schwinnbikebob

A few months back I found this 86 Peloton locally. I had never seen one in person. Other than the Paramount it was top of the line in 86. It was covered in nicotine staining. Quite the job to clean it up. In talking with a buddy who worked at a Schwinn store during this time he said they only got a couple because they were so expensive for one and two the big tube Cannondales were trouncing all the competition.

So got me thinking "Even now I want a big tube Cannondale too" Knowing nothing about them, are they hard/easy to find, how much are they etc. All I knew was it had to be white. Well this one popped up in driving distance and I might have paid to much but it was the right size and color so I did it. Pretty cool bike!

sdn40

What was your white paint deep cleaning process ?

cb400bill

They look brand new. Great job!

Bianchigirll 

What is the read derailleur on the Peleton?

I’d take the Peleton any day if the week, I never liked the ride of the Cannondale.

jamesdak 

Wow, both look really, really sweet for white bikes!

schwinnbikebob

My cleaning was with Meguiars Heavy Cut cleaner #4 followed by Meguiars Cleaner wax #6. Kept repeating. Everytime I thought I was done I'd find places I did not see.

Rear derailleur would have originally matched the front so a New Superbe Pro but I bought this from the original owner and he said a few years ago it would not get the low gears so he had it replaced with a Light Action. I asked him if he kept the original and even though he didn't say it I got the it didn't work why would I keep it look.

delbiker1 

Yeah, I am not a huge fan of white bikes, but really great job in cleaning them up. They look very good.

TugaDude

Same here. Although they can be speedy, the ride is harsher than I care for. The Peleton is a very nice, lightweight steel bike.

Trakhak

If I had to choose between those two, I'd take the Cannondale every time. I have one of the later, mid-90s Reynolds 853 Pelotons. Great bike; I rode it almost exclusively for 10 years, until I got my first aluminum road bike. It was love at first ride with the aluminum bike. I've had the Peloton out maybe once or twice in the last 16 years.

Classtime 

I missed out on a Basket Case White Peloton a while back and still kick myself. I tried to convince myself that the Centurion Turbo that I had at the time was just as nice.

Too cool bikes. Hard to believe the bar tape on the Schwinn. Is it new? And the wheels?

RiddleOfSteel

Both those bikes are drop dead gorgeous! The white wall tires really seal the deal.

schwinnbikebob

Does anybody have any info on the Cannondale custom airbrush graphics? Surprised they could have done that with how many they were selling. Maybe they had a lot of guys doing it. Wonder how much extra it cost?

Classtime: Both of them have NOS vintage Benotto smooth white pearl tape. My last package went on the Cannondale. Kind of hate that but maybe can find some more at a bike show.

Ragel

Nice! I have a 1986 Schwinn Peloton as well. It is Resto-Modded with Campy 10 speed mix. It is the bike I will never sell, it rides that nice!

mstateglfr 

No idea about cost difference, but all that I've seen are usually a few squiggly lines and some dots andtor arrows. Pretty simple shapes, basically. Not sure how much extra time it would take, but I would figure not too mFYI.
I dobt think it was a high volume of airbrushed frames, relative to how many were produced in that '87 timeframe.

The letters on the driveline dropout are the painter's initials, fyi.

Trakhak

That's an interesting story. Cannondale had switched to a new system for heat-treating their frames; an unexpected result was that a sizeable proportion of the frames ended up with, e.g., down tubes that were slightly warped, i.e., less than perfectly straight.

The number of frames with warped tubes was large enough that Cannondale was unwilling to junk them (especially since the frames with warped tubes were perfectly aligned and the warping was only a cosmetic problem). So someone at the company came up with the idea of airbrushing intricate patterns on the frame tubes to make the warping harder to see.

I think that they might have offered us dealers a slight discount of the warped/airbrushed frames, but I don't remember for sure. In any event, the airbrushing appealed to enough customers that Cannondale continued offering it as a feature for a while, even after they'd fixed the heat-treating problem.

shoota 

Dang those are slick! I don't think I've seen a cleaner example of either. Cannondale's paint was less than durable back then.

DMC707

Kind of my experience too. The dealership that sponsored the team i rode for sold Cannondales, so most of the guys' had a "Dale. I wanted one too, but even at a steep discount, couldnt make the numbers work (young, married and in college )

Those days, if you lined up at a crit, 3/4's of the bikes would either be a Cannondale or onbe of the carbon lugged Specialized Epic's . Shimano tri color was considered "pretty uptown"

schwinnbikebob

Love the graphics story!!! I bet someone at Cannondale got a real nice bonus for coming up with that idea and charging extra for it!! Beautiful! It's not overly complicated but in my opinion really add's to the bikes looks.

Trakhak

If there was ever a time when Cannondale's paint jobs were not at least as durable as anything else on the market, I'm unaware of it. Their paint was certainly far more durable than that used on the majority of Italian bikes of the '80s, although, to be fair, the Italians were building their frames for semi-pro or pro bike racers, who wouldn't expect a steel racing frame to last more than a couple of seasons of hard riding.

For more evidence of the durability of Cannondale paint, take a look at the long-running "Show us your vintage Cannondale!" thread in the C&V forum. The proportion of frames with like-new original paint jobs is remarkable.

Dylansbob 

I thought that design around the headtube of the Cannondale looks a lot like one of the Crest bikes.

himespau 

Nice bikes.

shoota 

Wow, that completely flies in the face of my experience, and others, on this forum. I've never seen a vintage Cannondale without chipped paint.

Trakhak

As I said, take a look at the "Vintage Cannondales" C&V thread. Several of the bike owners have remarked on the durability of the paint.