Cannondale CAAD9 = comfortable??

Sammyw23

Hi all - will be testing a CAAD9 very soon once Evans (Ride2Work) get their new stock. One thing that the test ride won't tell me is how comfortable it will be over longer rides? Most of my rides will be short high intesnity blasts 1-2hrs but I would also like to do some longer rides.
So just interested to hear some views from CAAD9 owners on comfort over longer distances?

Gazzaputt

I sold my CAAD9 for the reason that on long runs, 5-6 hours, it wasn't comfortable at all.
Geometry is more for speed. Stunning on a short ballsout run.

FransJacques

What's your budget?

Jimbo.

They're alreet, although as ever a lot depends upon the rider (tolerance, flexibility etc, etc).

Sammyw23

In terms of budget I was looking at the CAAD9 Ultegra or Six Carbon Ultegra as both are touted by press and on bikeradar as the best around. Open to other options though.....

FransJacques

Don't want to lead you too far off the garden path you're on but to be honest I've had 2 Giant carbon road bikes and loved them both. They're fast steering bikes, almost twitchy, and the ISP on one of them is a pain to get in a bike bag for plane trips, but they ride great and the drivetrain stiffness on the Advnaced ISP is every bit as good as the R3SL, now my "best bike".

They are both not bad for comfort, maybe not like the much hyped Roubaix/Synapse solution. But I think it's a statistical bias - more people have Roub-apses so you hear about them more. Simple as. I've not ridden either longer than around the block tho.

2 BMCs (1 all carbo, 1 alu/carbomix) I test rode at a Mallorcan training camp (120kms on each) were great for stiffness and handling, really "toight" feeling bikes but they had short top tubes for my side (57/58cm).

Lastly, keeping carbon here, for the £1200-1400 range it seems you're looking at, the Focus Cayo is a perennial pleaser. I rode a Focus for a 140 km hilly ride once. It was the Milram team edition with SRAM Red, and besides the SRAM doublt tap being not to my liking, the ride was firm and the handling twitchy like the Giant. But it was lighter meaning less feel so in my opinion was a bit less desirable. Twitchy is ok as long as your feel is riding rate. The Focus handling wasn't progressive as I was steering thru some switchbacks - not bad in isolation but it's easier to oversteer in that scenario and wash out the front wheel. Or, to correct your line mid curve, on the edge of grip, and again, wash out the front wheel and crash. I think a bike at the limit should give you a lot of feel which tempers a sudden reaction to amend your line. Depends on how much of an animal you are on descents. My need for speed is greater than my downhill ability so spend a lot of time scaring myself.

Ok, really really lastly, find a used Colnago CLX and love it for it's light weight (1100 grams), tank like build (first taiwanese carbon biike so they gave it a big margin of error), and great handling. A buddy who owns a B&B in the Pyrenees went from 55kph max on a cheap Alu Ribble to 70++ kph on the CLX so good is the front end.

Sammyw23

Cheers FransJacques.....unfortunately I am tied to Evans through the ride2work and they don't do GIant or Focus so they are ruled out. Not sure I can stomach the BMC design but worth a look. Cheers for the info though

balthazar

FransJacques wrote:

A buddy who owns a B&B in the Pyrenees went from 55kph max on a cheap Alu Ribble to 70++ kph on the CLX so good is the front end.

He attributes a 30% speed increase to the handling of his bicycle?! (with a straight face?) As fantastic claims go, that one's pretty special. Unless the tyres on the poor Ribble were flat, of course.

FransJacques

Balth you missed the point a bit, we're not talking a bike's top speed - bikes don't have a top speed that's material to a human rider. We're talking a rider's top speed. That rider is governed by a brain and in some cases a set of balls. You balance one against the other above, say 60 kph. Do you trust your bike? your reaction time? the condition of the road? the car around the next swtichback? a sheep on the side of the road which might dart in front of you? your brakes? etc. You know the scenario.

