I've always enjoyed mountain biking in the winter, but I've never had a bike that was properly set up for it. I like to ride on snowy trails and across frozen lakes. With two early snowstorms already, I decided that this would be the year to put a proper winter bike together.
I've had two Cannondales and decided to look for an old rigid frame on Craigslist. I wanted a simple bike and didn't really think that I would want or need suspension. I mentioned this to a friend of mine and he said that he has had an old Cannondale in a storage locker for two decades. He said that he had bought it new and put less than 20 road miles on it. He's about my height, so we came up with a price and I bought it sight unseen.
It just so happens that it's one of my favorite frame designs: a 1994 Cannondale Delta V 600.
He had made a few changes in order to make those 20 road miles as comfortable as possible. He added a big heavy Bell gel seat on an elastomer post, removed the toe clips, added a non-wireless bike computer, a turquoise water bottle cage and bar ends and swapped the original Piranah Pro tires for a pair of smooth and narrow hybrid tires. All of these things would need to be changed, along with losing the kickstand. Fortunately, everything else on the bike was like new. The paint is almost perfect and the chain has never even been dirty. That will change too.
The bike does have Connondale's Headshok front suspension, but I'll take that as a bonus. There were three versions of it that year. The top of the line suspension was air/oil, and they were prone to leaking after a year or so. The entry level fork was elastomer with bushings. This bike came with the mid level fork, which is elastomer with bearings. It is by far the best that I could have hoped for two decades later.
The seat, post, kickstand, computer and the turquoise stuff disappeared pretty quickly. Fortunately, my friend was able to find the original seat post, as Cannondale posts are bigger than most others.
The bike has Cannondale's Force 40 brakes, just like one of my old bikes. I've always liked them. Notice how clean this frame is.
The original handlebar was a little low and nearly straight, so I picked up a nice aluminum replacement at the local bike shop. It was new but there was no packaging, so I got it for ten bucks. It moves my hands up enough that I'm much more comfortable, but it's not so much bigger that I would need to re-cable the bike.
The bike itself was cheap enough that I was able to go all out on the tires. I ordered a pair of Nokian Hakapeliittas with 300 carbide studs per tire. They were made in Finland and are slightly more aggressive than the tires that came on the bike.
I actually had a pair of genuine Cannondale mountain bike water bottle brackets that I bought for one of my old bikes in 1994. Putting at least one of them on this bike just seemed like the right thing to do. I stripped off the old green paint and sprayed them with Rustoleum Hammered Black.
With the extra traction, I knew that I was going to need fenders. I had a new Sette seat post mounted fender, but since I fully expect to fall down a lot, I was afraid of snapping it off. I went back to the LBS and bought a nice Blackburn aluminum rack. I thought that the rack's forward mounts were a little cheesy, so I made an L shaped bracket out a piece of scrap aluminum. It's light and really strong. I attached the rack to the mount with a pair of rubber coated P-clamps. This also give the rack an nice aggressive angle.
I also unbolted the center part of the rack and flipped it over. This will keep a lot of dirt and water spray off of the rear brake cam.
I removed the seat post mount from the fender that I had originally planned to use, and drilled an extra hole in it. I attached the plastic fender directly to the center of the rack.
I added a set of toe clips (clipless pedals probably wouldn't be a great choice for me on this one) and stole the seat off my other Cannondale. I'm just waiting for the front fender to come in the mail and I'll be ready to ride.
