1999 Cannondale - Not sure what to do with this one.

This will kill you but I was walking to the supermarket on Saturday with my daughters when I spotted what looked like a neglected BMX frame in amongst someones garden mess. I looked a little closer and noticed it had XTR V-brakes. I then saw it was a really rather sad looking old Cannondale. In true Vic & Bob style I thought to myself 'I'm avin' that'! I knocked on the door and asked the owner using the seven French words I know (I live in France) whether he wanted to sell it. The guy then said what I thought was one euro, one euro, surely not! I got my euro out and the guy seemed happy, is this happening I thought. Anyway, we carried the poor old girl home, me the frame and my daughters each a wheel.

Kind of shell-shocked I began to clean it up & soon realized it was a half decent bike. What I have is a 1999 (I checked the serial numbers on vintagecannondale.com) F-something. It's weird, someone once loved this bike and threw some decent money at it. It has a rear gen 1 Mavic Crossmax with a front later Crossmax XL. XTR brakes, XT levers and shifters, L&M crank, everything else was gash (tyres, cables, seat etc).

So, what do I do with it? Do I like it? Not sure but it's bonkers light. It needs a new rear hanger and a new boot. I re-greased the headshok bearings (about the most difficult bike maintenance I think I've ever done) and it seems like a nice bike. Frame size is small and it has a small wheel base.

Options
1. Fix it up as I'm doing with bits from the shed.
2. Spend money on it and add headset converter (1 1/4 to 1 1/ and use with proper forks with new disc wheels (£500+),
3. Part it out and make some money on it.

Would be interested to gather your thoughts.

F series alright, very nice they are too, get it built and ridden, hear too many stories of folk having these then regret selling them on

Volvo

Been building it up today & I'm thinking along the same lines. Strangely I used to own an almost identical F3000SL BITD (see pic) which I did regret selling.

Saltyman, I was wondering, could you measure the top tube of your Volvo Dale (if you still have it) when you have a sec as I want to get a snese of scale for my small frame, i.e. is it small or is it just dale sizing?

Rear derailleur hangers here: http://www.mountainbikecomponents.co.uk ... ERIC+ORDER

Top work! Can't believe the naysayers on the dale cool wall thread saying the later bikes don't look good.

I'm typing this from my shed! Volvo is 17" seattube c-c and the toptube is about 22" c-c. My 18" bad boy, stands smaller strangely but has a 23" top tube!

centre of seat tube to centre of headshock tube, at first i measured it at 22.5''

but no less than 22'' i thought it was a large size, but my badboy is a large and thats 18'' seat tube.....so who knows.

Vulva

Hmm interesting, mines 21" so not massively different. It just looks odd from a distance, the seat appears to be too far forward but it rides well and doesn't feel small. My guess is the aggressive geometry and high steerer height gives it this impression. Thanks for doing that SM.

One Euro???? :shock:

You woz robbed!!!!
:?

Cannondale around 99/2000 dropped each size by about an inch in the seat tube and lengthened the top tube by half an inch. I had an f2000 from around then which was a large. I'm only 5'8"!! The code on the bb will confirm the size