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TECH NEWS
New Cannondale “Slate” gravel bike will have 650b wheels and 30mm suspension fork
Following the first news last week that Cannondale is set to launch a new gravel road bike, the company has just released a second video that provides a lot more detail about the new bike. We know now that it’ll be called the Slate and the Lefty suspension fork, as we predicted, will offer just 30mm of bump-absorbing travel. As for the wheels, well they’re going to be 650b size.
Update: A few more details have emerged since we published this article yesterday. It appears the new Slate will only be offered with an aluminium frame and there will be three models at launch. Cannondale will also use 12x142mm thru-axle dropouts.
Cannondale is having a launch event in a couple of weeks time. We’re going (well, Tony is) so we’ll have a lot more information, and first ride impressions, on the new bike then, but it seems Cannondale has decided to let the cat out of the bag before the official launch.
The big reveal from this video is that the bike will roll on 650b mountain bike wheels, which in conjunction with a 42mm tyre provides the same outside wheel diameter as a 700c rim fitted with a 22mm tyre. The effective wheel size is the same but you benefit from a hugely increased tyre volume, providing a greater deal of comfort and increased resistance to punctures, an important consideration for a bike designed to spend a lot of time on rough trails and surfaces.
650b wheels have exploded in the mountain bike industry in the last couple of years, and virtually wiping out the old 26in wheel standard in the process. As for 650b wheels on road bikes, well this isn't the first time road bikes have had 650b wheels, the French were at it over a hundred years ago with their randonneur bikes.
Cannondale isn't the only company cottoning onto the benefits of the 650b wheelsize. At Bespoked earlier this year, Hallett Handbuilt Cycles showed this one-off 650b steel touring bike.
The Lefty suspension fork will provide 30mm of travel, and is the most distinctive feature of the new bike. Will the whole range be fitted with the Lefty or will it offer versions with a regular rigid fork? We’ll just have to wait and see. Adding a suspension fork to a gravel/cyclocross bike certainly opens up the severity of the terrain you’re able to ride over, and obviously increases comfort up front.
“Road bikes are definitely changing. I thought people would want something that is a lot more capable, something that’s not so confined to race or 200 mile rides or anything like that, so and kind of made people feel youthful too,” says Cannondale product manager David Devine in the video.
It’s clear from the video the new bike has an aluminium frame that has many tubing similarities with the CAAD10, but also tube shapes that are significantly different. It’s highly likely that Cannondale will offer a carbon fibre version at some stage, if not at launch the in future model years. The two bikes in the video are clearly prototype mules, so it could be Cannondale has a full range of aluminium and carbon fibre models ready for the launch.
We’re sure Cannondale has worked the tube profiles of the frame with its SAVE technology to provide some amount of compliance at the rear end, and will it use the 25.4mm seatpost from the Synapse as well? It’s highly likely.
The new bike has disc brakes, of course, but it doesn’t appear to have gone with a thru-axle rear end. The Lefty fork uses a unique thru-axle design and it’s reckoned to be one of the stiffest suspension forks in the mountain bike market. No easy place to mount a mudguard though, but dead easy to change an inner tube.
Top cyclocross racer Tim Johnson adds: “There’s a lot of people that don’t care about racing, and I think that’s something that is easily forgotten.”
More on the new bike soon.
David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes.
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41 comments
"I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it."
As someone said earlier, the Lefty 'fork' simply looks wrong on an aesthetic level to me because it's asymmetrical. For the same reason, I don't like motorbikes with a number plate to one side! I've yet to ride one so that's all I can say for now.
Bikes are asymmetrical anyway as you have the drivetrain on one side.
Thanks for all the comments guys, even the grumpy 'oh it's all marketing BS!'
If you want to see the bike it will first be on public display at the Tour Of The Borders Sportive in Peebles/Scotland on August 9th. It will then be at the NEC show and then the London show in Feb.
We will have a demo fleet available to try later this year.
The comments are a great way of us as a manufacturer getting a feel for what the enthusiasts think about it. We will now passionately refer to this bike in the office as 'the dentists bike'!
Any word on a release date?
