Cannondale Trigger? Bargain

Hi all, this seems to be the most comprehensive forum about the Trigger on the net!

I’m currently riding a 2015 trigger 3 (aluminium). I’ve upgraded the wheels to hope pro 4 on spank rims, the rear brake to an MT7 (I do a bit of trials on it and the travel adjustment is great for this!), and I’ve converted to a 1×10 drivetrain. Awesome bike, and suits me perfectly!

last weekend I also upgraded the crank set and BB. I looked at the FSA 73mm adapter, but ended up going for the SRAM DUB press fit set up with GX cranks – so far so good!

That said I’m now loosing the chain on fast rocky decents, so looking to buy a chain guide. Preferably a direct mount top guide only. Absolute black do a direct mount version which I’m tempted by:

https://absoluteblack.cc/oval-chain-guide-s3-e-type/

Does anyone have a picture of how their front mech is attached to the bike, looking at the one I took off, it looks as if it attached to the main pivot bolt! I’m fairly sure it’s an S3 Mount but can’t fathom or remember how it attaches as there don’t appear to be two horizontal holes on the frame, but there is on the front mech? Does it just bolt through one?

4mm bolt through the FD hangar into the main pivot bolt. The FD then mounts to this.

Hope it is not too late, but the One Up chain guide looks exactly the same and half the price

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/oneup-components-low-direct-mount-chain-guide/rp-prod148246

I have this with absolute black oval chainring and works perfectly.

Just a heads up, 27.5 spare wheelset for sale in classifieds. See, not even a stealth ad…

Just to bring something fun to the thread.
Recently I had my carbon trigger frame elongated.

A carbon fibre wiz got to cut, reposition and rebuild the front of the frame to steepen the seatstay to make it a better climber, make the HA a lot slackare (abt 65 deg), fit a 160 mm supermax and be a Little longer still.
It is a killer machine now!
Thread in Swedish:
https://happyride.se/forum/read.php/1/3452508/3452547

Loving that

Holy Molly…. That’s some upgrade!

Awesome! What was the cost if you don’t mind me asking? I’d love to do the same with mine.

Kneebiscut,
It cost me about 300 euros. Obviously it depends on the craftsman 🙂

Bloody hell! Thats ace!

Still loving my Trigger. Its been progressively upgraded… carbon cranks and bars, shorter stem, new dropper, but nowt as radical as that! Good work sir!

That seems great value! I wonder if anyone in the UK would offer a similar service.

The picture-link seems to have self-destroyed, dont know what it so about that, sorry.
Thanks everybody.
The choise was, considering the cost, rather easy.
To sell the bike and get a modern geo one would cost a lot more, and I would loose the Supermax, interchange-ability with my HT and the dyad…
With a set of light rims but still 900gr tyres it is abt 13,0 kg with pedals and all. 🙂

You must have some faith in your carbon guy….!
Were any spoons involved in the process?

Is 13kg all that light?

Thereisnospoon…

I have tested the frame a bit 🙂

I think 13 kg is guite good for a 160/140mm bike.

Some great Trigger resource in this thread!

I’ve just finished building my lad a Trigger 4 – learnt a lot about the bike as I go, like the carbon frame is PF30 (even though it has a sticker that says BB30 on the frame!) I fitted a 73mm FSA BSA bottom bracket adapter so I can use standard Shimano cups/cranks, and used a tapered headset to run a standard fork (140mm Revelations) it’s also 1×12 speed using SRAM GX with Sunrace cassette to keep the cost down. 45mm stem and 750mm bars, 203mm/180mm brakes.

It’s a medium / 17″ which I thought might need to grow into a bit (the dropper is restricted to about 70mm) but he seemed to have no problem smashing down Stainburn red on it’s first off road ride, so his old bike has been dismantled.

The pull shock is a bit worrying – it seems to be designed to compress mud into the top shaft – bit working well and the frame was a bargain.

This thread just keeps going!
That’s a great looking bike, it’s hard to tell but is that the Orange 2016ish frame?
My trigger still get regular use and has got me through 2 ard rock, 1 boltby bash and 2 ard moors….

Yes 2016 which is a bit more reddish in real life.

Now it’s built I took a few more measurements – the BB is quite high at about 345mm or so, I’ve put some offset bushes to lower & slacken things off a bit (22mm x 8mm stainless from Bounce Cycles £20 the pair) pic below;

This has dropped BB to about 337mm ish. I’ve also dropped the dyad pressure quite a bit for my sons light weight, 30% sag leaves the BB even lower, though running 165mm cranks shouldn’t be a problem. He’s been out doing endos & wheelies today, give it a proper ride tomorrow.

^^ Well,I don’t feel inadequate on a bike now! Lol

Good on him and a great build,I bet he is WELL happy!

Just gave the Trigger a bit of a refresh, not used for 2yrs due to back injury. Changed the rims from STi19’s to STi29’s and fitted fresh Michelin Wild AM 2.6″ tyres front and rear, set up tubeless. First time changing rims and fairly easy job. £50 from Wiggle with a discount code. A true 2.6″ measured at the side knobs, and 2.35″ on the carcass. The rear clearance is only 4mm at the swingarm… but a huge amount of grip. These tyres seem to have a fairly stiff sidewall compared to the previous Michelins. Running 26f/34r psi and the grip is pretty amazing.

