indictment comes of being "harsh" it in many cases is the tire/pressure selections.

Now that being said a stock Klein or Cannondale for a very small and very lightweight rider is going to feel very different than for an average cyclist. I can visible flex the bottom bracket of every bike I've ever been on . I'm 6'7". Even without my 205mm or 200mm longer leverage cranks that are proportional for me, I can flex the snot out of my Cannondale ST BBs, the bottom bracket of my old C'dale 63cm 3.0 series (stiffest ever measured on the Bicycling Magazine 'tarantula' jig), and even with that ridiculous boom tube on the Cannondale tandem, I can flex the BB visibly. In fact I have to be very careful not to overly flex my 'dales. Aluminum fatigue is a scary thing. If I represented that Cannondales were "flexy" I'd be completely disingenuous. I'm an outlier.

The reality is the history of Cannondale was encountered with agenda from invested cyclists, retailers, distributors, etc. that were stakeholders in their vintage steel bikes, the lines their shop could get, and needing to stay in business. No one wants to hear that their classic or vintage car is crap. However, sometimes something comes along that changes the paradigm. Cannondale/Klein did that.

I'll completely stop bemoaning steel lightweights if we can agree that vintage steel race bikes aren't comparable to aluminum Cannondale/Klein race bikes. They aren't both racing the same race. Motorola was one of the last teams using Steel bikes through a gran tour, Merckx bikes. Indurain on aluminum in the race against the clock in that era was spectacular, especially because he wasn't a patrone like all the dopers since, who dominate the TT, the mountains, and whenever they want. Indurain was weak in the mountains. However, a big guy on an aluminum bike, I can relate to that, and the AL transfers the wattage. Trust me big cyclists might not have the same climbing efficiency, but can throw down the watts, even a fat guy like me. In the conversation about racing bikes it has to be qualified the fastest accelerating bikes, the fastest climbing bikes, the more efficient bikes are being criticized for being…racing bikes? There is a difference between an F1 race car and a classic Eldorado. In that context the F1 race car probably does ride…"harsh."

Trakhak

An anecdote from when I worked in a bike during the first year of Cannondale bike production: a big guy (a weightlifter, about 6'5", around 300 lb) came in the shop asking for a bike that didn't "feel like overcooked spaghetti." I put him on the biggest Cannondale we had in stock---either a 25" or a 27" frame. He loved it. When he came back for the 30-day tuneup, he said, "You get any other big guys in here, let me know, and I'll tell them that this is the bike to buy."

Rather than "reply with quote," I'll just endorse wholeheartedly nearly everything that mtnbke says in post 127.

However, I don't agree that any Cannondale, built in any production year, rides less "comfortably," whatever that means, than any steel-framed bike with the same geometry and comparable wheels and tires.

How the myth of the "harsh ride" evolved:

(i) Cannondale builds their first bike model with sport-touring geometry. They sell a lot of bikes. A lot of bikes. Nobody complains about the way the bikes ride.

(ii) Cannondale's management notices that criterium racing is the dominant racing scene in the USA. They come out with a line of criterium-geometry bikes in addition to their lines of road racing, sport touring, and grand touring bikes. (Those guys were always risk-takers: they also produced a short-lived grand touring model with a half-step-plus-granny triple crankset and an even-shorter-lived sport touring model with half-step double crankset without a granny.)

(iii) People come in bike shops asking for the lightest, fastest bikes available. That'd be the Crit series Cannondales, gleaming on the showroom floor, ready to be wheeled out the door, while the single Colnago or Pinarello with comparable geometry in stock is hung up in the rafters, above the cash register.

(iv) Be careful what you wish for. A lot of the people buying the Crit series bikes are not racers and have never been on anything racier than a Raleigh Gran Prix or even a Schwinn Varsity. New riders find the criterium-geometry bikes less, shall we say, placid than what they're used to.

(v) People riding the Cannondale crit geometry bikes conclude that all aluminum bikes ride terribly. Although there are those---like me---who ride crit geometry steel bikes as well as aluminum bikes and are puzzled by the "harsh aluminum"/"real steel" false dichotomy, there are fewer of us than there are of them.

(vi) Legions of conspiracy theorists, bike world division, congratulate themselves on being among the few, the anointed, who see the Truth! Steel is Real!

