who’s got a cannondale (ideally a lefty)

any good?

It’s just I’ve noticed a few people saying there crap & fall to bit recently.

It’s an old and tired joke that persists due to the ease of substituing the name cannondale for crack-n-fail, due to a 90’s frame that broke a lot…. It’s not like other manufacturer’s haven’t had spectacular failure of there own, but the name has just stuck & is repeated ad nauseum (hey I do it, in total jest though).
Nowt wrong with them nowadays as far as I know, well my 06 Prophet is still working fine for me, other than there european HQ being dire on the warrenty front.

The lefty though is a marmite piece of kit, I wouldn’t spend the best part of a grand buying one, but have managed to end up with two old ones. As much as I love them, as there light(ish), stiff as hell and drive cannondale haters to have an apoplexy @ there sight, but there damping performance isn’t as good as modern forks. Though you can apparently retro fit the latest damping system into post 05 lefty’s – not a cheap option though, but one I keep thinking about.

Got 2 friends with Cannondales and they seem well made decent bits of kit.

I’d love a carbon Taurine and almost bought a RZ120 last year.

ive owned a cannondale prophet1 for a few year now and loved it, great on the ups climbs like a beast and also handles the descents really well too, good all rounders tbh ive had no problems with them at all 🙂

I had a Rush, great bike but it did indeed crack and fail.

I also have 2006 Prophet that I bought recently second hand. It rides really well, I’m really enjoying it. But the cable routing guides are crap. The frame required these stupid little plastic sleeves that hoses and cables are pushed through and which then slot into guides on the frame. It’s a crap system, they pop out sometimes, they’re a faff to fit and spare plastic things are hard to find and stupidly expensive for what they are. I hear cannondale has been using this system for years, but it’s rubbish. Apart from that though…ace.

I ride Orange bikes, but on holiday in NZ 4yrs ago I hired a Cannondale Rush for a week and it really, really impressed me. It almost managed to make me enjoy the climbs! 😀 I thought it was a superb bit of kit. Stupidly low BB though. 😉

B.

I know a lad who won’t ride anything else.

With regard to the lefty fork,I don’t think I could ever fully trust one, it just looks like it shouldn’t work!

I wondered what the point of lefties was until I saw a cutaway in a bike shop, and realised the obvious. Inside, the telescopic bit is actually two square section tubes (it’d have to be otherwise you’d never be able to steer) running on roller bearings. They have extremely low stiction.

Now that should make them plush, but I dunno if the damping lets it down.

My Rush 1000 is still going strong with the Lefty after almost 5 years of use. It’s never put a foot wrong, still rockets along, the Lefty has been serviced twice. Managed the Transwales of Hell (2008) with absolutely no issues where other bikes were snapping/failing/suffering.

I’d buy another in a flash if they were still being made.

Prior to that I had and F800 which was stolen

Lefties rock – super smooth and reliable and the tracking is far better than a normal fork and fixing a puncture is easy!

I am also very tempted by an RZ120 1.

molgrips – Member

I wondered what the point of lefties was until I saw a cutaway in a bike shop, and realised the obvious. Inside, the telescopic bit is actually two square section tubes (it’d have to be otherwise you’d never be able to steer) running on roller bearings. They have extremely low stiction.

Now that should make them plush, but I dunno if the damping lets it down.

Some have Fox dampers so I don’t think it’s necessarily a problem.

The only thing that’s put me off is their high retail price when bought aftermarket. (£1k + IIRC! 😯 )

I had a 2010 flash F1 alloy up until recently, extremely light the lefty was the best fork i have ever ridden, but it just wasn’t that comfortable to ride

Ignoring the fatuousness of the OP [lad in my class posted on myspace that all cannondales are crap – what do you guys think?], it’s pretty encouraging that the latest CDale offerings seem very forward-looking. e.g. The new Jekyll could be the best FS bike ever made, or one of the worst – its an exciting design.
You would not have bet on this happening two years back when the brand was sold to Dorel – a large manufacturing conglomerate that own a lot of cheapened, former-great bike marques (Schwinn, mongoose). They seem to be backing CDale as a top end brand.

