Spotted: A Better Look at Cannondale's New Long Travel Bike
Back in November of last year, a new bike from Cannondale was spotted out in the wild. The already carbon-framed enduro looking bike took many cues from the twin shock design that Cannondale had been using on their race only downhill bike.
The frame, however, looked to only be using one of the two shock mount positions that the DH bike was using. The possibility to run two shocks gave Cannondale the opportunity to drive the spring and damper via different linkages and open up more tuning possibilities, which they further did with the addition of multiple links to swap out given a certain track style or rider preference.
Recently though, the grey framed enduro bike has been spotted again, and despite the raw machined aluminium linkages it hints that we're potentially getting closer to a new bike from Cannondale. Given the look of how much travel it could well be a new Jekyll.
The shock is still nestled in the down tube, with the big volume tube having to split to skirt around the shock, something that the DH bike also did. There's a fixed cover on the underside of the down tube to give some protection to the shock.
The bike is still a high pivot design, although it's also a four bar design. The idler pulley adjusts the chain line to accommodate for the more rearward axle path and to give the possibility to fine-tune the bike's anti-squat given the extra degree of freedom in the chain line.
The previous generation Jekyll was a whole different beast, with a single pivot suspension system and widely sprawling link and shock layout. The new bike condenses most of the heavy and moving parts down close to the bottom bracket and leaves room for a bottle higher up on the down tube, as opposed to the old bike's bottle mounted down by the bottom bracket on the seat tube.
Recently though, the grey framed enduro bike has been spotted again, and despite the raw machined aluminium linkages it hints that we're potentially getting closer to a new bike from Cannondale. Given the look of how much travel it could well be a new Jekyll.
The shock is still nestled in the down tube, with the big volume tube having to split to skirt around the shock, something that the DH bike also did. There's a fixed cover on the underside of the down tube to give some protection to the shock.
The bike is still a high pivot design, although it's also a four bar design. The idler pulley adjusts the chain line to accommodate for the more rearward axle path and to give the possibility to fine-tune the bike's anti-squat given the extra degree of freedom in the chain line.
The previous generation Jekyll was a whole different beast, with a single pivot suspension system and widely sprawling link and shock layout. The new bike condenses most of the heavy and moving parts down close to the bottom bracket and leaves room for a bottle higher up on the down tube, as opposed to the old bike's bottle mounted down by the bottom bracket on the seat tube.
The bike's layout and design heritage can be traced all the way back to a UK based brand, K9 Industries, and Luis Arraiz. He was ahead of the curve in respect to rearward axle paths and idlers and his work at GT and Cannondale have followed on from this with the GT Fury also employing a four-bar, high pivot design with an idler. The Cannondale DH bike prototype was likely a fantastic project for him to let his mind go wild, without many of the limitations of production, and many of their findings with that bike have likely been ploughed into this new bike.
Fingers crossed we will still have some racing going on this year as it will be interesting to see if the potentially new Jekyll will be under any racers come Switzerland and the opening round of the EWS in Zermatt. It has already been seen close to there, around the Italian Alps, in 50:01's Hold Tight edit.
We've reached out to Cannondale but with no word back yet. We'll keep everyone updated when more information or sightings of the bike emerge.
Author Info:
Member since Apr 6, 2019
Must Read This Week
Sign Up for the Pinkbike Newsletter - All the Biggest, Most Interesting Stories in your Inbox
PB Newsletter Signup
Setting your expectations that high is only going to lead to disappointment. Just ask my asian dad.
I rode the K9 AM bike that never went into production and it was amazing.
Hopefully the long-term review appearing tomorrow will have a few less grainy pictures ;-)
"Well yes, I was right about to sign off on the design and put the frame we have been developing for the last 2 years into production, but then I saw this comment on pinkbike from dthomp325 and yes, I think we should scrap it all and start again, he isn't planning to buy the bike but he thinks we should put 2 water bottles in it."
A little unlettered this morning.
Ah, i get it now. So you´re saying it basically looks the same as a Balfa BB7!