Cannondale is introducing a brand-new model in its mountain bike lineup, and they’re calling it the Bad Habit. It joins the Habit (130mm) and Habit LT (140mm) as the longer-travel sibling made for getting a little rowdier, feeding your bad habits, and getting you into “good trouble“. With 155mm of rear travel, a 160mm fork, mixed wheels, and up-to-date geometry, it could be categorized as a long-travel trail bike, an all-mountain bike, or an enduro bike. It makes a strong case for the latter, as it’s already proven itself on the course under Cannondale rider Ella Conolly, who raced it to the 2025 Enduro World Cup title.
Cannondale says it’s “a full throttle, full-fun tribute to the enduro heads, the big-mountain chargers, and the earn your turns giv’ers who ascend to descend. Born from the input of our pro racers, skilled ambassadors, and in-house flight crew, this rig takes the trail-proven DNA of our Habit and Habit LT and mutates it into a hard-charging modern enduro ripper that balances smash factor with finesse, agility, and playful pedalibiity from top to bottom.” It may be a Bad Habit, but we think it looks pretty darn good and like its heaps of fun to ride. Let’s check it out.
Cannondale Bad Habit Details
Cannondale tells us the Bad Habit has an all-new frame with both the front and rear triangles made of carbon fiber. It has 155mm of rear wheel travel, designed to pair with a 160mm fork (compatible with forks up to 180mm) and a mullet, or mixed-wheel, setup. There is no wheel size flip-chip or 29” compatibility, because, as Cannondale says, “we didn’t design it that way. This thing is born to be a super-fun, slap-happy pappy to an enduro race rig.”
Cannondale uses a suspension platform/design philosophy that it calls Proportional Response, with “rider-scaled kinematics and size-driven geometry that track with your center of gravity.” This is a 4-bar or Horst-Link layout, but along with changes to geometry, Cannondale modifies the kinematics and suspension tunes for each size with the goal of consistent suspension performance and ride feel across all sizes.
The complete builds come with gravity air shocks, but Cannondale says the Bad Habit works well with coil shocks, too. The downtube also features the brand’s Stashport in-frame storage compartment. It comes with one large and one small bag for your tools and other goodies, and Cannondale says it’s silent. Other frame details include guided internal cable routing and molded frame protection on the chainstay and downtube.
It’s been a few years since the Habit and Habit LT launched, but as we saw with those bikes, Cannondale has made a conscious shift away from proprietary features and design choices. That continues with the Bad Habit, which uses standard hardware and rear wheel offset, and is about as “normal” a frame as we’ve seen from the brand. This should make the Bad Habit easier to own, maintain, and find spare parts for, and Cannondale will probably sell more of them this way, too.
To that end, the frame has standard Boost 12x148mm real axle spacing and does not use the proprietary Ai offset. It has a UDH interface, uses a threaded 73mm bottom bracket, and has a 55mm chainline. The frame has a long insertion depth, and Cannondale went with 34.9mm seat tubes so riders can maximize saddle drop. The small frames come stock with 170-180mm droppers, and the M-XL sizes come with 210 or 240mm, depending on the build. The frame does not have any geometry adjustments, but the 1.5” headtube is compatible with angle-adjust headsets, or those that allow through headset cable routing (if that’s your thing).
Geometry
The Bad Habit sets itself apart from its shorter-travel siblings with a geometry that’s aligned with its intended use and travel bracket. In fact, Cannondale seems so confident in its design that they did not include any built-in geometry adjustments. But, as mentioned above, the 1.5” headtube should allow riders to drop an angle-adjusting headset in there if they choose. But we don’t really see why you’d need to, given the head tube angle is already 64 degrees.
The Bad Habit comes in four frame sizes, S-XL. Reach numbers start at 430mm on the small and grow to 515 on the XL, with a fairly standard 480mm on the large. Some of the other important numbers are the seat tube angle, which at 77.7/77.8 degrees is nice and steep. That should go along well with the relatively tall stack, 648mm on a size large, to put riders in a comfortable seated pedaling position while winching up steep climbs to access your favorite descents. Chainstay length is on the shorter side at 430mm on the small and medium frames, though it increases to 435mm on the large and XL for proportionality.
Cannondale Bad Habit: Build Options
The new Bad Habit is sold as a frame only with a RockShox Vivid Ultimate shock, and is currently being offered in two complete builds.
Bad Habit Frameset: $3,499 USD / €3,499 / £3,750
- Shock: RockShox Vivid Ultimate, custom Bad Habit tune, 210x55mm
- Claimed weight: 3370 grams (w/o shock)
- Color: Black with WOW colors
Bad Habit 1: $7,999 USD / €7,999 / £7,795
- Fork: RockShox Lyrik Ultimate, 160mm
- Shock: RockShox Vivid Ultimate, custom Bad Habit tune, 210x55mm
- Drivetrain: SRAM XO/GX AXS T-Type
- Brakes: TRP EVO Pro 4-piston, 220mm front / 200mm rear rotors
- Wheels:
- Rims Reserve 30|HD AL, 30mm inner width, 29” front, 27.5” rear
- Hubs: DT Swiss 350
- Tires:
- Front: Continental Kryptotal F, 29” x 2.4”, Enduro Soft
- Rear: Continental Kyrptotal R, 27.5” x 2.4”, Enduro Soft
- Handlebar: OneUp Aluminum, 800mm, 35mm rise
- Seatpost: Oneup V3, 34.9mm diameter, 180mm (S), 240mm (M-XL)
- Saddle: WTB Solano, Ti rails
- Claimed weight: 15.6 kg / 34.4 lbs (complete, tubeless w/sealant)
- Color: Raw Carbon
Bad Habit 2: $$5,999 USD / €4,999 /5,995
- Fork: RockShox Lyrik Select+, 160mm
- Shock: RockShox Vivid Select+, custom Bad Habit tune, 210x55mm
- Drivetrain: SRAM Eagle 90 Mechanical T-Type
- Brakes: SRAM Maven Stealth 4-piston, 220mm front / 200mm rear HS2 rotors
- Wheels:
- Rims WTB ST i30 Tough TCS, 30mm inner width, 29” front, 27.5” rear
- Hubs: Front: Formula DC-7131, Rear: Zipp ZM700
- Tires:
- Front: Continental Kryptotal F, 29” x 2.4”, Enduro Soft
- Rear: Continental Kyrptotal R, 27.5” x 2.4”, Enduro Soft
- Handlebar: Cannondale 3 Riser, 800mm, 25mm rise
- Seatpost: Cannondale DownLow, 34.9mm diameter, 170mm (S), 210mm (M-XL)
- Saddle: WTB Solano, hollow Cro-Mo rails
- Claimed weight: 16.0 kg / 35.3 lbs (complete, tubeless w/sealant)
- Color: Phoenix Yellow
Cannondale Bad Habit: Availability
Cannondale officially launches the Bad Habit today, and the bikes are available now. Head to the Cannondale website to learn more, find a dealer near you, or pick up a Bad Habit of your own