Ronno6

I would have to think that the frame is of '85.
Still could be a late '85 made '86 tho.
See the '86 catalog in which all SR bikes shown sport the metal guides.
As for the 3rd set of water bottle bosses, those were introduced in '84 on the ST series.
I also see those on the SR series frames in '85 as well, but absent in '86.
One thing to check is the diameter of the downtube. It was 1 1/2 inches from '83 thru '85,
but increased to 1 3/4" for '86. (Or, at least so I believe.)
Another Cannondale conundrum..............

mtnbke

Again what are we talking about. When I qualify that Cannondale and Klein bicycles are freakin' rocket bikes, and I thought we were talking about racing bikes, and I make the point out that high zoot aluminum changed the paradigm, as they were stronger, accelerated like zoom, climbed like nothing we had seen before, and could easily outsprint steel bikes the response to defend vintage steel "racing" bikes is that they are more comfortable? Are we talking country cruisers or racing bikes. Absolutely, I have no doubt that high end steel bikes are more comfortable. However, I thought we were talking about vintage and classic racing bikes. Too which my point is that the entire conversation is disingenuous. With the introduction of aluminum, you can't actually have a Klein and Cannondale in the same conversation with even high zoot steel. The term racing bike has no meaning for the steel bikes once we start talking about the performance of the oversized aluminum bikes.

I'll complete concede that vintage steel bikes are probably comfy compared to a legit next generation aluminum racing bike. However, in a conversation where the aluminum bike is stiffer, stronger, faster in a sprint, and can out climb the steel bike, I'm not sure where to put the "more comfortable" placeholder. If we are going to talk about comfortable randonneur bicycles or touring bicycles I'll bring in titanium, carbon and magnesium. All will outperform steel, and all are reasonably able to make the argument of being more comfortable. Heck, a recumbent is probably more comfortable.

Apples and Oranges, which is what aluminum and steel really are. I personally have only oversized aluminum touring bikes. My big Cannondale STs and the Cannondale tandems those were based off of. I can build the bikes up with narrow 23 tires and crazy pressures 145+ and they become insanely fast accelerating bikes. I can put a 48/35 on the tandem and with the bigger tires the bike feels like a big truck. No precision to the handling and everything is just slow turning. I'm not changing the bikes, I'm changing the tires/pressures.

Heck just running tires with flat guard technology vastly increases the rolling resistance of a tire. Does that mean every bike is "harsher" with Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires instead of the regular Schwalbe Marathon? The wheel set and the tires and pressures have more to do with how a bike rides than the frame. I can make the most comfortable titanium bicycle feel "harsh" or a Cannondale feel "sluggish" with varying tire widths, profiles, TPI, and differing pressures.

All I'm sayin' is that while there are tens of thousands of people in the "steel is real" cult, as another poster put it: Cannondale's live in realITY. There are gorgeous steel bicycles out there. Many with great history and interesting components. There are great arguments to ride and collect C&V steel bikes. Pantographed components. Right there that's all you need. Some obnoxious Klein tool who is taking his Quantum off his Porsche and telling his buddy with the vintage Olmo or Colnago about how much more advanced the Klein is, and how it does this better and that better…guess what, all the Olmo/Colnago guy has to say is, "Maybe, but I like the pantagraphed components." Boom! What is the Klein guy going to say to that?

Steel bicycles had their place in cycling and still do. I take umbrage when certain manufacturers pitch steel as "better" when in reality steel fabrication is all their production model can afford. There is a thread in C&V right now of a certain returning member who learned to braze on his own bosses, having no experience doing this whatsoever. I've met lots of people that have built their own steel frames. That right there makes steel bikes more inclusive and more wholistic than aluminum frames. Unless you are Fell at MIT, most of us are not going to conquer the learning curve to produce an aluminum frame. Every single one of us can build a steel frame that given the identical lugs and tubing, jigs and miters is essentially indistinguishable from what a master frame builder could produce, by all but the most sophisticated of cyclists. That is why the whole "craftsmanship" rhetoric feels so wholly disingenuous. The real skill was with the titanium fabricators, aluminum fabricators, and those learning to hand lay up carbon/epoxy (and willing to endure the toxic noxious fumes). I guess I just want to push back against cultish behavior and dogmatic beliefs that aren't substantiated and repeated ad nauseum by the lemmings. I'd love to be able to fit most steel bikes in my size. I'd have a fleet of them. Colnagos, Olmos, a Windsor converted to Cinelli just to be a jackass and see all the people who appreciate my Cinelli for the fine bike it is. What I wouldn't do is pretend its the end all be all of bicycle technology, innovation or development.

Listen, an F1 race car is faster than just about anything out there. That doesn't mean any of us want to actually drive one on a track. First of all none of us have the neck strength to endure those lateral g-forces nor could we manage to keep the car going fast enough to keep the brakes warm enough to remain functional. I'd rather have some silly exotic sports car than an actual F1 race car. Of all the things I'll like about the sports car, I won't try to stay its a "better" racer than the F1. Its a more accessible race car, certainly.

