Corinthian

Cannondale has fallen so very far from the days of Tinker, ACC, Missy etc - ironically the very era they constantly attempt to hark back to in their marketing. Shame it’s all smoke & mirrors, just another boring ol’ corporate name plate now.

Most interesting release I’ve seen in ages; more bikes of this price / quality please, Bike Trade.

Big hole in bottom of downtube for shock - check Small holes either side of down tube (for cables/hoses) - nah, what are those?

Looks tidy (I particularly like that headtube junction weld area) but the bike itself does seem a little bit confused, in terms of marketed intentions vs specs.

@Muscovir: Santa Cruz didn’t create VPP - they bought it, following on from Interbike ‘95. The two owners of Outland figured out the original design, Santa Cruz (and Intense) did a deal to gain the patents.

Damn. :/

They’re going to sell a fair few of those, I think - that Foundation model in particular looks to be excellent value. Nice bike.

@nouser: The Epic (minus the fork) is a circa $/€5K ask for an OEM produced Far Eastern CF frame that Spesh ought to be able to leverage economies of scale upon.. as in, Pinkbike recently had an article on Bespoked Show London, that included a (very) small scale French builder called Selwyn. €3800 their way gets you a steel / alloy mix frame featuring 3D printed parts (some of the detail work is stunning), a custom tuned FAST rear shock as well as extra choices on color etc.. I know that’s a bit of an apples / oranges comparison in some respects, but it used to be that the tiny, high end boutique brands like the above attracted a premium (even if that didn’t equate to added margin for the builder) whereas now it increasingly seems like the bigger brands are taking that top spot, price wise (and I’d imagine margin wise, too)

$14K is a lot for any bike. However, that this small brand boutique bike, dripping with ultra-bling parts absolutely everywhere & built using a mix of materials & technologies is fractionally cheaper than than new top spec Spesh Epic (far eastern made CF frame & spec’d with SRAM OEM pricing parts (yet somehow approx MSRP at retail)) is somewhat eye opening… I know which I’d rather have.

I bet their customer base is going to just love the added future cost of a replacement Ceramicspeed headset bearing & labor on that bad boy.. :/