The new neon neow Cannondale Bad Habit

We’re looking forward to getting hold of one of these. Not just because of the most excellent paintjobs – although that doesn’t hurt – but because we really enjoyed riding the previous Habit and Habit LT bikes.

So what is the Bad Habit about? Well, it depends. Cannondale are clearly promoting it as an enduro bike. It did take Ella Conolly to the top step of podium last year after all. Yet with ‘only’ 155mm rear travel (160mm fork) it falls into what a lot of folk would class as a trail bike.

What would we class it as? Apart from the temptation to facetiously say it’s a “mountain bike”, how about we bring back ye olde category of All Mountain? Yes, let’s. What does All Mountain mean? Fundamentally we’d explain it as ‘not flat stuff’. Climbs and descents. Steady climbs and natural techy descents. Steep seat angle, long reach, slack head angle, decent stack height, mixed wheel size.

What else? Proportional Response (size-specific kinematics, geometry and construction). Coil or air compatibility. StashPort frame storage (a first for Cannondale MTB). 34.9mm diameter seat tubes for long-travel droppers (up to 280mm insertion on L/XL). Full carbon frame. Shuttle and chainstay protection. Threaded BB. Metric shock. UDH hanger. 160mm (S/M) or 165mm (L/XL) cranks. Warrantied for life (as outlined in Cannondale’s limited Lifetime warranty policy). Up to 170mm for single crowns and 180mm for dual crowns (bring back the Lefty Max!)

Not FlexPivot. Cannondale state this is primarily due to FlexPivot being expensive to manufacture: “FlexPivot wouldn’t have made a night-and-day difference to the overall weight, but would have increased the price.” Speaking of stays, the S and M sizes have a super-short 430mm chain stay length, the L and XL get still-very-short 435mm length. This is done by moving the main pivot position (5mm further rearward on the L/XL) as opposed to fabricating two chain stays.

As regards the suspension kinematic stuff, we don’t have any graphs and stuff at the moment. Suffice to say, Cannondale engineers have stated that the Bad Habit is quite a linear bike. Which is good to hear. Despite what a lot of folk think, coil shocks and modern air shocks work better most of the time for most of the riders when the leverage rate is not shaped like a Nike swoosh.