Urban renewal: Cannondale’s city bikes
- By Zack Vestal
- Published Sep. 21, 2009
- Updated Sep. 22, 2009 at 8:35 AM UTC
After a few years of erecting one of the larger tents at Interbike’s Outdoor Dirt Demo but largely forgoing a presence at the Sands Expo and Convention Center, Cannondale and the rest of the Dorel Industries Cycling Sports Group (which includes Schwinn, GT and Mongoose) will have a 30-by-30-foot display this year.
“For the past three years we’ve not been in the halls of the show, so we’re excited to be back on the floor,” said marketing manager Bill Rudell.
The display will be designed to reflect a bike-shop experience that includes all the CSG brands, and it will demonstrate how the different bikes can fill different niches within one shop. But in just 900 square feet, it won’t be possible to show every highlight of every bike family in the Cannondale range.
“We’ll use it to highlight some of the finer points of our line,” said Rudell.
Fortunately, Cannondale was on full display at Eurobike, and we got to see what’s in the pipeline for 2010. A couple of exciting urban concept bikes from several years back are slated for production, and of course the mainstay road and mountain bikes never fail to look sharp.
Here’s a look at some of the more fun bikes we saw in Germany. And stay tuned — we’ve heard there’s a chance we’ll see new technology from Cannondale debuting this week at Interbike.
Quick CX Ultimate
The Quick CX Ultimate is part of the Quick urban bike series, showed last year as a concept. It’s part of what Cannondale calls its “Urban Mobility Project,” and illustrates how exciting a high-tech commuter bike can be.
The Quick Carbon urban bikes bring a number of top-end technologies like BB30 and integrated headsets to a sleek carbon frame that retains practical features like rack and fender eyelets. Of course 700C wheels and clearance for cyclocross tires don’t hurt, and the flat bar is more suited to heads-up urban riding than a drop bar might be.
The Quick line also includes a series of aluminum bikes at lower prices. Quick Carbon bikes are slated for October availability.
On
A 2008 concept making it into production, albeit in limited numbers, is the On urban mobility bike. Two hundred will be made for 2010 — half for sale in Europe, and half for the United States.
The On requires a double take followed by a good five minutes of inspection to fully appreciate not only its physical form, but the engineering required to pull it off. There are no chain stays, no seat stays — in fact, it looks like the entire rear triangle is gone, and only a beam on the drive side holds it together.
In fact, it’s a structural chain case that fully encloses the drivetrain and serves as both the attachment point and weight-bearing member for the back wheel. The chain case is machined from a 25kg block of billet aluminum, which then bolts to the front triangle.
The chain case is asymmetrical — there is no attachment point on the left side of the bike — and thus the disc brake rotor is fixed on the drive side of a special SRAM I-Motion internally geared nine-speed hub. Inside the chain case, a normal roller chain drives the hub.
The bike is polished off with another bit of asymmetry, a Lefty Headshok-style fork.
Projected price for the On will be $3900, if you can find one.
Urban Super Light
From the popular Bad Boy family of sleek, blacked-out, rat-rod-styled urban mountain bikes comes a concept bike called the Urban Super Light.
The Urban Super Light, which is not scheduled for production, is a 15-pound example of how — with enough effort and cash — a street-style urban mountain bike can be lighter than most road racing bikes. It’s based on the 950-gram Flash carbon hardtail frame, then starts shedding weight with a rigid unidirectional carbon fiber Lefty fork, Hollowgram SL crankset, deep section carbon rims built on Tune hubs, Formula R1 disc brakes with carbon lever blades, aluminum brake rotors, and an AX Lightness carbon saddle. Cannondale displayed it on a scale that read 6.795kg.
But the coup de grace on this Bad Boy is Shimano Di2 shifting, no small feat considering it’s a disc-braked mountain bike. A completely one-off integration of Di2 shift buttons into the handlebar grips makes it happen.
Best of the rest
In addition to these hot urban-themed bikes, Cannondale showed a wide range of their best road and mountain bikes, too many to list by name. Here are some of the highlights:
• Franco Pellizotti’s polka-dot climber’s bike.
• The bike Roel Paulissen used to win the marathon world championships, replete with weight-saving modifications like a custom Lefty suspension fork boot.
• A Super Six Hi-Mod Ultimate that weighs 12 pounds as spec’ed with a Hollowgram SL crankset.
• And finally, clever hanging balance displays to demonstrate how light some of these Cannondale frames actually are. Some frames weigh the same as a full water bottle and small multi-tool.
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FILED UNDER: Bikes and Tech / Interbike TAGS: Interbike
Zack Vestal
Zack joined VeloNews in 2009, bringing 15 years of industry experience to the Tech Editor position. Most recently manager and mechanic for the Trek-VW mountain bike team (2004-08), he has an unused geology degree from Whitman College (and a well-worn Ph.D. from the school of hard knocks). Vestal covers the latest in cycling gear online, and brings in-depth perspective to the magazine.