Colnagos (never ridden Pinarellos) and my old 853 steel Lemond Zurich are tops in mollifying the brain allowing it to catch up to where the balls are. I've yet to trust the Cervelo above 65 or so, it's twitchier than the Colnago. The Giant Advanced is twitchy but afer 4 years of riding I can finally trust it. Very personal stuff, it depends on years spent riding and numbers of crashes, etc.

As for Evans, they do the CLX and some Bianchis. Test ride as much as you can. The KOTD ride is looming, I did this last year and it's a great test of a bike's ability. Sign up for it for sure.

carl_p

Back to the CAAD9...... I personally don't have an issue with comfort from the geometry and I actually find riding on the hoods is extremely comfortable. Similarly on the flat it is silky smooth and that alone makes it a pleasure to ride. The front end is a bit lower and stretched out than my SCR2 but not rediculously so. If you don't like riding on the drops on a bike built for comfort, then you probably won't on the CAAD9 either. Either you want a bike like that or you don't.

If it is uncomfortable I tend to find it at the back end where on a rough road I do feel it through my butt. I've signed up for a 100 miler early June so I'll enjoy (or otherwise) the full extent of the comfort then and report back!

Have to say when I'm hurtling along on those flat roads it makes me grin

Sammyw23

Managed to test a CAAD9 this morning by chance as Evans had one in. Lovely bike but the geometry is very different to what I am used to, very aggressive stance on the bike IMO. In some respects its awesome, you feel more connected to the bike because of your positioning. In other respects I was thinking, could I sit like this on a 5 hour ride??

Not sure if I could live with that 100% of the time....hmmmmm. Decisions decisions

Sammyw23

p.s. the actual ride was very comfortable...its just that low body position.......

FransJacques

But the position is just a stem and some spacers. You can buy a really nice 3T stem for £30 so don't believe the hype.

Take any frame - and I mean any frame - you can replicate yur current butt and hand position on that frame with appropriately sized seatpost and stem. It's simply wrong when a bike review talks about "aggressive position". It means they didn't bother or didn't want to replicate the position from their bike.

My whole point is, if you like the Cannondale Sammy, tell the shop to set it up with the same height and length of your current bike then ride it again. Even a few degrees of saddle tilt can make a big difference to pedalling feel. It's a pain but getting it right pays off huge.

You can also take a bike, any bike, and tune the ride by slightly lowering and shifting the saddle rearwards on its rail and by raising or just flipping the stem. It puts a bit more weight over the rear wheel and feels more stable. It's what I do for Flanders and Roubaix (or will do for Roubaix, this June is my first). If you jack the saddle up and shift it forward then lower the stem, you'll feel more racey.

Just my 2 cents. I've had a Alu Cannondale MTB for 10 years and it's great. I've only ridden and old Caad 5 or 6 for about 60 kms 6-7 years ago and it was fine. Didn't stand out as too stiff. A 25mm rear tyre deflects 1000x more than a frame does. Don't believe the sheit a lot of magazine guys print, it's really rubbish. Some of Pez' s stuff and Leonard Zinn are great because they have some decent experience. Not sure about blogs but there's surely some decent equipment blogs out there.

Sammyw23

Sorry for my ignorance but can you explain how you can add spacers on a bike which doesn't have them already? I thought if you had spacers there already then you could play about the stem height but if it didn't come with them then you couldn't add spacers afterwards?

FransJacques

then you're fooked. but then you can yell at the shop for cutting it too short if it's a new bike in question.

but it is fit we're talking about here so I tell customers to buy a new fork - carbon forks are *only* £200 and if their back is screaming they quickly shell out.

if they are cheapskates, there are plenty of angled stems out there - specialized make a nice adjustable one which uses a shim which is like a cam

also, now that all handlebars are 31.8, you can easily use an el cheapo MTB stem with a 45 or 60 deg angle - check out the MTB bucket shop sites like Merlin or JE James or All Terrain or Action Bikes or whatever it's called

Sean1504

Bit late on this but test rode the CAAD 9, Six Carbon and BMC Road Racer yesterday and for me the Six Carbon and BMC were miles ahead of the CAAD9 in terms of comfort with the Six Carbon just edging it.