the dale is a nice quad, but as a consumer, when i was buying i couldn't figure out to pay so much. i got 2 new ds's last year for $10,200 and when i went to look at the dales i couldn't find enough advantage to cause me to go with them. so my point is dale needs to offer a low priced quad, that way a person looking to go riding doesn't decide they can live with a honda. i think riding is better than saving the extra money to buy a dale. and honda has shown that people can and will put money into there quad

 

In some ways I agree but when your talking 7k for the base model and the raptor, DS and new kfx700 are 6.5k I don't think 500 bucks is a big deal when your talking about a company that stands behind their product and offers you state of the art technology. Most dealers are willing to deal on the price and there are even special close out deals so I don't think it all comes down to price. We ride in a lot of different areas and with the exception of one other guy we ride with no one else has even heard of Cannondale and my riding partner SparkyEX has the only one I've ever seen on the trails. There only dealership within about a 100 mile radius is a small dealer in a smaller town who doesn't advertise. If they got some of our bigger dealers to carry them I guarantee there would be more out there.

 

Just found this.
http://www.bicycleretailer.com/bicyc...ent_id=1777416

 

From the sounds of that article, the Cannondale Dirt Bikes are killing the company and that the ATVs are the far superior division. Seems maybe they should have just started with ATVs, a much more 'open' market (less competition.) The article mentioned they were competing against several manufacturers, and mentioned Harley Davidson; H-D doesn't make anything that competes with a dirt bike or ATV, do they? Or are they planning to? Imagine that! A Harley Davidson ATV! People would get them just to say they have a Harley. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

Harley used sell dirt bikes back in the 70's. I think they just stuck their name on an import.
I don't believe Canondale needs a low cost bike. Kind of like Porshe selling those 914s years ago. It takes away from their high end performance image.