With the start of World Cup Downhill season just around the corner, are we set to see a new DH bike from Cannondale soon? Based on their latest video, ‘This is a Test: CFR Downhill’, it would appear a genuine possibility.
Most notably, the bike has the ability to run two different shocks – or perhaps more appropriately, a separate spring and damper. It’s not really clear what the exact set up is, but Cannondale’s Frame Design Engineer Josh Hursh says during the video that with a separated damper/spring combo “We don’t have to tune the damper to handle crazy leverage curves, and really aggressive leverage progression. We can tune the damper to be linear, and we can toy with the spring independently without having to mess with your damper.”
There’s apparently one shock position below and an adjustable position above which seems to open up loads of options in terms of tuning the ride characteristics. There’s no telling if any of this will actually make it to production, and if it does, what the final set up will be, but it’s a pretty interesting development out of Cannondale to say the least. Maybe Bender and Karpiel were on to something? Watch the clip above to decide for yourself.