gingi310

I have been monitoring Craigslist looking for a tandem to ride with my wife and son for awhile; something high-quality, used and well-priced. We test-rode rode an older steel Santana, the owner of which also had a Cannondale MT-800 that he let us ride. My wife greatly preferred the ride and handling of the Cannondale, so that has been the focus of my search for the last couple of months.

I happened across a newer Cannondale with disc brakes in unridden condition for a very reasonable price, so I immediately snatched it up without any research. It is basically brand new with a wild two-tone paintjob but doesn't match up with the current models. Now I am wondering what I have bought. I have spent some time since searching the forums, bikepedia, etc., but have not been able to determine the year and model of the bike. Can anyone help? Full set of pics here: https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/29239836_HZFT3R

Also, I would like to outfit the bike with a rear (steel) rack. With the crowded dropouts, lack of any braze-ons back there and the position of the disc brakes, I am having a tough time determining which rack will fit. I have looked at disc brake-compatible racks from Old Man Mountain and Tubus online but haven't been able to determine from the photos that any of them would work.

Cheers!

Jon

waynesulak

Old man mountain seems to think they can put a rack on anything. I suggest calling them.

ahultin

rear triangle looks similar to the touring package road tandem on ebay which says it has a Topeak Explorer Bike Rack

JanMM

Several C-Dale tandem years around 2005 had the Truvativ cranksets/ISIS bottom brackets but the frame looks different, at least in the Bikepedia pics. I would guess any ISIS-equipped bike to be in the decade-old ballpark.
Interesting paint!

Dean20

Have you checked at vintagecannondale.com yet? The old catalogs typically had just one color shown for the model but the color names are usually pretty self-explanatory. Just start back with 2002 or so and start flipping through through them, you'll find it in there.

aramis

I had an 2006 fuji team RC that came factory with an ISIS crank, and with discs like that I bet it isn't that old.

Hey I googled cannondale mountain tandem and a bike exactly like that came up in the "pictures" search and said it's an 06.

The frame does look a little different though where the headtube and all the other tubes meet though but maybe it's a sizing thing since the decals look the same.


https://www.comparestoreprices.co.uk/cycling/cannondale-mountain-tandem-2006-bike.asp

djedgar

Hi Jon,

What size is your bike? We have the L/M which matches the tube configuration in bikepedia.

https://www.bikepedia.com/quickbike/B...e#.UYZ2zoUQyBQ

We just put a rack on it for our vacation, a Topeak Explorer with disc brake mounts (from Amazon). It did take some modification. He had to grind away some of the rack mount to clear access to all the bike parts at the rear axle. There was a lot of material there and the rack has been solid.

I just cropped a couple pictures I took yesterday that show the rack. The bike is stowed for travel today, but I can take photos of how it is mounted later if you'd like.

dailyrandonneur

Jon,

we have the same tandem in dark gray. It was produced in the mid-2000s and was alternately known as the MTB and later the Street Tandem. The smaller sizes had different top tube arrangement in the front.

We use Old Man Mountain racks front and rear. That's really the only option other than the Topeak Explorer for the rear, because of the seatstay rear brake mounting. I found the OMM to be more tolerant of loading than the Topeak. If you're just carrying a trunk or occasional pannier the Topeak is fine.

One tip is to bolt the OMM stays directly to the cantilver brake boss mounts with appropriate bolts rather than try to track down the hard-to-find Cannondale cantiliever posts. We had no luck trying generic equivalents.

Ed Felker
Washington, DC

dailyrandonneur

Forgot to mention, there is the Tubus Disco rear rack. The issue with that model is getting the stays long enough to reach the frame as it sits pretty far back.

ksisler

One can pretty much put a rack on anything, subject to one's ability and budget. Closer up pix could help...

Phantoj

There's that little hole on the dropout next to the derailleur hanger screws. Should be a matching hole on the other side. You can thread that hole and mount the lower part of the rack to it. You may need a small spacer or some grinding. I'm about to do this on a CAAD4 road frame.

You've got eyelets for the top of the rack, so that's nice.