Cannondale (hand made in USA) refurb.

[Drago]

I could be wrong but I think the welds are built up and then machined/sanded back/finished somehow on these, so its a cosmetic finishing process rather than any reflection upon the standard of welding.

 

[Blue Hills]

I could be wrong but I think the welds are built up and then machined/sanded back/finished somehow on these, so its a cosmetic finishing process rather than any reflection upon the standard of welding.

maybe, I have long thought that is what was probably going on but my old US-Dale welds have held up just fine under heavy use.
And your take is a condemnation of many contemporary bike makers.
ie - skip all the finishing processes - just chuck it out the door - the idiots will buy it - even if we put a premium price on it.
many modern ally welds put me in mind of those old WW2 soviet tanks - sod the finishing, it may well get shot up soon anyway, just throw it at the Nazis.

And that amount of care over the time-intensive finishing surely suggests that the welds underneath were done well?

 

[bonzobanana]

I thought the US made frames had a high tendency to fail hence the 'Crack'n'fail' joke name they got. However maybe that was more road bikes than mountain bikes. Cannondale had a reputation of building extremely lightweight and not particularly robust and enduring frames and of course many failed. Dare I say it but the Asian frames were much better or at least safer.

Did all the bikes have US made frames up until they closed the factory or did they use Asian frames for a while. I've got a cheap Muddyfox road bike that was made in the same factory as Cannondales. I think it was year 2012-2013 production and the factory is fuji-ta. My box had fuji-ta on it and at the time fuji-ta clearly stated they were making Cannondale bikes, which models I don't know. Fairly sure it was the lower end road bikes and perhaps most mountain bikes but don't know if it was the high end Cannondale road bikes as well.

Cannondale may have a reputation for innovation and were the last big US bike brand to stop US frame production but today they are just another brand of Dorel buying their bikes from factories in Asia. I think the Cannondale research and development centre was closed down by Dorel a few years ago.

 

[woodbutchmaster]

Just like to thank everyone for commenting , l've learned a lot about the bike. As far as making the effort to do it up is concerned , l think it is worth it. After all it has survived at least ten years and there are no cracks or other signs of weakness so l will give it a go. Since l am more of a vintage road bike enthusiast l will probably end up donating it to Emmaüs anyway

 

[DRM]

I thought the US made frames had a high tendency to fail hence the 'Crack'n'fail' joke name they got. However maybe that was more road bikes than mountain bikes. Cannondale had a reputation of building extremely lightweight and not particularly robust and enduring frames and of course many failed. Dare I say it but the Asian frames were much better or at least safer.

Did all the bikes have US made frames up until they closed the factory or did they use Asian frames for a while. I've got a cheap Muddyfox road bike that was made in the same factory as Cannondales. I think it was year 2012-2013 production and the factory is fuji-ta. My box had fuji-ta on it and at the time fuji-ta clearly stated they were making Cannondale bikes, which models I don't know. Fairly sure it was the lower end road bikes and perhaps most mountain bikes but don't know if it was the high end Cannondale road bikes as well.

Cannondale may have a reputation for innovation and were the last big US bike brand to stop US frame production but today they are just another brand of Dorel buying their bikes from factories in Asia. I think the Cannondale research and development centre was closed down by Dorel a few years ago.

I've got a 2012 Cannondale SL3 MTB, and that's been a really good bike, no issues with a mix of SRAM groupset and Tektro hydraulic brakes, another end of season bargain