Also changed the bars to 780mm with a 38mm rise, and fitted a 65mm Easton Havoc stem. This feels a lot better with more natural riding position. I’ve always had lower back pain cycling uphill on this bike, and this seems to have cured it.

All fluids changed and everything lubed. Feels like a brand new bike again!

Pics, or it never happened 😉
I’m interested in putting a riser bar on my XL for a slightly more upright position when seated.

Mines developed a bit of play in the rear end. Need to get it sorted as doing PMBA gisburn, Boltby Bash, Ard Rock and Ard Moors this year.

Mine developed a little play was just the swing arm lower bearing and shock bushes. Both quick and easy fixes.

Cheers, I’ll take a look at those first then.

How on earth do you post photos? I’ve done it before… must be going senile.

No idea how much of a bargain it is but I noticed Rutland Cycling have the Trigger 2 at a decent saving
https://www.rutlandcycling.com/bikes/mountain-bikes/cannondale-trigger-2-2018-full-suspension-mountain-bike-grey_377153

I finally gave up on my Jekyll and sold it a few months ago, I never clicked with it despite constantly tinkering with it. Didn’t help that I cracked one quite quickly so always felt it was a little fragile.
It was a good trail bike but way out of its depth for enduro/DH

Crikey, that’s a huge bargain. £5.5k seemed a bit steep for the spec but it’s a steal at £2k. Even a decent colour scheme. Probably shouldn’t have looked, have some thinking to do now…

Still riding my 2015 Trigger, but I’d like to upgrade the rear rotor to 180mm. They have a slightly unusual rear adapter design, but is it as simple as adding a +20mm post mount? Anyone who had one tried this?

Uhoh looks like My rear triangle has developed a crack from the brake mount. Back to cannondale it goes 😢

Hope you get it sorted. Just sold my trigger a few weeks ago and a few frame spares.

Just got it back now sporting a mat black rear end instead of red. Looks pretty nice.

Zombie thread walks amongst us!!!
Glad to hear you got it sorted mate. Still miss mine.

Liked mine, never had much luck with cannondale support though…. bird and canyon for me now.

I have just had mine sent to Cannondale for inspection due to a crack in the rear swing arm. A vertical crack on the chain stay, looks to start behind the metal chain stay protection plate. Hopefully have an answer from Cannondale next week.

Will be interesting to see if they can dig another swing arm up they seemed to have trouble finding a compatible one in stock for mine.

I got a message today that Cannondale are putting a new swing arm on the frame, hopefully back to me by the end of the week. Not sure what colour the new swing arm will be.

So far impressed with the service from Paul’s Cycles and Cannondale. Ironically the reason I spotted the crack was that I was giving the bike a good clean and check before putting it up for sale.

Been a while since I updated the thread on my sons Trigger build, going back a year now he was racing at Steel City, he’d put in a conservative first run and going for his flying second.

He misjudged the dusty surface at the bomb hole and slid into a stump, right in front of a big audience. I didn’t see it but I heard the crowd give a big cheer when he got back up to complete his run. Talking to a marshal there was a moment they weren’t sure he was going to get up… I apologise to the photographer I bought a few pics from the event but couldn’t bring myself to buy this one…

The chainstay had hit the stump pretty hard, I have to say it looked pretty terminal, which was a shame as the build was only a few months old.

Rather than write off the frame I picked up a carbon repair kit for a fishing rod, as it included a fine weave carbon and heat activated compression tape. First step was to clean off the surface paint and get a better look at the damage. Now it’s not looking as bad with the surface layers sanded away. I filed out a rectangle where the new carbon fibre would sit.

Now I cut 3 pieces of carbon fibre with the layer pattern at 45 degrees, and put them in the space soaked in the epoxy. A bit of electrical tape keeps the epoxy off the good paintwork.

Now I cleared off the excess and wrapped in the shrink tape, keeping everything compressed while it cures.

Cured, cleaned and polished it looks pretty good. I did consider filling and painting but I decided it was neat enough as it was.

After a little bit of tentative riding, and checking the repair, normal honing resumed!

Nearly a year down the line, and one rear rim and headset later, the repair still looks good so I think you can say successful.

Good work! Just for the sake of it, here’s a considerably less rad picture of my alloy jobbie still going strong on a quick ten-mile jaunt the other day, foraging for pasties, when I heard rumours of an open branch of Greenhalgh’s bakery.

Just to get this old thread going again, I recently bought some replacement headset bearing races for my Trigger 2 27.5 with Supermaxx Lefty 2 fork. Only problem is I can’t figure out how to get the bloody fork off the frame! Any suggestions?

I’ve tried youtube and as someone kindly pointed out before, am a bit hamfisted at spannering!

Loosen lefty clamp bolts, remove stem and whack down on top of steerer with soft mallet. Steerer should fall out the bottom so you might want to hold onto the lefty. Then just slide lefty off frame.