I was waiting to see what the cannondale quad would be. I thought that both motorbike and ATV would be great (seeing the quality of their mountainbikes).
At least for the MX bike I was wrong. I bought today a mag that tested the cannondale 400 MX and they had the same conclusions as every other mag...it sucks!
I know people will tell me bikes and ATVs are different but there are several things that reveal that the guys who designed the bike are not riders...and if they are, they are no good!
Cleaning the air filter should be done every ride right? To clean the air filter (of the bike) you have to take off, front number plate, saddle, side plastics, and gas tank (that doesn't even have an on/off switch...so it must be empty if you don't want to spread gas all over). The exhaust pipes get red hot, the whole exterior engine is more than 100 degrees celsius (water will evaporate) -which isn't actually very rare- but the frame (which is also the oil tank) also is as hot!!!(I wont't talk about vapor-lock) Things get even worse when you want to change the idle (lower or higher), you have at least to take the gas tank off (and all the surrounding plastics, of course), or do like one very unhappy owner, take it back to the dealer for an idle setting!!! BTW, the owner paid 9000$us for his bike...
Fuel injection, that does sound technological indeed, but I have learned very quickly that a well running injection is very very very difficult to get. No surprise then when I read "If you open the throttle to fast, the engine will die"...and when it dies the electric starter isn't even powerful enough to restart the engine...well...not the starter itself but the battery has to be in top shape to start the bike...and knowing that there's no kickstarter, you're probably gonna end pushing your 9000$ bike to get it running again (which is said to be quite easy though). Compared to the 400 YZF, it has less power, less torque (because of the shorter exhaust pipe)...and the engine is said to weight as much as the 600XR's.
OK, engines are not cannondale's best side, so the frame (and BTW handling) should be incredibly good (you might think they put all the money in the frame). It is better than the engine (which isn't very difficult) but the front end is very heavy, which gives excellent stability but very poor "lightweight feeling". And heavy it is (I think 118 kgs...not sure), more than yam 400yzf and KTM 520...
who said lemon?
So why did I talk about the MX bike (I still remember that I'm in an ATV forum)? Simply because when engineers build such a lemon bike, I simply can't imagine how they could make a good ATV. If the guys that built the bike are the same that built the ATV, I won't even look at it!
Too bad for cannondale!
I hope though that my ATV predictions are wrong...and that all the problems about the bike will be solved (doesn't the Craptor have some problems?...very tiny compared to the lemon though).

 

I have a $650 cannondale mountain bike and think it handles poorly and is a piece of crap. I've seen better bikes at walmart for $195. I would never buy anything from that company again.

 

When I say their mountainbikes are good, I'm talking about "good" (and BTW expensive) bikes. For having ridden one (some time ago...maybe Cannondale quality has dropped since), It was really amazing, at least as good as my "downhill" bike, and way better in uphill.

 

Cannondale makes incredible bikes , 650 doesn't buy you much of a mountain bike, all three of mine are from 1000-3500 dollars. bikes under 1 grand are for price points only to get serious performance you have to pay for it. just like atv's sure you can buy a 3400 dollar brand new ATV but what do you have? pay 5-7000 grand and look at the difference? Not sure about the MX bikes from Cannondale, i am sure they will fix any troubles they are not a company that is planning on folding tomorrow.

 

That's what I hoped (and still hope).

But when I read that article...nothing seems to be good!! The most incredible thing to me is cleaning the air filter...how will they change that without redesigning the whole bike?? BTW, the gas tank goes from the original place to under the seat (where usually sits the airbox)...they would have to redesign tank, intake...oh,no! thay can't even put the airbox under the saddle, the intake is in front...

Honestly, I really don't know what they had in mind!!!
If they make it MUCH better, at least as good a Yamaha 426 YZF, maybe I would consider looking at it.
Just hope the ATV won't have the such enormous conception errors!!

PS. I know that a 600$ bike CAN NOT be "good". I bought mine 1200$ used, but it would cost new (at the moment I bought it) like 4000$, but it always works, no trouble with it.

 

1000-3000 for a BIKE? YIKES...guess i'll stick to my good 'ol Huffy. lol

 

Hey guys, I would like to reply to your comments on the Cannondale, but were not suppossed to do duplicate posts. I just put my comments on the Cannondale under the "Sport Quad" forum under the "Cannondale Release" post. If you are interested in reading someone elses point of view, please read my comments over there. To sum it up, I agree the Cannondale bike is not as good as the Yamaha YZ426F, but unfortunately, I can't buy a production quad with the 426F motor! I would buy one if it existed, and have even thought of buying the YZ426F bike just to put the motor in a Laeger chassis, but can't justify spending $20,000 on a quad. So even if the Cannondale is not perfect, it looks to be the only true hi-performance quad available.

 

Yea,
The only true High performance quad available? but doesnt perform? SO your gonna buy a quad from a company that has built a bike that flat out does not work. You must be very wealthy or very ???

RoostKing...

 

Well I don't want to start another argument on this board as there are too many, and especially about a quad that doesn't even exist yet. All I was trying to say is that the magazines said the bike doesn't perform well when compared to others in its class (I have read two magazine reviews). The point I was trying to make is that there is no quad available today that was developed for motocross, so even if it is not perfect, it will still be better than the competition (none). I have also personaly seen the bike in action twice at the outdoor MX Nationals and they have won numerous regional races on it so it is no slouch. I guess we need to wait and see how the quad version turns out.

Blodg

1988 TRX250R chassis with 350X motor bored and stroked to 500cc. Quad has every modification available to set-up for motocross.

 

I was just curious where morvac aquired his
1999 YZ426F. They didn't start making that cc displacement unit the 2000 model year.