Some riders truly find aluminum harsh. Very very lightweight cyclists clearly have communicated this. However, my point is different. My point is that a great many other cyclists who claim that something about aluminum isn't appealing to them, well I'm saying some of those are just full of it, or riding on overinflated too narrow tires. Mostly just full of it. That's okay. I think as a rule you had to be a total tool to actually buy a Klein new. That doesn't change that they are great epic bikes. I just wouldn't want to hear some anasthesiologist drone on about "better." The response to him, and me is not to try to make a disingenuous response about performance. You can simply say, the Klein is a great bike, but the Peg, Masi, 'nano, or even Paramount has something just…more.

That absolutely is true. I'll never deny that. There can be something almost magical about riding a steel bike. That isn't the conversation at hand though. The conversation at hand was just trying to get past the misinformation about steel bikes being equally adept to the likes of high zoot Kleins or C'dales, and that just isn't true. All other things being equal, there is a reason you never saw another steel bike win a gran tour after '94.

I think Miguel Indurain winning in '94 on a steel bike and then in '95 on an aluminum bike would be an interesting person to discuss this with. He's the last person to win a Tour on steel. He's also the first to win on aluminum (a very short list of cyclists did that), before carbon displaced the aluminum hegemony. Since the carbon era began, if steel was such a magical frame building material you'd think some European peleton cyclist would revert back to steel, right? Never going to happen, ever.

I don't remember anyone castigating rumors on the internet that Indurain hated his Pinarrello aluminum matrix bike because of it being "harsh." He was a bike racer, and it was…fast. Which is what a racer wants. If we're talking comfort bikes, let me know. In that case the misunderstanding is mine, and I apologize.

It wouldn't surprise me for a second if Indurain communicated that the steel Pinarrelos were more comfortable, however I don't think Pinarello forced him onto aluminum. I think he was a bike racer and wanted to go very very fast. No bike is everything, save possibly Magnesium bikes. Even then the only known Magnesium builder in the US, Paketa, has almost no cache with the cycling community outside of tandems. There is more at play in the covetousness of vintage steel bikes than just how they ride, or how the aluminum bikes ride. At some point its an entire cultural divide. Magically, Indurain spans that. Can we agree on that?

'

Darth Lefty 

I know I'm answering an old post but I got some nice 1998-style decals from Retrodecals in the UK https://www.facebook.com/retrodecals?fref=ts

himespau 

I'm building an '85 ST400 for my wife with fenders and 32 mm Paselas, but it's a tight fit.

pastorbobnlnh 

Where is "here" and why do you presume "crap roads" and Cannondales do not go together?

I live in the mountains of New Hampshire where many of our roads were originally horse and cart paths back in the early to mid 1700s. Eventually local towns began adding some gravel in the early 1900s, followed by occasional sections of "chip and seal," and after WWII some real asphalt. What most of the roads never had was proper highway engineering, so we are plagued with what we call "frost heaves."

FHs are often caused by the underlying glacier boulders and rocks which are pushed around by the annual ground frost which usually reaches 7-9 feet deep. This movement causes ripples, dips, lifts, cracks, and lots of road surface displacement that is always at it's worst during January to early April. By May the roads have re-settled (mostly) back to their original location. Left behind are numerous cracks, which increase with every passing winter.

If we're lucky, every 5-7 years, the road has an inch ground away and an inch of new asphalt applied. We then enjoy a smooth section for about two years.

Now I say all this because, most people visiting say northern New England has a significant number of "crap roads" but this doesn't stop me from riding my Cannondales with 25mm tires.

I've never done a 650b conversion and don't have any plans to do so, but it all depends on the model. Probably many of the old C-Dale MTB frames would make great 650b projects.

shoota 

tl;dr most of it. But one thing is for sure, either the bigger frames ride less harsh or you guys are crazy. Those old Cannondales are rough riders, period. My numb hands and missing fillings agree with me. And no, it's not a tire pressure thing. Same wheels, same tires, same pressure, same roads ridden as my other "racing bikes". These 'dales and the Foil are not comfy rides, period.

miamijim

What they're trying to say is dont ***** about a Ferrari/Lambourghini/911Turbo/Corvette riding rough. Handle? check. Accellerate? check. Brake? check? Ride like a Cadillac? NFW.

I went through all this back in the 80's and can reitterate what mtnbike is saying... Light? check. Stiff as F? check. Great accelleration? check. Smooth riding? Not suppose to be.

shoota 

So we agree that it's a harsh bike. Good.

