Cannondale pro team riders the top spots at this year’s Strade Bianche, a race named after the white gravel roads that make up a fair portion of its 190km length. Turns out they were also testing a new endurance road bike at the event, too, though winner Moreno Moser was reportedly on a production Super Six.
Spotted on Italian cycling site BDC-Forum.it, the new bike is not just radically different looking than anything else in their current lineup, it’s fairly different from any other road bike on the market. Starting at the front, it gets internal cable routing and a massive headtube and downtube. Their current lineup of Super Six, Synapse and CAAD road bikes -even the Super X ‘cross bikes- run smaller tubes and external cable routing to keep things as simple and lightweight as possible, so this is quite a departure from their norm.
We spoke with Cannondale’s global marketing man Murray Washburn to see what the story is…
The top pic shows a kink in the seatstays at the brake bridge. That, coupled with these dramatically shaped SAVE chainstays should offer a good bit of compliance. Going forward a bit is one of the more unique design features: A split seat tube that spreads pretty wide across the bottom bracket shell. Perhaps it’s for better mud clearance, or maybe they act as small leaf springs that work in conjunction with the flatten shape just above them to add further comfort to the ride.
Washburn told us:
“It’s a new platform that we’re working on and refining, but we’re not ready to talk about it publicly. (The pro racers) are really good and providing feedback, and if there was a way to test bikes in competition out of the public eye, we’d do it, but nothing quite tests the bikes like being raced. We’ve been working on this for quite a while now, and it’s getting close. We’ll definitely launch it, likely in Spring, probably as a 2014 model.”
Our guess is this is a more race-oriented offering compared to the Synapse, which shares the SAVE micro-suspension features but has a more upright riding position. The fork gets pretty thin at the bottom with much straighter legs.
Cannondale’s been showing plenty of prototype and upcoming products recently, like the SiSL2 cranks for mountain bikes and Lefty Super Max 26″ long travel fork.
Check out BDC-Forum.it for more photos, one of which already shows a UCI Approval decal.
