retrodude

I’ve been really into bicycles since the early 80s, when mountain bikes came out I started with a basic BRC unit and quickly moved to a Ritchey Ascent. Fitted as many XT parts as I could afford. I always drooled over Brodies, Fat Chance, etc, etc. My Ritchey was fantastic as well but I’ve always wanted to go next level. My grail bike would be a Klein (before they sold to Trek), any number of Kleins would fit the bill. Back in the late 80s early 90s I had an admiration for Trek/Cannondale/Specialized, some of the bigger top quality brands. Anyway, Cannondale was never a brand I drooled over. I always had respect and thought their sanded wells, American/built in-house frames were very cool, was always jealous of the listed frame weights, didn’t like the cantilevered rear drop outs too much (at the time) …

Fast forward 25-30 years. Going through FB marketplace I noticed a pretty ugly Cannondale for $100. The Syncros seatpost and XT thumbies sold me right away, with the LX other parts it was a great parts bike at the very least. Talked him down to $90 and brought her home. Wouldn’t be a problem to build up a vintage Cannondale and sell it right?

After stripping down to the frame and weighing it I started doing some research. Never took notice of the Beast of the East build, remembered the odd early version with the 24” rear wheel. Wheels started turning and before you knew it told the wife “sorry” I’m keepin’ it…

I have a bare frame aluminum GT Zaskar that’s polished and really like the look. After removing the rattle can blue paint I found it was one of the dark-blue-purplish ones with pink/fuchsia quick release and rear canti’s only. I needed a fork. Its has 1-1/4” steering, what to do? Ended up sourcing reducers, the best deal on a Pepperoni fork was unthreaded 1-1/8” steel steerer. The fork that I bought the bike with was 1-1/8” Rock Shox low end, with and extra crown race thrown in for good measure, not sure how the previous owner didn’t die, plus 1-1/8” headsets and stems will be cheaper and easier to source.

Decided to go stripped of paint/polished and source decals. With black and silver only I wanted a bit of fun color. The decals I found had yellow in them so went with yellow grips instead of black (a first for me using non black) and a couple gold anodized (well more like orange) bits for chainring bolts and seat collar. Had to use the Dura-Ace RD I grabbed last year for $20 all scratched up which I then polished (yes, it needs a cable anchor trick to work with any other Shimano 7 speed shifter)

The flat carbon bar has been sitting, waiting for a couple years due to it’s larger clamp diameter which came off a bike that needed a riser. Figured with the threadless fork I could go a bit modern in the steering area, then threw on the more modern Ritchey carbon railed saddle (yellow accents too &#128522. The Innova tires are crasy light at 618g a pair, love the skin wall look, I’m confident the minimal knobbies will be fine for the smooth trails I take me old school fully rigid MTBs on.

I was worried about the high BB at 13”. Here I am putting all this work and close to $500 into this project, what if I don’t like the ride? Yikes!

Okay, so pretty long story, I know. What follows are pictures only. She weights 19.75lbs, I basically put almost every lightest version of a part on it as a light weight build. Drum roll ..… it rides amazingly well. If not my favorite vintage MTB it’s in my top three with my Kona and Rocky Mountain. And I can say I have a real and proper Cannondale, built in the USA

bikeaddiction1

I like the bare polished look, but do you have any surface protection other that polish? I am wondering how this would stand up to corrosion. Admittedly, most corrosion I have seen on aluminium bikes starts under the paint, likely where moisture and other crap gets trapped.

Germany_chris

Well that was a lot of work!

Narhay

That looks amazing. The 7400 rear derailleur is the cherry on the top.

retrodude

Really good point. One big factor for me is that with bikes like these and others, I store them indoors and they are wiped down after every ride, usually only ridden in dry weather. My unpainted GT Zaskar has held up nicely for over a year now. The first time I took the anodization off a part top to polish out scratches was my 1st gen C-Record cranks, many years ago, so no more protection anymore. I've done a repeat minimal effort polish from time time to time.

Wharf Rat

I’m a fan of older Cannondales. Awesome job on that one, it looks great. I live and ride on a barrier island and these frames hold up great. A good wipe down when they’re filthy and I haven’t seen any corrosion on my frames. Mine are painted, but there’s plenty of paint missing too.

bikeaddiction1

I fixed up an M800 for my sister in law. It was purple with matching anodizing on the brakes. I showed her your post and asked what she thought. She likes it but she does not want to polish. The paint on hers is in very good condition though.

retrodude

Have to say I agree with her, the stock paint is amazing if in good condition, here is a photo of one probably similar to your sister in law's

DMC707

I commented on this one briefly in the mtb section, but again —- lots of work but it resulted in a really nice MTB!

thanks for sharing

bikeaddiction1

That's it, except for frame colour, and I installed a women's saddle and shorter stem to fit her better. The welds are really nice on Cannondale Aluminum frames which are obviously machined smooth after welding It makes your polishing easier and looks better.

