cannondale vs trek

thefartingcockeral

Hi,
Need to buy a new hardtail. Stuck between 2007 Cannondale Caffiene 4 SL (£999) and 2007 Trek 8500 (1299). Both are great race bikes with great kit. Both dealers are close to me and their support is second to none.
Have the readies, just need some peoples advice mainly on the Cannondale. have had plenty of treks and love them, but the cannondale looks tasty in its team livery(I know its a snob thing to have a 'dale).
many thanks all

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prophet_1000

Snob Thing, (Gasp!!!!!) One is positively Mortified at such an accusation. I shall have my butler go straight out and put that old Bicycle in the waste disposal for me.

Get the dale and forget what everybody else thinks, ride for you.

thefartingcockeral

Hi,
Are the frames on the cannondale as good as people sya and are they strong or delicate?

prophet_1000

Hi

I dont have a hard tail myself (prophet) but I am lead to believe that a lot of what you pay for with a cannondale is in the frame, they are really light weight, hand filed welds etc also they are tested to destruction to improve the strength/weight ratio.

When you ask if they are strong or delicate, neither of the bikes you mention are built for jumping, and when I say jumping I mean big dirt jumping. But either will stand up to normal trail riding and MORE including getting some airtime, Its really upto you which bike you choose, in my experience there isnt a lot between bikes these days, except the geometry of the bike.

Your best bet is to try and get a test ride on BOTH bikes and see which one feels best for the type of riding you do most of, usually you have to pay a deposit to test BUT you will usually get that knocked off the price of the bike you decide to purchase, and the money you dont get back from the bike you dont purchase was really money well spent.

Hope this helps?

egor

i have a caffiene 3 and had a trek before it. i love it, much prefer it over the trek, it partly down to geometery, but also it feels agile, light and fast, which is what i wanted a fast ish xc bike. i managed to get a cheap lefty off ebay so changed the fork and im not 100% it was worth it as the headshock is a good fork as it is. i thought the extra travel wld be useful, but im not sure. the lefty looks nice though.

it gets a bit twichy going fast over roots and stumps, but it also encourages me to try and ride a bit better and has up my confidence a bit (being sort of new to mtb)

as prophet says try and ride both and see, but in the end i went for a caffiene and im happy with it