Looking like the tail end of the year to actually ship guys but as with all these things, could be sooner or later.
Thanks for adding some useful information to the article & I look forward to seeing one and maybe even riding a demo model in time.
Oh, and surely it should be the dentist's other bike; isn't their first a Pinarello Dogma?
Yet another marketing trick.
Who knows, this bike can spark a new class of bikes. It takes the availability of 650b wheels as an opportunity and blends them with a low travel suspension as 700c wheels are perhaps not applicable because you are too high. Brilliant! For years, road and MTB have been living in separate galaxies; high time to blur the distinction.
Sometimes i don't feel comfortable on my cross bike because i feel i'm too high above the road. Maybe it's a solution to my problem.
I began with mountain bikes (Scalpel eh) but lost interest and switched (7 years ago) to the road. Now riding every day as a commuter and more, but sometimes i want to go where cars don't.
A do it all bike for ordinary riders.
Many UK cross bikes are touring bikes with a sexier name to allow commuters to feel they are adventurous on the dreary run to work.
Gravel bikes are an extension of the same theme.
Niche within niche within niche, as bicycles become middle class hobby horses rather than sports equipment or commuting tools....
(I think I may be grumpy this evening, having had 2 hours sleep in the last 24...)
I embrace the choice, but despise the bullshit.
Marketing depts do not drive product categories or innovation, we are not industrial designers or engineers.
This bike was born directly from Tim Johnson one of Cyclocross Pro's wanting a Lefty of his cross bike which worked well so the PRODUCT MANAGERS AND BIKE DESIGNERS started exploring other avenues just as the 'gravel scene' in America was really coming into the limelight.
The bike has been in development for 2 years and the first time the marketing department saw it was last November, AFTER it had been scheduled for production.
If you despise bullshit, keep yours to yourself. Move along conspiracy theorists, move along.....
Surely the reason for the 650B is the suspension travel?! If you had a lefty with a 700C wheel, it would lift the front of the bike too high surely?
Spot on again, I knew road.cc attracted the more intelligent ones amongst the cycling community!
A cross bike for dentists.
The whole 'gravel' bike thing is yet another marketeers idea, filmed into a dusty sunset, coordinated clothing, groomed beards, quad copter footage of endless dirt roads, male bonding for metrosexuals, vague techno advances to convince the geeks, sneak preview, advance promo, larger volume, niche-to-the-death, achingly trendy, twitter viral nonsense.
They'll be ridden on cross sportives and along the Rochdale canal, like we've been doing for 40 years.
If you're happy with that, great. But why are people so critical of more choice?
I can't ride along a canal path on my road bike. Well, I can, but it's not too much fun.
In the same way, proper road bikes have split between "endurance" and "race" why can't you split "cross" and "gravel" bikes in a similar way.
I love new, interesting things anyway. That's why i'm here reading it.
Yes, but maybe the bike industry have caught up with this and is now producing bikes better suited for it ... bike which are not cross bikes, road bikes, or mountain bikes .. they need a name to help define them, so what's wrong with 'gravel' bikes.
Many UK cross bikes are pretty much 'gravel' bikes already, cause they have bottle cages, guard mounts etc, and often don't have proper 'cross' geometry, so aren't really cross bikes. Perhaps this 'marketing' of 'gravel' bikes will actually make these bikes more appealing because they dis-associate them from cross racing, because most of us that fancy a do it all bike don't want a bike that's designed for racing (or perhaps 'appears' to be for racing thanks to its name).
Brilliant!
The lefty suspension fork might be good from rough UK roads.. perhaps if they made a vairent with 700c wheels and smaller tyres I might be interested.
The lefty suspension fork might be good from rough UK roads.. perhaps if they made a vairent with 700c wheels and smaller tyres I might be interested.[/quote]
In theory this 30mm travel fork should work fine with a 700c wheel and 23/25mm tyres as 650b+42mm gets you to the same diameter wheel.
In theory this 30mm travel fork should work fine with a 700c wheel and 23/25mm tyres as 650b+42mm gets you to the same diameter wheel.[/quote]
I believe the geometry is mostly taken straight from the Synapse too...
