I've been a participant in these forums now for about a year or so and I think I finally know what I want to sya to sum up the whole Cannondale thing...
I am a 42 year old father of 3 who has loved off road stuff since my childhood. I have seen companies come and seen them go. I have seen businessmen who were enthusiasts sink their fortunes into ideas for new bikes and lose them after the marketplace rendered its cold, heartless decision that they werent up to par. It saddened me to see them not make it.
When new bikes came out like the honda cr 125 or the xr 600 or quads like the 250r's, I loved them but secretly wished we as Americans would rise to the challenge of building a better bike. After all, we put a guy on the freakin' moon for crimonie's sake! Why di we continue t o be the biggest off road market, yet offer no competitive product of our own? I have heard cry babies for YEARS say "Man, Wouldn't it be cool if WE could build a great bikle? I know I would support it!" WELL GUESS WHAT? IT'S HERE YOU KNUCKLEHEADS!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do you understand how long we have waited for this? WAKE UP! We have a company who isn't satisfied with just making a bike as good as the Japanese (or anyone else). They set out to beat it in every stinking catagory that you can say out loud! This thing was designed,and assembled right here! Not Japan , Not Germany, Not Italy... HERE! To all the Cdale bashers, read carefully...... Have you even been to the company web site? Do you know how to operate a computer? If you do , your favorite game HAS to be LEMMINGS because that's what you are acting like! Follow,follow, follow! I wLooked at the web page and took the factory ( I recomend it) and looked at the faces of the men and women who build this bike! There are just like some of us.. They take pride in there work, their product and what they do! Based on the factory support they are providing ( I will post next on Yamaha and the "CRAPTOR") for any fixes or updates needed and the fact that this bike offers so much more than anyone else, I just don't understand when I hear someone saying (insert whinney voice here) "Oh ,its just not really proven yet" Give me a break ...Why do you ride,anyway? Have you forgotten what got you into this sport?..I want a bike that excites me! That turns heads, That not everyone has...Hey wait, its starting to sound like a woman now! But seriously, you enthusiasts out there who are waiting to pull the trigger on a new Quad,ask yourself why you ride. Doesnt the Cdale fulfill everything you have always wanted in a quad? It does me! Right down to that little AMERICAN flag on the swingarm! Wake up you guys! Lets give this company the support they deserve for stepping up to the plate,staring down the pitcher and knocking one right over straight a way center field with the bases loaded! Sure they might have grounded out a few times at the plate while learning the pitches, but give them the credit they deserve! My only hesitation is that when you guys finaly wake up and start buying these in the knd of numbers that reflect the product, I will have to pay top dollar for one.... Because I will get one ...............

i agree. cannondale seems to be making a lot of good decitions that make it look like their here to stay. i hope. i'd love to have a cannondale quad. i just can't afford one [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

i just emailed cannondale. i copied and posted what you wrote. i couldn't agree more with what you said. we're americans(and canadians). we are bashing what america has to offer and praising what ever japan sends us. japanese atv makers just sit back and let sales drop until someone challenges them. then they do the bare minium to stay ahead of the compition. here is a mountain bike maker who jumps into the atv world,whose first quad is more sophisticated and probably better than all previous quads.

Whew!
Newzboy, every thing you said in my opinion is so right. When I first heard about cannondale making an engine and putting it in a MX bike I kind of had a feeling that it would make it into a quad chassis. Then I heard that thats exactly what they were planning. I waited 1 1/2 years for it to come out. I wanted a Honda,but bit my lip and waited. Since my purchase I havent looked back and never will. Every quad has its problems and breaks something every once in a while,some just break more often than others and some break simple things that could have been built better. Cannondale is taking all the neccesary steps to make those simple things better and to make the other things more reliable. Who else does this ? NO ONE! I know Cannondale has not proven reliable yet, but might I also add that my C-Dale FX400 has not proven unreliable. I can go out put the key in connect the kill switch push the little green button and ride for as long as I want to. Thats why I wanted a new Quad and not a used one like the other 2 I had before. I didnt want to spend as much time wrenching on it as I did riding it. As far as the price goes hasnt everything thats been made is the US had a higher price than things that are made in other places? I cant stand to here people bash C-Dale when they havent ridden, or even saw one in person. The people that have and bash C-Dale, well thats fine but dont exagerate your experiance. Any one thats in the market for a new quad I think should go and check a C-DALE out dont just look RIDE and compare. If you think then and only then that the price is still to high ok dont buy it. Dont read what the mags say and decide not to even give the C-Dale a look at. Find out for your self. Even though the price may seem high to some Cannondale is doing and in my opinion will continue to do so much for us atvers. I mean they made the FX and then a few months latter made the Cannibal and now are coming out with new models for 02. They didnt just come out with the FX and leave the ATV thing at that for a couple years and come out with new motorcycles. They want us to be happy and have a choice on what to buy, it just so happens that what they are making is STATE OF THE ART products, which no company (especialy a new company) can produce and sell dirt cheap. Now even if Honda or Susuki ect. were going to come out with new sport/hi-proformance models (probably one a peace) I dont think that the original plans are the same. Maybe the same model + another HI TECH model to try to take away from C-Dale. Or maybe lose the OLD model plan and just come out with the HI-TECH one. WHY? Not because they just wanted to make us happy, but because cannondale put them way far behind in technology. Will the new models that the others come out with be better? who knows, but I think that by the time they come out C-Dale will still be ahead. What about the price of the others ,probably cheaper but I dont care because they are not made in the USA!

Damnit, now I feel all unpatriotic, and bad because I bought a 400ex. Oh well, it is fun to ride, and when she is too slow, I think my next quad will have a C on it.

