Cannondale CAAD13 / Campagnolo Super Record 11 rim brake build thread

[c60rider]

The welds at the HT look pretty good.

I wonder - would it be possible to take photos (without shadows) inside the head tube, the bottom bracket, looking down the seat tube? Would be great to see how clean things look inside, too....

I know someone who has a USB "endoscopy" camera he picked up on eBay for $20... you connect it to your phone and just feed it inside the tubes, watch the picture on the screen. It has a built-in LED light. It allowed him to pick up on some residue left inside his frame due to some sub-par internal moulding on his specialized and actually enabled him to get a replacement frame....

Took a few pictures with my phone the best I could. It was tricky with shadows but I'm pretty impressed with how it all looks and certainly poking fingers around inside it's all nice and neat in there.

Top of the head tube looking down:



Looking in through the junction box area on the down tube back up to where it meets the head tube. It was impossible to get rid of all the shadows as it was such tiny little area I was trying to get at:



Looking down the seat tube:



Where the down tube is meeting the bottom bracket shell. On the left is the clip holding the under bracket cable guide in place:



Bottom bracket with the stays on the left, seat tube top, down tube on the right:



A slightly closer look at the stays how they join the bottom bracket:

[c60rider]

And some images of the external welds. Overall I'm pretty happy with the quality of the frame.

[c60rider]

Didn't weigh the seat post and clamp previously:

[c60rider]

I used to work in injection moulding a lifetime ago and this part would have been rejected immediately. It's the cable guide for the junction box area so needs to look reasonably aesthetic. Terrible heat sink on it...

https://www.engineersrule.com/not-sunk- ... lded-part/ for those interested

[c60rider]

I've read that some are concerned with DM brakes having to thread them directly into the frame. For the forks you do this but of course if you somehow destroy the thread you can always buy new forks



But the way Cannondale have done the rear is to have a small brace and two bolts that push through from the rear and the DM bolts directly into these so not affecting the frame at all.





The problem I have is that you can't attached a rear mudguard bracket to it and looks nothing like the ones I've seen in the pictures. But this bridge is off a disc brake frame, I've not seen a rim brake one yet. And it's fatter so the existing bolts won't be long enough to go through the frame but they're just standard rim brake bolts so it's a simple case of just getting the right length to go through the bridge and the stays. Sigmasports are on the case.

[cerro]

Really nice. But I don't understand why ditching the Cannondale Expander. It's a great piece of engineering that works perfectly and is light on the same time

[3Pio]

Really nice. But I don't understand why ditching the Cannondale Expander. It's a great piece of engineering that works perfectly and is light on the same time

I also ditched Cannondale expander in my CAAD12 build, and also used Colnago Fork Expander. Colnago Expander im using in all my bikes beeing 9 cm long. That put more support to fork stereer, especially when i dont want to cut stereer all the way down. Cannondale expander push to cut the fork stereer all the way.. Add some weight but really i cant think about other better expander.. The second one im thinkiong about beeing similar is Deda which is 70mm long...

[3Pio]

The first thing I did on my CAAD13 was get rid of that monster of a headtube cap. Oddly enough the big cap almost put me in the right position with the stem slammed, but I thought it looked silly. The big problem is that the outer diameter of the headtube is 1-2mm larger than most normal dustcaps, so I have a sliver of aluminum showing when you look directly down on it. I'm not sure if I can get another with the right size, but I just used a spare I had laying around.

Not sure if CAAD12 can fit, but on my Caad12 i have dual Height Cap.. There is small height (like 5 mm ), which is part of the big cap (25mm).. So if u need high Cap u have them both, if u want beeing lower then just install small cap part.. Very nice design...

[3Pio]

To correct the reach for the tall top cap, just subtract 3mm for each 10mm of additional stack. This is mistake that many people make when comparing the same frame of two sizes. If one has a 20mm taller stack, then subtract 6mm from the reach of the smaller frame and take the difference. In this case, the 51cm is 1.2cm shorter in reach than the 54cm size. Only a 10mm longer stem would be needed, compared to the 54cm.

https://www.cannondale.com/en-us/bikes/ ... 13100m1048

That's good for the same frame of two sizes but not when you're comparing different frames from different manufacturers and even more so when you haven't got a geometry of the frame you're trying to compare it with. So for this once I've set my saddle height, which is identical on every frame, measure the height from the floor to the centre of the bars and then measure the distance from tip of the saddle to the centre of the bars. It's the easiest way without being too scientific about it to get my bikes set up close to each other. I'm not fussed within a few mm here or there although I appreciate some want mm precision.

VelogicFit Framecomparator is ur friend.. It help me a lot to adjust my position to be same on both my bikes (C60 in 50s and Caad12 52). I ralized that i need 115mm stem for my Caad12 (and after i installed Caad12 is perfect, before that i had a feeling that is flexing, but it was just my position. I was trying with 120mm stem and 110m before and both was not ideal).

Here is the link for u:

https://www.velogicfit.com/frame-comparison

[c60rider]

Really nice. But I don't understand why ditching the Cannondale Expander. It's a great piece of engineering that works perfectly and is light on the same time

I also ditched Cannondale expander in my CAAD12 build, and also used Colnago Fork Expander. Colnago Expander im using in all my bikes beeing 9 cm long. That put more support to fork stereer, especially when i dont want to cut stereer all the way down. Cannondale expander push to cut the fork stereer all the way.. Add some weight but really i cant think about other better expander.. The second one im thinkiong about beeing similar is Deda which is 70mm long...

Colnago seem to over-engineer things, example being their frames a bit heavier than they could make them purely to make them safer/stronger. When you've got the 2 expanders in your hands there's only one winner here. Plus as I said the Cannondale one stops any customising of the top cap.

[Karvalo]

Plus as I said the Cannondale one stops any customising of the top cap.

You bought a different size frame so you wouldn't have to bother buying a bearing cover but want to make sure you can fit an aftermarket topcap?

I'll be honest, I'm mildly confused at the conflicting rationales

[Karvalo]

So for this once I've set my saddle height, which is identical on every frame, measure the height from the floor to the centre of the bars and then measure the distance from tip of the saddle to the centre of the bars.

You probably meant this but just to clarify - measure from the floor to the bars and from the floor to the saddle top, subtract one from the other. BB height can vary by more than just a couple of mm, so just assuming the saddle is the same distance from the floor just because your saddle height is the same is insufficient.

[c60rider]

Plus as I said the Cannondale one stops any customising of the top cap.

You bought a different size frame so you wouldn't have to bother buying a bearing cover but want to make sure you can fit an aftermarket topcap?

I'll be honest, I'm mildly confused at the conflicting rationales

Yep you're confused I didn't buy a different sized frame purely because of the bearing cover but just because you should always buy the smallest frame you can get to fit you. The bearing cap is one item and the one supplied is huge. The top cap is a separate item and is part of the compression bung. The nature of the cannondale compression bung is that it prevents you from using any other top cap than the one supplied as the screw thread is integral within the top cap. Every other compression bung I've used has a separate top cap/bolt.

[Karvalo]

Yep you're confused I didn't buy a different sized frame purely because of the bearing cover but just because you should always buy the smallest frame you can get to fit you.

But that means every other bike you've ever owned was too big

[BagelMaster]

Didn't weigh the seat post and clamp previously:

The carbon seatpost is a maddeningly 99g lighter than the alloy seatpost. Although, the frame is not super compact, so it can stand a trim. I think it wouldn't be hard to drop ~300 grams on the cockpit and seatpost alone from stock.