1Badwarrior the one nice feature on the cannondale I appreciate the most is the low seat height,in addition to everything else.

 

Hopefully Cannondale learned a great deal from their problems getting the MX bike to market and will apply those lessons to getting the quad out on schedule. As far as it being a "threat" and what it will mean to the Raptor shouldn't matter unless you make your money from Raptor sales. We should all be thrilled to be sitting on the brink of the second coming of a sport quad golden age. We have the new Kawasakis to be announced shortly, and Honda and Suzuki won't sit idly by and watch us spend our money on other manufacturer's machines. I'm personally looking forward to seeing a few more colors running in the MX tracks and at our local riding areas. Its going to be a lot of fun. Maybe we'll actually get to see new bikes performance compared to other new bikes and not ten year old 250R's. (No slight of course to the 250R)

 

Cannondale hasn't proved themselfs in this market of motorscross and atv's. If they are that great they would be winning the big races but they're not. Yamaha has almost 15 years of atv experience cannondale can't say that. With Cannondale its just their name carrying them they sould stick to making bicycles. Who wants to pay $7000 grand for a 432cc or even a 450cc when Yamaha offers a proven 660cc for $6499. Only some rich little mommy's boy. I already got a down payment on the first one that arrives at my dealership. Raptor will devour anything on earth and sets a new standard for 21st century sport atv's. We should all thank Yamaha for taking this first step towards the pursuit of performance perfection. I bet the Raptor sales double the cannondales. bshisler@aol.com

 

It is kinda intresting to hear the cannondale story. They started with a 400cc quad. When they heard that yamaha was working on a new quad every one asumed it had the 426 motor. So cannondale decided to bump the displacement up 30 or so ccs.
Technology wise it is really a wash between them. Cannondale has fuel injection BUT Yamaha has a 5 valve head. Cannondale also has the front intake and rear exhaust BUT i wonder about its touted greatness. Yamaha Honda and Suzuki have built and raced bikes for a long time and NONE of them as far as i know have used that setup. Perhaps they know somthing cannondale dosent??? perhaps a rookie mistake on Cannondales part.
But what it all really boils down to is that their is no substitute for cubic inches. You cant honestly compare a 660 to a 430. Maby if the 430 was a 2 stroke BUT it aint. One outher point to consider is that Yamaha can build 200,000 Raptors if they want to and i doubt Cannondale can even build 10,000 of theirs. Dont get me wrong the cannondale is sweet but you would be better off comparing it to Suzukis new quad or Yamahas new baby for next year.

 

Wow, a little exciteable aren't we? The Cannondale has already won motos at Mt. Morris and Southwick this season so the motor has potential. Of course Yamaha will be able to produce a lot more bikes than Cannondale....doesn't that seem to make sense? Saying that Cannondale is making a mistake with the reversed top end is bizarre...you sound like you would prefer a world where nobody dared make a technological innivation-no thanks. FInally, to say that Cannondale should stick to making bikes makes even less sense. How could you not welcome any and every manufacturer that is willing to put a new sport quad on the market, particularly one that appears as cutting edge as the FX400. We're at the brink of the most exciting time in sport ATV'ing in a decade and I'm cracking up reading everyone rip bikes that none of us have had the pleasure of riding yet. I'm fired up about all of them, I'm buying another quad this year and I couldn't be happier that I'm not sure yet what it will be.

 

The Cannondale looks great but I wonder if it will ever make it to full scale production. The company is not in the best financial shape at this point. The common stock trades "BIKE". Look up current financial releases. The Chairman has been selling stock and the Company has until June 30 to re-work credit agreements with lenders. Not that this means the company is on the ropes, just wanted to mention that this company does not have the financial resources that Honda and Yamaha has. They obviously have a great R & D department and have been able to design products technologically ahead of the competition.

I hope Cannondale is able to produce both the motorcycle and the ATV, but I'm left wondering how strong the dealer/service network might be.

Where is Husaberg these days?

 

Arizona,
You took the words out of my mouth. ALthough I will be the first to admit that I am a bit sceptical in regards to the Cannondale ( i dont want to be the guneiu(SP?) pig), I am still VERY excited when I think that one of these new High performance quads is going to be sitting next to my Banshee next year. Notice I said beside, not in place of!!!

RoostKing...

 

One thing is for sure, the demand will be high &
I imagine the greed of the dealers people will be paying full MSRP or close to it. That OK, this bike will de-throne the 'bomb.

 

I don't see where the H.P. is in the raptor when it has 260cc more than the fx400, and the horses are about the same. Talk about lack of technology in behave of Yamaha.

 

The Raptor will be all over the Cannondale! There's no substitute for cc's. By the way, who wants to buy the laptop and the software just so you can tune your Cannondale when you want to modify it? Can you say "screwed"??? Better hope that fuel injection system doesn't fail out in the middle of nowhere! The cannondale is much too specialized and narrowly focused to be practical. No thanks, I want something from a proven company.