I have said before that it was a bonus that my FX is designed and built in the U.S, but it's not what sold me. This is the machine however that really brought me into this sport, with its inovations and quality I couldn't resist it. I wouldn't ever take anything away from the Japanese because they were the ones who got me into motorcycling on a YZ when I was a kid. Since then I have been a sportbiker and roadracer and all I've ridden are Japanese bikes. I always said if an American company built a competetive sportbike I would be there with my greenbacks. Unfortunatley that time hasn't come yet, Buell is getting closer, and the Harley VR1000 is only a myth I believe [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

Then I got intrested in the last few years in ATV's but I just didn't see anything that I could get excited about, then the Raptor came out and it looked cool but it to me looked like it would roll easy, I may be wrong. Then I spotted the C-dale and I was intrigued by it's engine and chassis. I trusted C-dale based on the quality of bikes they built sure they aren't proven in this market but what bike or quad is proven till it's been out for awhile. When was the 400ex proven or the Raptor? Raptor still uses a weak axle doesn't it?

I don't care who builds it I just want hi-tech and quality, it's just nice to see an American company that can do it. Now only if C-dale would build that sportbike I've been waiting for, Buell took their 500 Blast motor and made it a twin and is comming out with a nice looking sportbike next year, frame has the gas tank intigrated and the swing arm doubles as the oil resivor for the dry sump engine, like the C-dale does with it's frame. But their engine is still air-cooled.

Moto24
'01 FX400
'98 Kawi ZX-9R
'90 Kawi ZX-7 (superbike)
'84 VF750R
'80 Kawi KZ650

Thanks for the input everybody. I wanted to add also that the folks I am talking about turning their back on Cannondale are not the riders who cant afford or dont have the means to buy a cannon. Everybody has their own budget to stay on. The ones I am speaking of are the ones who will think nothing of buying a new Raptor,Banshee,EX,or DS and proceed to add thousands of dollars of hop up goodies on it putting it beyond the price of the American unit. I have thought long and hard about why the Magazines are trashing or giving faint praise to the cdale. (bike and quad) Its not just the fact that the big manufacturors buy big color ads in the mags. Thats probably 15-20% of the ad revenue. Look at the other 80% of the ads.... See any Cdale hop ups? No.. Heck on the last shootout between the raptor and the FX400, they even said one of the testers was an owner of a business that sold a "ton of raptor mods" and graded the Raptor on the basis of what it might do with these supposed mods...What in the crap kind of objective outlook is that in a test? The old expression "RUN WHAT YOU BRUNG" comes to mind. I have seen other shootout results trash a bike because of the tires on it... What do these people do? Add decent tires to the Raptor to " make things more even" OK, then take the extra money for tires and put a steering stablizer on the FX!!Cmon guys! Do you really think we dont see what you are doing? These tests have all but destroyed my faith in any objectivity the magazines might have had... What the mags need to do (if they had the _____) is to check out the factory tour on the web site and talk with Harold, Kari, or John and ask them what its like to be a part of a company like cannondale....I have had several email correspondences from Scott Montgomery ( the son of the ceo Joe Montgomery) who is one of the company directors and he sigs his letters often with the phrase "We NEVER give up" Does that tell you anything? I am not a "buy American" strictly type of person...I dont even like that sticker..(Its usually on the back of a crappy American car,not a good one)but Jeeeze folks we have the real deal here. For those of you who can afford one, give the cannondale a look. Are you afraid that you will spend thousands of dollars on a quad, have it breakdown in countless ways and be stuck with a quad full of problems and no support from the factory? I have seen that happen very recently time and again, but guess what? The company was Japanese.

Newzboy, I believe atleast some of the magazines got a backlash from their comparo's of the C-Dale. In the Aug. issue of Dirt Wheels in the Wide Open department, Steve Casper writes about how they do ATV testing. Well they didn't say anything about the C-dale but it sure reads like thats what it's about. Dirt Wheels probably did the best job, even though I still don't agree with the their
ratings, C-dale finished last in the dunes category, thats were I ride mine most and I guess I don't understand what they're looking for. And I put a point system to their ratings chart and the C-dale should have finished 2nd according to how they rate, even though I believe it's a better machine than the Raptor.

The mags have been a huge dissapointment everything from how they rate to saying its too narrowly focused to performance, uh it is a sport quad, right? Dirt Wheels says they don't take bribes, won't be coerced,etc. but they don't mention where most of there money does come from, in the form of ads.

Moto24
'01 FX400
'98 Kawi ZX-9R
'90 Kawi ZX-7 (superbike)
'84 VF750R
'80 Kawi KZ650

Ahh, makes me proud! I'm a Marine, though I wasnt very patriotic when I was younger I have become much more so now. I love American ideals. I drive an '88 Mustang GT, it has a cam, full exhaust, and a few other mods. It doesnt handle real well (been lowered and has good rubber and urethane bushings), is loud as hell, has terrible street manners, and gets 15mpg city on a good day. I love everything about that car. Sure, somebody might have a Civic thats quicker but it doesnt symbolize anything. Everything about my car screams American.

I want a quad that does the same thing! Cannondale made it even better though. Its got the 4 stroke balls (similar to the V8 compared to a 4 banger) rather than a 2 stroke, a brutally stiff aluminum chassis that was hand welded (love good welds), and handles too! I couldnt be happier with what they produced, I just saw one in person for the first time this weekend at Imperial Cycle in El Centro. Man was it beautiful. I sat on it and got the chilly willys. This quad was made for me, hopefully I can create enough money to purchase it, I'm about to sell myself on the street corner (dont tell my wife) [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

Man, after reading this post.. I almost wanted to stand up and clap!