Irishred

I'm looking at a 2002 Cannondale R1000 CADD7. The bike was ridden very little with maybe 1,000 miles on it. Is it age/time that affect the frame, or would it depend on millage and stress? I can see no signs of stress or cracks in the frame.
Thanks

base2 

In the absence of xray or ultrasonic inspection, you'll never know about any cracks not visible to the naked eye. A magnifying glass and a bright light can be helpful.

You need not concern yourself with the unvisible. Ride it.

Rick_D

Frame is fine, absent any obvious signs of a crash or other mistreatment. Even stored outdoors, an Al frame isn't particularly vulnerable to corrosive decay (other than near the ocean, then all bets are off). If this bike looks good throughout then it has been stored properly.

Have a '90s Al mtn bike that has been ridden a lot and is in great shape.

Good luck!

Ubie

I ride a similar vintage Trek 2200 with an aluminum frame that was ridden quite a bit more than that C'dale. I'm also a borderline Clydesdale and have had no issues with my bike.
It really comes down to if there was something particularly jarring or stressing that happened to the frame. With that few miles on it, assuming nothing untoward happened in the past, it should last you many years to come.

TacosDePescado

I'm sure it's fine. Age of the bike doesn't really hurt the integrity very much unless it was not stored well. The more annoying thing is the outdated specs of the bike. A lot of times older bikes won't be able to fit the more modern componentry. You might find limitations on drive train upgrades, tire clearance if you wanted to go a little bigger on tires, and that kind of thing.

Iride01 

If it looks good, then assume it is good. Even a new bike could be bad right out of the factory. Of course you get a warranty with the new bike. You should probably consider whether you would be broke and destitute if this old bike should break on your first ride. So make your offer accordingly.

Unless it's been upgraded, it's going to have very old components on it. And it might not hold the wider tires people like to ride today.

staehpj1

If you don't see signs of crash damage I wouldn't sweat it. My 1990 Cannondales one a crit bike and the other a rigid MTB both have a huge amounts of mileage and are still going strong.

Pantah

I'm a bit of an aluminum frame fan, especially Cannondales, so my opinion may be a bit biased but I say you'll be fine. I've had a couple of road frames of theirs from the same era but from opposite ends of the catalog: a 1999 R4000 (top of the line) and a 2000 R300 (bottom of the line) and both were great bikes the whole time. From what I understand, that was before the time Cannondale really started messing around with thin walled tubes for a while that gave them a bad rap for cracking.
1,000 miles is not much in the grand scheme of things. Everything should work fine, even if wasn't maintained as well as it should have been. That bike should be 9 speed, probably Ultegra. If working well, which it should, it'll provide nice crisp shifting.
Folks have mentioned tire sizing. 700x25 is an easy fit, and what I personally run on my Cannondales of that era, 700x26 will fit, 700x27 probably? 700x28 would be a gamble. Even if it does fit, you'd have no room for the rim to get even slightly out of true.

Anyways, hope it works out and if you get it, send us a photo!

ShannonM

A CAAD7 frame would be well into the super-thin-wall, 2-pound-range era of Cannondale frames. Inspect the frame very carefully, especially around the bottom bracket and seat cluster joints. Any dents in the tubing, or cracks in the paint, find a different bike.

The ultra-light Cannondale frames were the ones that gave the brand the "crack-n-fail" reputation. They were just too light, and thus didn't deal with damage well at all. The Cannondale shop I worked at back then had a cutaway model of the CAAD7 frame. I could have crushed the unbutted belly section of the downtube in one hand. Those tubes were thin.

--Shannon

Trakhak

I worked at a Cannondale dealership starting before they began building bikes and into the late '90s. This myth about "Crack'n'Fail" drives me crazy. There was never a period when their frames were failing at anything above the rate of failure of comparable steel frames.

Crack-'n'-Fail, like Cramp-'n'-Go-Slow, Shi*mano, and (earlier) Flexxon Lafftech, was nothing more than meaningless bike store humor, possibly helped along by people working in dealerships whose business was being affected by Cannondale's success.

It wasn't a coincidence that, a couple of years after Cannondale's bikes showed up in bike stores, all their major rivals in the U.S. market were selling their own aluminum bike models (reluctantly, since it was costly to revamp their lines to compete). Meanwhile, several other bike brands faded away.

By the way---of course the cutaway Cannondale tube was easy to flex. The point of the cutaway was to emphasize that, thanks to the expertise of their engineers, they could build frames from aluminum tubing that was incredibly thin and light and yet strong enough for the frames to be covered under their lifetime warranty.

