Monkey Face

Hi folks. Not sure if I'm in the right section, but I've not been cycling for a while and have bought a mid 90s Cannondale 2.8 road bike.

The frame is probably an R600, made in 1993 and built in 1995, with Campagnolo Veloce 8 speed components (52/42), Cinelli 65 bars and a 1A stem. I've been stripping it down and servicing it, although the original owner, who I bought it from, had it built for his wife, who hardly used it. So it's in almost mint condition. The picture is from the previous owner's auction.

To me, the frame and build has all the feel of a classic bike, but how would you guys categorise it and does it give me entry to 'Classic & Vintage'?

shoota 

Quill stem = yes.

greg3rd48 

Classic? definitely. This was the before and after of a close cousin to yours, my '94 R600 which I built up for my wife.

Charles Wahl

Crazy rear dropouts -- what was the advantage of those? Looks like a steel fork on OP's version.

Monkey Face

Thanks for the endorsements guys. Dunno what the thinking was on the quirky seat-stays, Charles, but setting the cassette back sure makes cleaning them easier. Seems to make wheel removal / fitting easier, but then I might just be imagining that. Alloy forks on mine ;-)

P!N20

The Cannondale experts can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Klein had the patent on aluminium dropouts at the time, so to get around it, Cannondale employed the cantilevered dropouts which were prone to failures and probably helped to establish the 'crack n fail' moniker that persisted for some time.

RiddleOfSteel

The stays like that were for additional stiffness, I believe. One of the resident Cannondale fans here, plus it's 1993. C&V status earned by that bike. Enjoy!

Monkey Face

How very reassuring! One reason to lose a bit of weight I suppose.


PS.
I thought the wheels needed brightening up, so I just bought some para (gum) sidewall Vittoria Corsa's.

Also going to try some high polished Deda Speciale bars and a Nitto stem. The Cinelli stuff is nice, but I couldn't get the bar clamp as tight as I'd like it and have now sheared the bolt (it's probably tight enough, but I no longer trust it). In any case, the 65 Criterium bars are not really made for the less flexible gentleman who rarely gets into the drops.

Will post more pics - for the Cannondale connoisseurs and others of impeccable taste - when done.
.
.

Homebrew01

The wacko head of engineering only cared about stiffness.

iab

While Cannondale certainly publicly said it was for additional stiffness, privately it was to get around IP, if P!N20 is indeed correct. It no doubt adds cost and eats margin, so marketing needed a spin. If they didn't continue the "feature", especially after the patent expired, it is definitely marketing BS.

ANd definately C&V.

fleslider 

defintly C&V

welcome!

here is my 1990 C-dale

Miele Man

I had a Cannondale MTB with the same type of rear dropout. I converted it to a dropbar bike, removed the so called safety brake levers and used the studs (after modifying them by filing flats on them) to mount shifters on them. The bike now belongs to a neighbour and he loves the ride. I did too when I had it but had far too many bikes.




Cheers

Monkey Face

Just completed a mini-refit. New Vittoria Corsa tyres, new chain and cabling, Deda Speciale bars and Nitto stem, Selle Italia Flite saddle... and a Crane brass bell (appreciated by horse riders and more polite than shouting 'BIKE!!!!').

This is the nicest bike I've ridden - including a Colnago Nuovo Mexico (which actually rode horribly), a 90s Bottechia and my previous all-time favourite Tommasini Tecno.

kermie

That bike looks great!! Nice job I had a riding buddy back in the early 90's that had one. I had a Trek 1400 which was also aluminum framed, but man I always loved his R600.

70sSanO

My recollection was the oversized tubing was not Klein proprietary as the concept had been previously demonstrated. However the oval seat stays were Klein proprietary and that forced the change.

Because of the lawsuit I was able to buy a new frame and steel fork for $100 because the shop was dumping all of their inventory of the old design frames. I vaguely recall there was a royalty that Klein was paid for every frame/bike Cannondale had sold.

There is info online on the lawsuit.

John

ryansu

Nice job OP my reintroduction to riding as an adult was a late 90s Cannodale R800 which I rode for about a decade. It only took me that long to figure out it was a) to small and b) Steel was a smoother ride on the crumbling streets in my neighborhood but I had a lot of good times on that old C-dale. Enjoy.


Note by 98 they had dumped the cantilevered drop outs

branko_76 

A "classic" bike would be a type that has a proven design and is often copied. A "vintage" bike would be from a particular era.

The Golden Boy 

Don't take this the wrong way-

I swear I have never knowingly seen a thread or post of yours, I don't recall your username, don't recall your avatar...

But yesterday afternoon, in the course of looking up the reliability of some UK based bike shops, I ran across a post of yours from 2015... then when I saw this post pop up today... it was really crazy...

Thank you for that post, by the way- it's always good to hear when someone is good to deal with.

mechanicmatt

I believe you're right on why the chain stay is that way, but the crack and fail moniker I thought came from head tube cracks usually in the mountain bikes. I believe the thought back in the day was because they smoothed their welds in that area creating brittle yet weakened welds. I don't have anything to back that up though, just what I remember from my 90's bike mechanic days.

Trakhak

I worked in a couple of different Cannondale dealerships starting before they branched out into manufacturing bikes. Never saw a Cannondale head tube failure, although I saw a number of failures of steel frames built by U.S., European, and Japanese companies. The "crack-and-fail" name was meaningless bike mechanic pseudo-cleverness, just like the "cramp-and-go-slow"/Campagnolo attempt at humor that circulated in the same era.

By the way, the whole Klein/Cannondale lawsuit debacle originated with Klein's lawyer having succeeded in obtaining an absurdly broadly defined patent that said, in essence, that the marketing of a frame whose measured stiffness was more than 25% above that of a Columbus SL frame of similar dimensions constituted infringement. As JohnDThompson undoubtedly remembers, to get around the patent, Trek's design for their new aluminum frames specified tubing that was smaller in diameter than Klein's. At that, according to the Trek mid-Atlantic sales rep who told me all this back then, the stiffness of their aluminum frame ended up very close to that 25% benchmark.

speedevil 

My understanding (subject to correction, certainly) was that the cantilever dropouts made rear wheel changes faster because there is more room around the axle slots to position the wheel - since the seatstays aren't in the way.

Doesn't matter much to the "usual" rider but may have been useful in a racing environment.