Actually this uses our 'Elite' geometry so similar to a CAAD10 or Evo.
That would be missing the point of the whole concept of the bike though MustBeMad.
The suspension on this bike will feel quite different to that of a mountain bike fork. For example it has zero sag so that the bike sprints and climbs like normal road bike. The tyres having such deep sidewalls will contribute the majority of the terrain absorption, control and comfort but the same overall diameter as a 700x23 means it will steer sharply. If you went with a 700c you'd need a huge tyre to get the same comfort and compliance and then it will steer slower and have more road drag (longer contact patch).
Hope that explains it a bit better, I thought the 650 was a bit bonkers but it makes sense when you ride it.
I really like this. From other stuff I've read online, it seems it maintains a lot more speed and efficiency than anything apart from a rigid fork.
Not sure it would work for most UK riders though (which is fine, it's not really made for us). I can't find much round where I am to use my "gravel" (it's a tourer with 41 tyres) bike. But, this is sooo slow on the road, I can't hack too much road in between bridleways.
Just hoping that as more people start buying this bike, then the roadies I meet on my way to/from work won't keep looking down their nose at my hybrid front sus commuter....
The more I look at this “Slate” the more I struggling a little to understand what sort of terrain this bike is aimed at. Your typical gravel path/fire road is easily dispatched on a cyclocross bike or a road bike with 28mm tyres (or you can buy a “gravel” bike if you buy the marketing), your typical singletrack is easily dispatched on a 26-650b-29er with or without any suspension and a 2.1inch tyre. So what exactly would a 650b with a 42mm tyre and 30mm suspension be designed for? It doesn’t seem to have any rack/mudguard provision (ok the pics are prototype) so touring/commuting/expedition isn’t the target, someone please enlighten me!
Oh and by the way, Lefty’s are the best sus-fork I’ve ever ridden, but I did also own a 1985 Cannondale SM600 with a 24inch rear wheel and 26inch front wheel so I know Cannondale can get it wrong at times!
Who is i designed for? That is a very good question and one that I struggled with myself almost a year ago when I saw the prototype.
The bike market has exploded over the last ten years with bike ownership and usage going through the roof. With this explosion has come lots of new styles of bike, niches within niches, hybrids of hybrids so that now there is literally a bike for every possible use that may float your boat.
Right now I have become bored of riding on road around Dorset as I've done every route and the roads are completely clogged up at the weekend with sportive and tourist traffic. However there's no real challenging off road in Dorset for 'proper mountain biking' so i've mostly been riding a GT Grade with 35mm Sammy Slicks off road.
This bike would probably be perfect for me, my background is BMX and MTB so I like popping wheelies and bunny hopping stuff but I also want to get a sweat on and the miles in too. And I want it to look cool and desirable and for people to stare at it in wonder (shoot me down now forum but that's the truth)!
However, this bike has so many angles that it's impossible to nail down who's going to buy them but the comments i'm watching on every website (sorry road.cc but I do look at others)! have been strong, everyone seems intrigued by the bike for sure.
What if you want to mix singletrack, with fireroad and also tarmac. Mountain bike is great on singletrack, good on fireroad but rubbish on road. Really you need something like a cross bike, but many cross bikes are designed for fast short blasts (cross races, funily enough).
Yes, a lot of cross bikes have actually been do everything bikes, and so you could certainly argue that they are basically what these new gravel bikes are.
But that's kind of the point, many cross bikes were not actually cross bikes!
Bingo! You nailed it!
Really exciting new bike from Cannondale, and refreshing to see the Lefty and 650 wheels
Lefty are great forks, if you've ever owned one or ridden one properly. Makes a lot of sense for this style of bike. They had some issues with the roller bearings migrating on earlier models, but otherwise have been golden. Like any proprietary fork, they need servicing by a specialist.
Headshocks had very poor suspension quality in comparison to Lefty, even with the aftermarket upgrade from Magura, etc.
Slate does look like a really interesting bike, and keen to see if other manufacturers follow suit. I am already thinking about getting a Giant Revolt, stripping down and rebuilding with Ultegra 6800 / hydro discs and tubeless wheels
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