OldsCOOL

And I love it.

shoota 

It does have a certain raw horsepower feel to it doesn't it? I'm on the look out for another in my size. I regret selling my '86.

OldsCOOL

I cannot possibly describe the feel of that first 1/4 mile when I finished the build. First, perfect spot-on fit for my body size, body type and personality. I love the pure feel of a beast racing bike. The harder you ride it, the more you appreciate it. Once you ride one on a smooth surface you find it isnt harsh at all. Chip seal? Yes. Busted up, winter damaged pavement? Yes.

shoota 

Well duh lol.

OldsCOOL

Though I digress, there are those that believe and repeat (as a factless parrot) what they read about "teeth fillings, road buzz and scrobutt". If you dont have the terrain to suit your comfort, buy a comfort bike.

My Criterium Series with Litage Fx alu fork and 23mm Krylions IS, IS my comfort bike....as I relish another PR, jumping into the top 10 on a popular Strava course.

I will be 58yrs old this year.

shoota 

Rock on dude, you're my kind of guy. I would like to try a Criterium frame with the cantilever dropouts. I've never heard anyone compare those to the previous years without the cantilever dropouts. Admittedly, the thought of metal fatigue in those cantilever dropouts has entered my brain a few times. Not sure if it's founded or not but it sure looks like a weak spot to the eye.

OldsCOOL

We share that concern with the canti frames.

Darth Lefty 

Crosspost from the gravel grinder forum... I finally have this 1996 XR800 nearly together. I still need pedals, and to get the right length bolt for the front straddle cable hanger. I'm not strictly happy with it; some of my choices (especially wheels, tires, crank, and stem) have made it pretty porky. But it seems to ride nice based on a trip around the cul-de-sac and I really like the big rangy look to it. I'm sure I'll keep working on it. If it rides nice enough to make me want to keep it, I plan to have it powdercoated and I have a nice set of replacement decals for it.

Vuelta Corsa HD wheels, I wanted something that would stand up to dirt road commuting under schlubby me, but I may have overdone it.


Untitled by Darth Lefty, on Flickr


Shimergo 3x9 using 2014 Athena 3x11 shifters, SRAM MTB FD, Shimano Exage 500 RD


Untitled by Darth Lefty, on Flickr


The Pauls are what sold me on this frame. The tire clearance shown here is a lie! These tires are 32 mm. This bike shipped with knobby 35's. The front fork crown has the closest clearance and will take the front wheel of my wife's hybrid with its treaded 40 tire.


Untitled by Darth Lefty, on Flickr
Untitled by Darth Lefty, on Flickr


Campy shifter + MTB FD + road triple = purest heresy


Untitled by Darth Lefty, on Flickr

xRyan

This has been an interesting read, I'm working on my "first" bike: 1989 cannondale black lighting. I ended up installing a threadless carbon fork/stem on it, it's not what I orginally wanted to do but it's looks pretty sweet. I hope to get it done, and on the road soon!

Ratzinger

Man, there is something about these older Cannondales that really goes it for me. Anyone have one for sale around Toronto....

mtnbke

PB - Walk me through the thought process on not using 28s? Have you tried them? What did you think?

On my C'dale tandem (the silver one) the Continental TopTouring 2000 700x38 doesn't fit. The tippy top of the tire is hitting the chain stays. I do NOT want to go down a size, but we have to. I picked up what I thought were some Schwalbe Marathon Plus 700x35 tires, but they turned out to be 700x45s. I'm an idiot to not have noticed, but we were on the way to Children's Hospital with a bad ear infection for the four year old. Stopping to get bike tires cost me my Dad of the Year award, and really pissed off the wife. I'm wearing a black armband in shame. For not recognizing they were 45s, and still needing tires. If they had been 35s I'd be okay with it.

mtnbke

I think as cyclists age and they start to focus on wanting a comfort bike, some of this stuff comes up. You're not the same at 60 and 50 as you were at 20 and 30. That's NOT the bike.

mtnbke

Be careful, not all Cannondales with the cantilever dropouts are Criteriums. They used the cantilevered dropouts on other road bikes and on the mountain bikes too (both our M2000 frames have them).

mtnbke

Darth Lefty - Nice bike. Tell me about that Stronglight decal. My '86 Cannondale ST800 grail bikes have Stronglight Delta headsets. I didn't know Cannondale had ever put decals on to advertise that. Or does Stronglight mean something in terms of C'dale branding there. That looks like a Stronglight headset, though on your bike.