Cannondale Bicycles: 40 Years In The Making

Although Cannondale has been in business since 1971, it actually wasn’t until 1983 that the first aluminum road bike-a navy blue FT500 touring bike-rolled off the production line. Prior to that it was the Bugger kid’s trailer and a wide variety of panniers and bags that kept the company going. In the years since, Cannondale has made a name for itself as a truly innovative company, if only as a pioneer in the manufacturing of oversized aluminum frames. Locked away in the northeastern reserve of Bethel, Connecticut, Cannondale was the East Coast brand that would battle with its Midwest and West Coast competitors (Trek and Specialized) for the title of America’s bike company.

Scott Montgomery was the son of company founder Joe and over the years played an integral role in Cannondale’s evolution from a maker of bike trailers to being a player on the international stage of both UCI mountain and road competition.

‘I know we shared the aluminum tube legacy with Gary Klein with many people thinking we copied Gary, but we didn’t; it was independent innovation. My dad was into sailing, and he had seen how masts had evolved from wood to aluminum. With the help of an engineer [David Graham], they came up with the idea of building a bike with big aluminum tubes. I can say that my dad was never in love with bikes, but he was in love with innovation and making existing products better.’

Despite the early ’80’s introduction of the Cannondale road bike, without a doubt it was the ascendancy of the mountain bike that really propelled Cannondale to new technological heights. ‘In terms of aluminum manipulation and new manufacturing techniques, we really pushed the envelope with our mountain bikes,’ said Scott. ‘As far as road bikes were concerned, you really needed to be a nonconformist to like a Cannondale road bike.’

Though they had been racing domestically since the late ’80s, it wasn’t until 1997 that Cannondale undertook a major shift in the attention it paid to its road bikes. During a lunch-time meeting at a Tuscan villa, Cannondale radically moved the proverbial dial in the road racing world. That was when Scott sat down with Italian businessman Sergio Zappella and made a deal to sponsor Zappella’s Saeco road team.

‘I remember that Zappella was playing us while we met,’ recalls Montgomery. ‘He had a cell phone, which was a big deal back then, and throughout our discussion it kept ringing with calls from other teams. And with each call, he would try to leverage us to get more money. Some of the teams were telling him that there was no way that an American-made bike-let alone an aluminum bike-would ever succeed in Europe. Back then, it was the team director that usually picked the bikes, but Zappella didn’t just run the team, he also owned it, so he could make the final decision. That deal cost us about $500,000, and my dad thought we were crazy, but it was one of the best investments we made

‘We had a hard time with the riders at first, because we had no credibility in Europe, and the idea of riding an aluminum bike was so contrary to the history of the sport. Cipollini agreed to the deal thinking that he’d never actually have to ride one, but he ended up loving it because the frame’s biggest attributes-being light and stiff-met his specific needs for sprinting. The other riders didn’t like the bike so much, but it was out of meeting their needs that we started experimenting with new tube extrusions and butting, which really made the bikes much better.’

In the years that followed, Cannondale remained on the cutting edge of aluminum frame production, which, coincidentally, was parallel to a growing trend in the world of off-road motorcycles. Thanks to a highly successful partnership with Volvo as their mountain bike team sponsor and a great marketing team that heavily promoted the myriad of race wins and new technologies, Cannondale definitely ranked among the ‘hot’ brands in America in the mid ’90s. So hot, in fact, that they went public in 1995. And with the infusion of new capital, the Connecticut company was flush with cash and looking to expand. And so, in the late ’90s, Cannondale decided to jump head first into the motorcycle industry; a jump that would unfortunately come to mimic a fall off the Golden Gate Bridge.

Although the bicycle business remained robust, Cannondale’s motorsport division was beset by a myriad of design and manufacturing problems which wreaked havoc on the company’s reserves. By 2003, the situation was so grim that Cannondale was forced into bankruptcy protection. It was a stunning turn for a brand that once seemed to do no wrong. Somewhere there was a lesson to be found about the pitfalls of straying from your core competency.

After selling off the remnants of their motorcycle business, Cannondale got back to focusing on designing bicycles. However, there were still a few headlines in store. The first to come was in 2005 when the American bike maker made the decision to move their production to Asia. Soon to follow was the vaunted aluminum maker’s first foray into carbon fiber frame production with the Synapse road frame. In 2008, Cannondale found new life with their purchase by the Canadian company Dorel. Despite it all, the heart, soul and brains of the ‘American’ bike brand remain at the original-though much larger-office in Bethel, Connecticut.

From their pioneer days in producing aluminum bikes to their ‘first-in status’ as an American brand racing in Europe, Cannondale has much to be proud of for their 40-year effort. Sure, there were some awfully kooky design ideas and, at times, even kookier marketing schemes, but if you knew thepersonality of company founder Joe Montgomery, it all made sense. Throughout the last two decades, the brand exhibited an intense and aggressive manner, but equally so, their drive was infused with a sense of mischief, which, besides being enjoyable to witness, always came as a welcome counter to the more staid and traditional approach of the bike industry. While Cannondale has never been any less driven than the other bike brands, they have shown themselves more willing to take chances. And yes, they’ve frequently tripped, but as the old saying goes, ‘You never know how fast you’re going until you fall down!’

Knowing the current crop of management and designers as well as we do, it’s safe to say that Cannondale still has a bright future ahead. The telltale sign? Not only do they remain committed to pursuing the latest technological and material advances while simultaneously competing at the highest level of the sport, but there is always a sense of fun to what they do. It’s a proven formula.

A CAVALCADE OF CANNONDALE CREATIONS