Cannondale’s are pretty good bikes all in all, I’ve been riding them for years now and currently have a RZ140 carbon, Trail SL1 and a Super 6 road bike. I have had some need to use the warranty over the years but have always ended up being sorted out. They are always pushing ahead with the development of bikes with many other company’s using their patents once they expire. As a burlier rider I feel very confident on Cannondale’s due to the warranty side of things which is important when spending good money. The bikes do inspire you to push little harder and ride a little faster and am still amazed at the climbing ability of the RZ140 in comparison to my previous Rush.
As for the Lefty, I’ve had several over the years and have never had one fail on me, even on my old Chase jump bike. I will agree that they are fantastic forks but they do have old issues with dampening and they are not really suitable for fast all mountain riding. The Lefty makes a fantastic race or xc fork without a doubt, it is light, stiff and bomb proof. On my first RZ130 carbon 2, it came with a carbon 130 lefty with fox internals and a titanium spring, which suited the bike very well and really behaved it’s self at trail centres but I found it struggling when riding more techy, rocky stuff around the Lakes (Borrowdales Bash) or Wales (Snowdon). It was defiantly struggling to keep up and would ramp down over a short period of fast, steep, rocky riding and all confidence would start to diminish. When I took it too do the Passporte du Soliel last year, it was well out of it’s comfort zone and really held me back when playing one some of the DH tracks I used to ride on my old DH bikes. I’m sure that the fork must have been flexing all over the place under hard breaking on the baked breaking bumps but it held up fine to the punishment I was giving it. This year I have beefed it up a bit for the Alps by fitting a Fox 150 talas fork and a stiffer set of wheels and it feels, slacker, more planted and up for the job I want it for, which is a light weight, perfect all mountain bike.

I’m on my second one now… i’ve only owned the US-built frames and not any of the newer far-eastern built jobbies (which are probably just as good anyway).

my first was a F-series frame and was used for street, trials and dual… certainly more than it was designed to take… i did kill it though as it sustained a nice crack around the head-tube/downtube joint.

the current one (a 2002 Caad5) is early days yet, but I am aware that they were built ‘too’ light and a number have failed. i will only use this for pure xc so hopefully it will be okay.

Over the years I’ve owned;

CAAD 2 Hardtail
2 x CAAD 3 Hardtail
CAAD 5 Hardtail
Optimo Hardtail

Super V
Original Jekyll
Rush
2 x Prophet

One of the hardtails and all the full sus bar the Super V have run all era’s of the lefty bar the most recent (2009 on)

I’m not a small guy (17.5st on a good day, much more with full riding kit) Only one I’ve ever broken is the Optimo hardtail which was after stupidly trying to jump on it, but that got welded and ran fine for another year before it was stolen!

I’ve tried other forks, most recently a fox float 140 on the front of a Fuel EX but it felt very flexy in comparison to the lefties. For a big guy like me I think the lefties are superb.

All of mine have needed very little maintenance, certainly less than the fox whilst I had it.

If I had the money a new generation Jekyll would be top of my list for a new bike.

I’ve had a couple of their hardtails in the past. The first I had was fantastic and felt special

The second was ok, but just didnt ride quite the same. Weird but it didnt fell like it was the same quality bike… maybe this was when production moved from the US..

A mate of my has a Cannondale FS with Lefty (cant recall the model) he has had it about 8 years now with no problems what so ever. I think in that time is has replaced the frame pivot bearings once and had the fork fully serviced once.

Been running a Caffeine hardtail for 4 years now, with the 80mm headshok fork.

Recently, I found a crack in the seat tube slot. This may have been user error as much as bike design or materials, but I asked about replacement anyway. I was worried that the European Cannondale service / dist centre would take ages to get it sorted (or not do a warranty on it), so I started looking for a replacement frame / forks. TBH it was hard for me to figure out what would do me better, especially when it comes to forks. I tried some Rockshox forks, and they felt more flexy and wallowy, albeit one was a 140mm Pike so a totally different thing altogether, but it did make me think that I like the feel of the Cannondale forks, and that perhaps a Lefty would be good.

Anyway, I got the bike frame replaced under warranty quicker than expected, so decided to stick with it for the time being. My original headshok fork was on it’s last legs (after 3 1/2 years of use) and needed serviced, and as it also didn’t match the frame, I looked to eBay for a replacement and found one in the right colour that had just been serviced by 88plus, and I got it for less than the service cost. Got it and put it on, all good, so now I have a spare fork to get serviced at some point.

I did ‘do’ Morzene with the old frame / fork last year, including some of the bigger tracks. It was quite funny using this bike on these tracks, I was totally out of the bikes and my depth, but I did feel that it progressed my riding over the week. I was tired at the bottom of the runs though, especially if I had hit too many of those stupid braking bumps! For the XC stuff around there, though, the bike was ideal. For all my riding in the UK, I am happy with it, I’m not a radcore rider at all, so I don’t need a big ‘hardcore hardtail’ thing with 140 forks etc, and I like nailing climbs almost as much as the descents.