Don't take my word for it. Read this translation of the German Tour magazine's report of fatigue tests of 12 high-end racing frames, from 1997.

It's a terrific article, and a must-read, but here's the Reader's Digest version:

Various steel, titanium, aluminum, and carbon frames were subjected to extensive fatigue testing.

Spoiler: a Trek OCLV carbon frame, a European Principia aluminum frame, and a Cannondale aluminum frame passed the tests.

All of the steel and titanium frames failed. All of them.

The testers themselves said that they were surprised by the results. They also said that the frames that failed, had they been built under more-stringent quality control conditions, might well have passed the tests, too.

Still---the results were unequivocal. And Cannondale's aluminum frames are trustworthy.

big john

I don't think there was ever a 2 pound CAAD frame.

Leinster

CAAD12 is the lightest so far at 1098 grams, or 2.4lbs.

my Cannondale Criterium from the 80s rides just fine, except for the broken derailleur hanger. The hanger is replaceable on the CAAD7, so that won’t be an issue.

Jughed

Back in the day, 25-30k miles on my CAAD3 as a 220# power-lifer. Bike was a beast, fast and stiff.

And they were called crackendales back then too…

My current Emonda ALR is awesome….


I love aluminum frames and wouldn’t hesitate to buy one used.

Ironfish653

The CAAD-10 got down to a claimed 1150g. The "2.8" frames from 1993 were in the low 1300's, almost half a kilo lighter than even premium steel of the day. (Cinelli Supercorsa is ~1800g)

Remember, too, that by the time Cannondale built the OP's CAAD-7, they'd been making aluminum bikes, and only aluminum bikes, for almost two decades; longer than anyone except KLEIN; they're pretty much the benchmark.

Line up an early CAAD with a bunch of modern AL bikes, and the only thing that would give it away would be the shifter bosses and 1" headset; they were really ahead of the curve

big john

I had a CAAD 5. Weight Weenies says it was close to 1500g in my size 63. Also had a touring frame from 1988 with a steel fork. Not light but great for touring.

Jeff Neese

It must not have been too hard to compete. That was also around the time that all those bikes at Walmart were starting to be made out of aluminum, something that persists to this day.

The shift came because hydroforming technology, already in use in many places, became more affordable. As soon as bicycle manufacturers figured out how much money they could save making bike frames this way, all of a sudden it was marketed as "innovation" and "advanced engineering".

Ironfish653

I think that CNC controlled, wire-feed pulsed TIG welding setups, along with the increases in power and accessibility of computer systems in the late 80s-early 90s to run said automated welding setups, made it more practical to mass produce aluminum bikes , then being able to bend tubes into funny shapes

You also presume that they're using the same material and construction techniques; Im pretty sure Merida and Pacific aren't making sub-1400g frames with smooth fillet, double -pass puddle welds like they did in Bedford and Chehalis

Going to Al does save you about 30% of the weight of an equivalent steel part. Some would call that an advancement; but then, heavier bikes give you a better workout

georges1

Older made in USA Cannondales from CAAD2 to CAAD8 were of brilliant craftsmanship and well finished. I have a 2001 red trek 2300 in alpha aluminium SL in red color as project but if I had more space in my garage, I would have without a doubt added a Cannondale .I have on the other hand two other nice Aluminium frames a Veneto Art Decor in Columbus Altec 2 and a Daccordi Fly. Older Trek 2200-2300 Alpha SL Aluminium frames were of very good quality. Most of the people I raced with back in the days still have their US made CAAD frames, many upgraded the componentry on their bikes. A well made frame will last you a lifetime.

Trakhak

That's two different topics. First: the bike brands competing with Cannondale were set up to build steel bikes and would have preferred to continue doing so indefinitely, since revamping their factories to accommodate aluminum frame manufacture, to say nothing of doing the R&D needed to catch up with Cannondale's head start and retraining their work force, would have required a sizable investment. But, seeing their market being eaten into by Cannondale, they did what they had to do.

Second, it was at least 10 years after Cannondale's bikes hit the market that the first aluminum bikes showed up in big box stores. And those bikes are comparable to Cannondale's bikes only if you believe that steel Huffys and Murrays are comparable to steel De Rosas and Pinarellos.

