Cannondale Super V 4000 DH -97
- Thread starter Dami
- Start date
Moto forks pop up time to time usually in German marketplaces (I've got two of them from there), the coda hubs also but not that often (my motos came with the hubs), and during my years I think I've seen only one sale ad for those chain guides, so they are very very difficult to find separately..
Downhill-Dan
Senior Retro Guru
Honestly what the last guy said, both hard to find but especially the chain guide I don't think you will find one! Let me know if you fancy selling the frame though!...
Hi!
As everyone here knows, back in the days we all had our realistic dream bikes, and then there were the bikes we had in our posters. Cannondale Super V 4000 DH was The Poster Bike for me when I first saw it in Mountain Bike Guide magazine 1996. Had my hopes high for it, but when the -97 Finnish bike catalogue was finally published, I found out that it was the most expensive bike you could buy here off the shelf with a price of 34000 Finnish marks, equivalent to about 5-6 months average monthly earnings here back then (about 8000 current euros)So buried my dream for some decades until finding a potential project bike last Autumn here.
The bike itself had a lot of work to be done, but it had original paint, Sachs brakes, Moto fork and the original hubs laced onto Mavic 121's. Originally it had Sun Rhyno Lites, but these 121's were a good upgrade. Was also missing the Coda Magic cranks as the original owner had broke those (probably one of the call back ones). Wanted to make this look a bit more to my liking, so instead of codas went for roox cranks and cockpit. Biggest issue with it all was with the fork that was leaking badly and it had a nasty dent in the right stanchion.
Headshok isn't the easiest fork to service as it needs some special tools which meant I had to dremel myself the castle tool and the dummy cartridge tool. After that I had to source new stanchion seals for it and this seemed to be a mission impossible.. Finally I found a local seal manufacturer who made me custom ones based on the old seals, and the price was quite good considering customization, about 40 euros per pair. Next up I had to tackle the most challenging part, the dent.. Ended up having my friend machine me a cylinder as close to the ID of the stachion as possible, greasing it, jamming it in connected to a bar, giving some heat on stanchion and gently hammering the dent against the cylinder. Also applied some epoxy to the scratches below and finesanded everything.
There's still a small bump on the stanchion, but it doesn't leak that badly, so all in all it came out ok for my first dent fix!
Other than that the restoration was basic cut'n polish, affordable part hunting and small tweaks. This is how it turned out! I'm very very much looking for the Spring and a chance to test this in my local hill trails after 23 years of waiting
Cheers!
-Turkka
Absolutely stunning!!! Definitely one of my dream bikes & spec right there.
Amazing effort @Dami
7plusoneisideal
Devout Dirtbag
That's a great bike, I had the yellow slightly later version I think 1998 super v 300 dh (i will dig the pictures out) I bought it as a frameset from Mud dock in Bristol back in 1998, built it up with Moto forks, but everything else what I could afford at the time....I do remember the bike riding well.
Sadly it got stolen from my house in 2001, I like to think I would of kept it but I would probably would of sold it on at some point. Would love another one....I bet they are thin on the ground !
The moto fork I bought came with the Sachs brake.....that didn't last long as it was an absolute joke, how they raced on those brakes I have no idea
Sadly it got stolen from my house in 2001, I like to think I would of kept it but I would probably would of sold it on at some point. Would love another one....I bet they are thin on the ground !
The moto fork I bought came with the Sachs brake.....that didn't last long as it was an absolute joke, how they raced on those brakes I have no idea
