Anyone who followed cycling in the nineties will remember Cannondale’s oversized aluminium CAAD (Cannondale Advanced Aluminium Design) bikes winning races well before carbon rolled into town.
The likes of the all-conquering Saeco Cannondale squad, and their especially flamboyant leader, Mario ‘Lion King’ Cipollini, helped make these bikes iconic.
That heritage has never been forgotten by Cannondale, which unlike many brands, has always upheld its alloy line-up as a race-ready package – not just relegating these bikes to the bottom of the heap as cheaper, entry-level alternatives.
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Non-carbon racing pedigree
Cannondale has maintained the geometry and cutting edge materials required to keep these bikes on pace with what’s expected of a race bike and it says this 13th generation proves alloy can still cut it, snapping right at carbon's heels in terms of speed, weight and comfort.
‘Every new CAAD bike we design improves on the preceding version, but the CAAD13 represents a pretty radical new direction for us’, says global product director David Devine.
‘With CAAD13 we focused on elements that really improve the ride, namely drag reduction, comfort and wide-ranging capability, while not increasing the weight.’
The result is a completely new look for CAAD 13 and a big departure from the more traditional, predominantly round tube shapes we have been used to seeing.
It’s hard not to spot the similarity to the new SuperSix EVO – Cannondale released just last month. The traits of that modern race bike prevailing in the design – namely aerodynamic truncated airfoil tube profiles, dropped seat stays and an aero cockpit
The geometry and riding position also mimic the SuperSix Evo, with handling therefore likely to match, ensuring the race level feel that Cannondale has sought after.
Not just lookey-likey
The challenges of sculpting these truncated airfoil aero tube shapes in aluminium are many. Cannondale’s engineers have delivered a modern masterpiece in terms of material manipulation with CAAD13.
Cannondale calls it SmartForm, but it’s essentially a hydroforming process that enables intricate tube shapes in alloy, creating a more aerodynamic frame with increased stiffness where it's required for performance, but with no additional weight over its predecessor.
The aero tubeset, seat post and cockpit combined, Cannondale claims, achieves a 30% reduction in dag compared to the previous model.
The cockpit on the top end CAAD13 Disc model is directly descended from the full-aero Knot products Cannondale developed for its wind cheating race bike the SystemSix. A key difference, though, is this also utilises Cannondale’s Save technology to improve comfort.
A neat feature of the bar/stem is that despite having the aero benefits of a one-piece design it is in fact a separate bar and stem, allowing the individual components to be easily swapped, plus 8° of bar rotation, to fine tune riding position.
It’s a similar mix of aero and practicality at the seatpost. The carbon Knot 27 post (carbon version only featured on the top end model) is a truncated airfoil profile, like many of the frame tubes, but Cannondale suggests it’s extremely compliant, even more plush than it’s previously used super-skinny 25.4mm Save post.
The result is Cannondale claims this latest CAAD 13 model is twice as vertically compliant than its predecessor.
Tyred out
While we’re talking comfort, we know tyre width and pressure are key determinants of road bike comfort and Cannondale, in keeping with trend, has upped its clearances to 30mm (although a quick glance suggests there’s likely room for a bit larger still).
What the tyres are seated on is equally important to ride feel, and the new Knot 45 carbon wheelset – from Cannondale’s in house Hollowgram brand – supplied on the range topping Force eTap AXS disc model are the very same wheels fitted to the top end SuperSix Evo models that cost twice as much. It’s a lot of wheel for the £3,999 pricetag of the complete bike.
That, in a nutshell, highlights one of the main benefits of choosing an aluminium frame. You can have top-drawer components like Sram's eTap AXS wireless shifting and top of the range carbon wheels without an eye watering overall price.
Some other nice touches on the new CAAD13 are things like the multi position water bottle mounts allowing reduced drag for a single bottle placement, and also greater capacity for two bottles. Again another idea borrowed directly from the latest SuperSix Evo and SystemSix models.
There are speed-release thru-axles for faster wheel removal and Cannondale hasn’t forgotten practicality in other areas. Mudguard mounts (neatly hidden under the top of the seat stays) mean the CAAD13 can be a truly versatile machine, from everyday work-horse to full-bore racer.
Added to that the fact the weight penalty for choosing aluminium is now less than ever – CAAD13 has a claimed frame weight of just 1150g (painted size 56cm) – Cannondale continues to do a great job of proving it’s CAAD bikes are a truly viable alternative to carbon, if you want more bang for your buck, or if you simply have a hang up about the fragility of the black stuff.
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The range
The new CAAD13 line-up features 3 disc brake and 2 rim brake models for men, sizes 44, 48, 51, 54, 56, 58, 60,and 62cm, as well as 1 disc brake and 1 rim brake women’s model in sizes 44,48, 51,and 54cm.
Pricing is as follows
CAAD13 Disc Force eTap AXS £3,999.99
CAAD13 Disc Shimano Ultegra £1,999.99
CAAD13 Rim Brake Shimano Ultegra £1,583.33
CAAD13 Disc Shimano 105 £1,583.33 *women’s model also available
CAAD13 Rim brake Shimano 105 £1,333.33 *women’s model also available
