After years of focus on the high end bikes like Scalpel and Trigger, Cannondale’s mountain bike lineup get a bit more attention paid to the mid-level segment.
For 2014, the big news is a complete revamp of the Rush. The original Rush had a solid run from 2007 to 2010, then it was replaced by the Rize. That became the RZ, which is going away for 2014. In its place is the new Rush. It’s a 29er-only, linkage-driven single pivot 100mm travel suspension bike. It’s a heavily butted frame with double-pass smooth welds and cartridge bearings throughout.
It’s meant to be a super simple bike to set up and ride and offer race-able performance. They started with the Scalpel’s XC weapon geometry and slackened it enough to make it a bit more playful without giving up the speed. In the words of Cannondale’s global product marketing director Murray Washburn, they designed it to be a bike you’d hop onto and say “F&#k yeah, this is great. Mountain biking is awesome!”
The base model gets a Deore/Alivio blend with Rockshox Recon Gold TK fork for $1,850. Above that is the Rush 1 for $2,180 with an XT/Deore mix. Both get house brand cockpits, Shimano M446 hydraulic brakes and WTB Nine Line tires, a tread they co-developed.
The suspension is pretty basic, but effective. Particularly for the price.
Complete bike weight is 30.56lbs (13.86kg).
The Trail 29er hardtail gets an option all the way down to $599 without giving up all the good stuff. You’ll find internal and external tubing manipulation and SAVE seatstays to smooth the ride.
The head tube is oversized, which gave them a bigger weld surface for wider top and down tubes, but is still built around 1-1/8″ steerer. Also available as a 26″ bike, with prices topping out around $959. Above that is the Trail SL, which includes a rigid singlespeed model that go $1,080 to $1,620.
Last year’s new Tango SL women’s 29er gets morphed into a 2nd iteration without the “SL” suffix.
It has a more traditional bent, sloping top tube, keeps the SAVE stays, but drops prices down to mirror the Trail.
The top end of the spectrum wasn’t totally forgotten. The carbon fiber Scalpels drop 100g off the already insanely light bike by replacing the alloy linkage for carbon fiber. The frames also get stealth dropper post routing.
The linkage connecting the seatstays to the frame goes from alloy to carbon.
This one’s a pre-production model, but the routing will enter the seat tube just above the lower pivot.
The Black Inc version gets the Reverb Stealth, ENVE/Chris King wheels, ENVE handlebar and their Hollowgram SiSL2 crankset comes in at just 23.13lbs (10.49kg). It’s yours for just $10,800, if you can get one. Stock will be limited.
Not shown, the Trigger 29ers get revised spec for the current alloy models, and there’s a carbon version coming. Washburn says it’s a ways off. For 2014, there will be two models each for alloy and carbon. The alloy frame and shock are the same, with all models running the DYAD dual travel shock, but the alloy models will switch to a 130mm Rockshox Revelation with 50mm offsets. Only the carbon ones get to keep the Lefty SuperMax.