Yes, they're steel. But that's where the resemblance ends. Heft a cheap aluminum bike sometime. They weigh so much more than bike store aluminum bikes because the tubing is thick enough that the builders don't have to bother heat treating them. Very cheap to build that way.

So what's your point? Regardless of whether the engineering was innovative (and the engineering to optimize hydroforming for the complex stress patterns of a high-performance bicycle frame would indeed be advanced), the result was that aluminum frames became even lighter than before without sacrificing performance.

terrymorse 

When discussing high-end aluminum frames, Klein Bikes deserve a mention. They were never huge in the marketplace, but their frames were pretty great. I had a pre-Trek Klein Navigator that got me to the finish of the Everest Challenge (and the top step of the podium, ahem). Trek probably acquired Klein to compete with Cannondale's offerings, but when carbon frames soared in popularity, there was no need to have a competitive aluminum offering, and soon Klein was no more.

Trakhak

The shop I worked in was a Klein dealership before Cannondale started producing bikes. We sold maybe two Kleins per year, if that. Great bikes, of course, but the pressed-in bottom bracket was an unfortunate choice from a servicing standpoint.

The Cannondales had their downsides from the point of view of the bike store, too. Five years earlier, the shop had signed on to be the first Trek dealership in Maryland, so we spent a few years assembling the bikes from the bare frame up, with the frame and fork arriving in one box and the components in another.

Eventually they joined the rest of the industry in shipping their bikes partly assembled, to the relief of their dealers throughout the country. Then we picked up Cannondales, and we were back to assembling two boxes worth of frame and components from scratch. Amusing in retrospect. Not at the time.

Jughed

Have you ridden one?

My ALR 5 is light years ahead of my old CAD 3 in terms of ride quality/feel.

And no, not because of geometry or tires. Geometry is very close between the bikes and the ALR comes with 25mm.

Its just an overall better frame. My CAD3 was a bone rattling ride. Road buzz, vibrations, jarring… The ALR dampens all of that out.

And just to compare to a real road bike rather than a Wallyworld unit - the equally equipped ALR 5 is only 0.2kg heavier than the carbon SL5 - and it’s $1100 cheaper.

Weight, performance, visually nearly identical to each other - but much cheaper.

Maelochs

Ummm .... yeah, exactly. That's his point.

Jeff Neese

You say you worked for a Cannondale dealer - it sounds like you drank a lot of that Kool-Aid.

Bicycle manufacturers certainly would not have preferred to keep building bikes out of steel, once the manufacturing technology became mature enough to make them so much cheaper out of aluminum. That switch would have happened with or without Cannondale. Are you under the impression that Cannondale invented hydroforming, or TIG welding, or anything else involved in aluminum frame production? Also, the "complex stress patterns" of a bicycle frame have been well-known to frame builders for ages.

What Cannondale did was take already-developed technology (hydroforming) that had become more affordable, in the same way that 3D printing went from being high-end specialty production to now cheap desktop devices, and and apply it to bicycle frames. Computer-aided design has also been around for a long time, and from the field of materials science we already knew the properties of aluminum.

So what did Cannondale really develop? Answer: they developed the way to MARKET aluminum bicycles. They actually did the other manufacturers a service by convincing average consumers and newbies that aluminum frames were somehow "advanced" and "high tech". Cannondale paved the way to selling mass-market aluminum bikes, not making them. They didn't invent a single thing.

I've got to hand it to their marketing team - that's where the genius lies at Cannondale. If you can convince people to buy those ridiculous single-sided forks, you can sell anything.

rekmeyata

With only 1,000 miles or so on the bike, its virtually new, age doesn't deteriorate aluminum or any other metal.

I doubt they stored the bike outside, so corrosion is probably not a factor, but even if there is some it can be cleaned up rather easily. The least aggressive way is to ball up a piece of aluminum foil and then dip it in white vinegar then rub it on the corroded areas. If that doesn't work then buy some aluminum polish pre-cleaner, spray on the cleaner and allow it to sit for about 10 minutes, then brush oxidized areas, rinse and dry the area.

Once you have cleaned the corrosion off then get some clear spray-on lacquer and spray the frame, but practice spraying first on a piece of PVC pipe to help you figure out how to spray a rounded object without getting runs.

But I doubt there is any corrosion on the frame, because Cannondale clear coated their frames, however after Cannondale sold out the Chinese are not using a high-quality clear coat and people are complaining that it's flaking off, however yours is a 2002 which was made 6 years before they sold out, so all the more reason why that frame is in great shape.