I have changed it from the XC setup it originally came with, I put a much shorter stem on it, wide bars, and big tyres. I also recently changed it to 1×9. I like it like this, makes it a bit more of a trail bike and less of a race bike.

Overall, I like the bike. I think the frame and fork are well designed and built, and it seems to suit me. Light and stiff is good!

i have a new far east trail sl frame that i`m abusing. came as an SL6 but i had a load of bits in the shed to upgrade most parts.

its nice has withstood jumps and drops and general woodzy razzing and a commute involving stair drops, coming up short on the knackered bmx track and normal xc climbing. well the frame has – the back wheel is mildly buggered and hte replacement cranks i put on creak like hell.

its 8 months old but the frame seems to be fine at present. it needed a short stem to make it fun though as the frame seems quite long.

I’ve had/have an F500 hardtail and R500 road bike, both ace bits of kit.

IIRC they’ve used magura, manitou and fox dampers over the years as well as some of their own.

Van Halen, i did exactly the same as you with the Trail SL6, took off all the parts straight from the box and sold them all as new, then replaced everything with bit’s i had kicking around the garage. now it’s a higher spec than the Trail SL1.

Kieran, where did you get your Optimo welded? I’ve snapped the down tube of my Prophet a couple of inches above the BB and Cannondale won’t honour the lifetime guarantee. I can’t find anyone who can repair it so am resigned to skipping it, which is a pity because it was the ideal tool for Cwmcarn (my local ride)cheers.

Funso – My neighbour got it done for me at his work, Johnson’s in Glous, who specialize in armoured vehicles and could weld aluminium (among other much more exotic things) Sadly he doesn’t work there any more otherwise I would see what I could do. Mine was only a small crack just in front of the rear drop out though so I wasn’t too concerned about riding it welded, I was warned that that area would be more prone to cracking again.

I’ve got a 2010 F1 which is a splendid thing. Even if it has been flogged and I keep bending wheels – the big downside of ‘Dales is that SI means that some of the more esoteric parts eg. Lefty hubs are a bugger to get.

Andy

I’ve snapped the down tube of my Prophet a couple of inches above the BB and Cannondale won’t honour the lifetime guarantee.

Why is that? What reason did they give? The warranty is in black and white, they must honour it. I’d kick up nine shades of s*** until it was replaced!

I’m on my 3rd Cannondale now, and although I’ve had to warranty 2 of them, I would definitely buy another.

My first ‘dale was a 2008 F1, my first proper XC hardtail, and was a stunning bike to ride. I warrantied this for vanity’s sake as I was getting water ingress around the headset between the polished “raw” finish and the laquer. I upgraded this at the time to a Taurine SL (2010) which is an absolutely astounding frame to ride, far better a bike than I am at riding it! Had a small issue with the rear end of this one due to rear dropout alignment causing the wheel to slip in the dropout under heavy load. This was replaced no problems and is now unfortunately sitting in my garage waiting for the time to build it up again (I robbed a lot of parts for other projects) and to be honest I miss it a lot. Think it’s likely to be rebuilt as a SS summer project.

I’ve got a 2008 carbon Rush and love it to bits. I got it online for 20% off from Bonthrone bikes. Unfortunately I had reason to use the Cannondale warranty (only cosmetic issue though) and Bonthrone bikes were awfull. In the end they went into administration and I was left dealing with Cannondale’s HQ in Holland. they didn’t handle the issue well at all and has put me off buying another cannondale. My issues went unresolved in the end and I gave up. I suspect if I got the bike from my LBS they would have dealt with it better. My GF has a F500 hardtail and she likes it very much.

Kieran- thanks i’ll keep searching.

7hz- They won’t honour it because i can’t produce the original proof of purchase, I bought it from a Canadian military shop in Germany so it’s really dificult to go through the retailer option.

loving my (second hand) carbon Rush, I think the big issue with cannondale has always been the inconsistent nature of their warranty and customer service, some issues seem to get sorted quickly, others drag on and never get a satisfactory outcome. I know from working in a dealer years ago that we would call them and there were two or three people worth speaking to and the rest were useless. Hopefully CSG will be better than previous distributors

I still love my prophet, it’s basically a cheap 5 and if the 5 still garners as much praise as always (having changed so little), I can’t really see the point in ‘updating’ it.

