How To Rebuild a Classic 1999 Cannondale Without the Cannondale Pricetag

If you've read this e-rag long enough, you'll know I'm an inveterate scrounger with a passion for bicycles my naighbours put on the street for hard rubbish collection. My daily rider, in equal measure with my Greenspeed is a 1995 Giant Sedona, built up as a modern, disk brake adventer bike with a "kind of" ATB geometry. Metal 3D printing, ordered online, made significant parts of this restomod not only possible, but an absolute dream to ride. A new fork made a front disk possible, metal 3D printing made a rear disk brake possible and an aggressive, "suspension corracted" and modern head angle, perfect for a mountain/gravel bike crossover. I say "crossover" rather than "hybrid" because this thing is a serious all roads beast!.

So, with a "new" acoustic bike that even beats the fun of riding my electric Greenspeed GT20, I began wondering if the other "super-salvage" bike in my bike shed, a 1999 Cannondale F1000 in legendary "Reptile Fade" paint might not be salavageable, despite its buggered Fatty HeadShok. 'Dales of that era have an utterly non-standard head bearig setup. Halfway between EC44 and EC56, with only a handful of expensive brands making adapters for more modern suspension forks, 3D printing could possibly make a standard bearing set possble. You know? Like a ZS44/28.6 maybe?

Two things to check, is a shim possible and will it have to be thick to prevent flex and eventual fracture? In short... yes and no! Which means it's not only possible, it's totally doable, and the approach I've taken, seeing as I'm replacing the fork with a long travel air shock, more than twice the travel of the original Fatty, the shim is nothing more than an aluminium ring, 50.6mm outside diameter, 3.25mm thick and 6mm tall. It literally sits tightly inside the stock bearing cup and takes a 44mm bearing cup from the new headset, a ZS44/28.6 headset. 2 of these rings, one for the top, one for the bottom. So simple and elegant! All the metal of the shim supported fully by the stock 50.6mm cups, all the metal of the new headset cups held firmly and tightly by the shims. Only 20mm more stack height (at most) and, as I need a high handlebar, because of my neek, there won't be anything cut from the steerer. So, I'll just have a nice, long spacer up to the stem, cut and machined from a length of 40x3mm aluminium tube from a local supplier. All for about half the cost of an off-the-shelf adapter! Brilliant!

You can get hold of the OpenSCAD and STL files here. For those who don't know what a headset is, it's the steering head bearings for a bicycle, as per the second image, above, while the shim is the first picture and it allows a 44mm bearing cup to sit tightly into a 50.6mm bearing cup. Two of these shims are needed. JLC3DP.com (<-- a refferal link) also do aluminium now and their prices can just beat out PCB Way if you choose the cheapest postage option. Mine cost me AU$47 including postage and for something that even so much as references "Cannondale" in the manufacturing sector, expect to pay twice that and way more if an actual 'Dale part.

Cheers,
Crunchy.

Also, in case you want to run an antique 'Dale from the F-Series era with a modern rigid fork, my Headlifter widget is also printable in aluminium at your favourite metal printing service and provides 40mm of suspension correction, which would be appropriate for the "up-to" 70mm travel seen on HeadShoks of the era.