Wilbur76

Super nice finish! Did you use a mechanical process to get the high polish or done all by hand?
Btw I recently grabbed this garaged 97 SM800 with weird rollercam brakes. Pretty small frame with 24” wheels so thinking about converting to neo-bmx (bmx bars, delete front brake and fd). Cannondale welds are beautiful.

cannonride15

Gotta' love those roller cam brakes, if discs stop you faster I'd be surprised!

retrodude

I saw this posted a little while back, super nice color. Yes, a unique C-Dale, the roller cams are cool and work well, definitely loose the rear rack. I like your 24" BMX build idea, with 1" steering you have a few options on a stem change too if you felt the urge. Please share if you decide to do a conversion!

Wilbur76

Yes they’re really grabby and probably enough to confidently stop since I’m thinking of removing the front ones in my bmx conversion. Probably shed a pound or two.

cannonride15

Really can't recommend removing front brake which is responsible for about 80% of total braking power. Personally I would not remove either brake if you ride in automobile prevalent roadways, you need all the stopping you can get! Personally I do not share the obsession for lowering bike weight, but I ride on flat terrain where this makes little difference. Doubt you'll save as much as a pound if you remove cable, brake lever, and caliper; but your bike and your life.

H60crewie

Hello, just joined here, lots of cool bikes for sure!

So here’s my question for everyone who has restored/modified old Cannondales: what do you do about the large size of the brake cable/shifter cable housings on these vintage bikes?
All the bosses on the frame of my M800 and the hole in the cable hanger for the “Force 40” cantilever brakes are quite a bit larger than modern cable housings. Do you all make adaptors to take the “slop” out of these areas?

I was just going to make something up on my bike but was curious if someone had found an Easy and elegant solution for this.

I’m in the middle of a “restomod” gravel bike conversion on my 1993 BOTE, I’ll post some pictures soon!

thanks!
crewie

retrodude

I just finished restoring a very stock 93' for my nephew. The force 40 units are not necessary and very fiddly, take em' or leave em'. I kept them on this build and used modern housings, etc. I didn't find much slop, a little I guess. I don't think it's an issue, the stock purple dia-compes with Deore levers feel excellent with new cables, housing, ferrules. These are outstanding bikes BTW, I also have have my own M800 an 18" polished, see below:

H60crewie

apologies if this posts twice, seems like this got lost the first time.

Thanks for responding so quick retrodude. I think I will keep the Force 40 brakes for now, they look so cool, they cleaned up perfectly. My story is similar to yours (and I’m sure many others on this forum). I’ve been rebuilding bikes for a long time, The first one was a Trek 950 that was a contemporary to this current project that I rebuilt when I was 16. It wasn’t “vintage” when I got it, it was only 3-4 years old in 1996! 🤣

I would throw some pictures up of my Beast this time, but i guess I can’t yet, keep getting an error message about having to post 10 times before linking urls. So, I’ll describe as best I can the story so far on it first.

A friend at work gave me the bike, he is way too tall for this frame and he knew I liked bike projects so here I am. The paint was chipped and scratched pretty bad, looks like most of the damage was done in storage. It didn’t have the original bars, shifters, brake levers or rear wheel when I got it and the crank arm holes were stripped out.

Mechanically everything else was in pretty decent shape, I think the headset bearings and bottom bracket had never been apart. The forks are the Pepperoni with the steel steerer tube.

Another guy I worked with has a powder coating company so I gave it to him and he matched the original red color almost perfectly. The only thing I was sad about was the Beast of The East decal was lost in this process. I’m actually thinking of having someone airbrush that back on but we’ll see.

I made a 1 1/8” quill stem so I can use 1 1/8” bar stems and installed a Cannondale c3 stem and drop bar I got used off EBay. I have installed a SRAM dub bottom bracket and 1x crank. I’m about to start sorting out brakes and drivetrain.

That’s pretty much it for now. I have not and will not modify this frame or original parts in any way that is permanent. The drivetrain is probably going to be 1x with Microshift Advent 9 speed with a bar end shifter.

I have used the Microshift Advent X drivetrain on my other old bike (2004 Raleigh M50) and I’ve been very impressed with it.

I’ll post more pictures of this project later on, I figure I’m about halfway done.

Crewie

JLDickmon

I had Force 40's on my Super V 1000 until the rear boss worked loose from the carbon swingarm. I converted it to linear pulls and never looked back.

clubman 

It's a treat to see how well C-dales hold up. A company that had the right vision of their right product(s) in their time. Kudos.