I’ve got a 10-year old CAAD 4 F600, which I fitted a Lefty to. So light and really quick. I’d always loved the fat-tubiness of ‘Dales, and lusted after one for years.

The biggest downside with Cannondales is proprietary parts, and the lack of user serviceability of their forks (without special expensive tools). And the price of spare bits, that’s extortionate.

Love the way they innovate and try out radical new ideas; the Lefty is fantastic, and looks mental. 🙂

Years ago I worked in a bike shop which sold Cannondale and, unfortunately, this was at the time they were worst. Everything on them was their in-house CODA crap, everything was proprietary (4-bolt disc hubs for example). Their reliability was shocking, they were still trading on their “Handmade in America” tag which made them considerably more expensive than anything else on the shop floor and with far worse components.

It was almost guaranteed that downstairs in the warranty bin would be at least one broken Cannondale which, given that <10% of the bikes we sold were Cannondale, was a pretty shocking failure rate. Dealing with them was a nightmare due to them having one distribution centre for all of Europe so getting anything out of them was slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through treacle.

Upgrades were a nightmare cos nothing else ever fitted the proprietary parts. CODA brakes were universally shite (verging on dangerous) but to upgrade meant you needed new 6-bolt hubs which meant new wheels as well. A guy in my cycle club had one, he gave up on it eventually after it spent more time in the shop being fixed than outside on the trails. He got through at least one new frame on it.

To sum up, they certainly used to be crap – unbelievably so. What they’re like now I have no idea but I will never ever buy one based on my previous experiences with the brand.

And the price of spare bits, that’s extortionate.

yeah that got me to, wanted to replace the 1 1/8 fox on mine with the tapered revelation I had bought for an abandonned project, realised the carbon rush has a 50.6mm id headtube not the standard 49.6mm 1.5 head tube like the alloy one or a prophet. Worked out I needed the lower half of an rz120 headset so called CSG who told me £80 and 4-6 weeks then told me it was disconinued, finally tracked down a full headset from dr cannondale in germany for 50 euro.

doctor cannondale

My F1.

Had to warranty my road bike (S6) as the seat tube cracked; was all sorted (new frame) pretty quickly. In contrast to every other dealing I’ve had with Dale Europe (both pre & post CSG), which has dragged on & on. And they don’t answer direct email.

Germany a good source for SI bits for some reason, incl. eg. DT 240 Lefty hubs which aren’t imported to the UK.

Andy

Personally I avoid brands where they have engineering solutions employed to appear different to competitors, rather than the best engineering solution possible. I’m thinking lefties and rear drop outs on a cantilever.

@ waderider:

yes, they can be a drag at first. but look how many Cannondale innovations have been adopted as the “norm” over the years. Cannondale really are the kings of mainstream development in my eyes, and it’s not for making a quick buck; only a year after the introduction of BB30, ‘dale released the patents to allow it to be taken up by other brands and component manufacturers without having to pay licensing fees and it’s really beginning to gather pace now, especially in the road market.

As an engineering solution, the Lefty makes a huge amount of sense for the values the lefty was created for (light, stiff, better tracking)

i just went through an 8 month warranty. the dealer who dealt with a previous claim perfectly, my first taurine, this time were appalling! i had to contact CSG to sort out this warranty directly. i don’t know how other manufacturers deal with their warranties, but i don’t want to have to fight like that again – rubbish.

i had a 2002 cannondale f800 with lefty fork [/img] is the best hardtail bike i have ever owned (in a moment of stupidity i sold it/have always regretted it 🙁 the lefty fork was great as far as i was concerned (i had to get it serviced twice in the 2 years i had it. would buy another one in a heartbeat (if i had the funds/one of their superlight carbon ones mmmm 😀

I have a 2009 Rush, and I love it to bits…….it honestly makes going up hill a joy and coming down just as fun……..on mine the brakes are little spongy but could just be the way I set it up, but I can’t honestly think of a bike a would prefer right now!

I love it!!!

I’ve had my current Cannondale 7 years now and its still going strong after having its fair share of abuse. Absolutely love it and no matter what other bike I own, its still the one that feels ‘right’. When it breaks (and I’m sure that eventually it will), I’ll be looking for another one.

Agree with the comments re: the propriety parts. My first was a 2000 F700 that was adorned with Coda everything (although thankfully Magura brakes). Crap cranks, hubs and chainset. Never ridden the Lefty’s but the Headshok were a bit marmite. Unbelievably stiff and light but lacking in any adjustment (or travel) and also needed a fair bit of service attention.

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