98 Cannondale F2000 - Is it worth it?

7Speed

Retro Guru
One of the bikes I always liked BITD was the pre-Lefty Headshock Cannondale frequently seen being ridden around the World Cup circuit by Alison Sydor and Tinker Juarez when they were with the Volvo Cannondale team. The rider friendly lockout of the Headshock and the supposed more direct handling vs early suspension forks were supposed to be great. They looked nice obviously (or was that just me?). I also hear Headshocks are a maintenance horror show, especially if you go anywhere near the needle bearings; requiring the patience of a saint. Anyone have a view Or ownership experience? IMG_0632.jpeg
 
Hi -anyone have any ownership experience with Cannondale Headshock bikes - good or bad?
 
Same questions I'm interested in. I have a headshok on a Silk Road I just purchased. It was sold as the heashok working but it isn't. It locks out but as soon as you unlock it it the fork bottoms out. I need to strip it and check it all. Parts do still seem available thankfully. No idea what the internals even are or on the short travel fork.
 
I had a Cannondale headshok equipped bike for about a year back in the early 2000s (before I was mugged for it). Can't say anything about it maintenance wise as I never did any and it ran perfectly.
 
Yeh
Thanks D - Headshock ok to live with too?
yeh it’s been ok so far but I don’t use it much.

People get scared about lefty/ head shocks but I’ve serviced a lefty before and was easy.

Improvepart do the tools for the headshok now I think
 
Same questions I'm interested in. I have a headshok on a Silk Road I just purchased. It was sold as the heashok working but it isn't. It locks out but as soon as you unlock it it the fork bottoms out. I need to strip it and check it all. Parts do still seem available thankfully. No idea what the internals even are or on the short travel fork.

Air or coil/oil ?
 
I ran an air headshok on an F4 in/around 2010 - largely to scratch the headshok itch that I had had since a teen.

It worked well enough, and the stem cap lockout was brilliant - but it didn’t have much travel, and I blew the valve a few times on heavy landings, which was an easy fix. Tracked well, as you’d expect - and the gaiter does a really good job of keeping crap out when zippied in place. I abused the hell out of it, and when I removed it to change front ends it was still in good nick.

In the end though I swapped it out for a conventional Fox fork for more (and better damped) travel, and also a greater selection of stems given the switch to 1 1/8.

Really didn’t get on with the aluminium frame moving from steel, and it died from some horrific chain suck. Would I go back to a headshok, probably not as I don’t like the harshness of an alu Cannondale frame. If you’re watching weight and want something to take the sting out then it’s worth a go.
 
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