Cannonale ATV's

[70ATC90]

I have an opportunity to buy a cannondale in about a week. Whats the general consensus on them? Are they the same company that makes mountain bikes?

[smokinwrench]

Yes same company that builds the moutnain bikes. They sold off the atv business to ATK. As far as I know ATK still sells the left over machines at new models or did. CHAINSAW owned 1 and I rode it a little. It had a full Olins suspension on it. It was super fast stock, I would say faster then any current model atv. The ride was unreal plush. It had had power like a 2 stroke but was a 4 stroke.

Now for the bad stuff they are very unreliable it seems. If you read around on the net, most peopel will say they are glad they got rid of them but a few swear by them being the best thing ever. I know the guy that CHAINSAW'S was buying it as a second machien and he loves them.

[Kilborg]

There is a cult following of them. General concencus is that they are not the most reliable bike, but fast anyway. Parts are pretty hard to come by as well.

Google cannondale atv and youll come up with the cannondaler forum...good info there.

[SWIGIN]

atvriders.com has a cannondale thread you might want to check there

[Lomax]

The cannondale is a very fast and rideable machine. Its good for someone who is EXTREMLY mechainclly enclined and a good knowledge of how to work on things and is very paiteint. You can basically rule out taking it to any shop because the complexity of the engine would have Honda dealers scratching there heads at how it ever worked. they do have lots of issues that need to be addressed before I owuld consider one of them reliable. The fuel injection system is even different than anything else out there. If you have one and all the problems worked out then I say that they are truley a remarkable machine that Is definatly something worth having.
-Will

[mad]

buy it and store it away,they will the next tiger atcs...RARE.

[SWIGIN]

i forgot about this post....but since i posted i had a dale show up at my track and they do run strong but they are not anything special

in fact id say they feel goofy to ride but to each his own

[tecat-z]

Years ago before the 450's were out, i knew 3 people who loved the Dales. But.. they do require a unique way of attention. Even though these people loved them at the time, they referred to the as "mechanicdales". Something was always happening with fuel delivery, ignition, and things i can't even describe. None of these people own them any more, and moved on the the trx 450r and yfz. They are a very unique and complex, race bred atv, that require a lot of understanding. It was, and still is ahead of it's time.

[torker]

I still have some left over parts from my 440. It was a great quad, when it was working fine. Only had 1, really, BIG issue with it. The used to break the crankshaft, mainly, because of lack of lubrication and a bad quality bearing. That can lead to an engine that granades itself into a whole lot of worthless parts.
Once that happens, it's very expensive to fix them right. I sold everything on E-Bay. Still habve the stock rear shock that may go or may not go into my no linkage drag machine.
The engine should have used more development, but Cannondale ran out of money. The way they breath thru the front and exhaust thru the rear (head is backwards to any other quad out there) is still a cool and advanced feature, among a lot of other little details.
But agreed, they were and still are ahead of their time. Ahhh and were UGLY AS HELL.
TORKER.

[Trikeaholic]

"the finger" had one (or still does) I rode it at TF and it was a freakin animal. Awesome for a golf cart.

[the tecate kid]

I had my ex-factory "NACS" racing cannondale moto at trikefest last year and will be bringing it again this year. I have owned it since 2004 when the team was dissolved. I have done nothing to the quad except change the oil and clean the air filter. As with anything, maintenance is the life of the machine. Even in the owners manual it states how crucial fresh oil is to the "race-bred" engine. Maybe I just got lucky, or maybe the other ones with problems were just flat neglected?

[trizilla]

well, i thought i would throw my opinions in here. when cannondale owned the machines i went to Bedford Pa to the factory for training. this was in the early 2000's. i remember seeing about 40 or so of the 1st yr quads piled up. these were units to be destroyed. then they were called an fx 400 , black and gray in color. im not 100% sure but i dont think there are many of those out there. the 1st yr quads had major issues with crank bearings. we ( at the dealership) had to return 2 of these and the customers were given new units. the replacements were cannibals. these machines were awesome right out of the box and the cannibal was there bottom of the line machine. i did alot of work on some of the units we sold and some i never saw after delivery to the customer. mechaniclly the engines were very simple to work on. however some of you guys hit the nail on the head with fuel delivery and ignition issues. these could be alot of fun to diagnose. the engines were also very loud due to having gear driven camshaft. i dont remember if it was dual or single but i do remember during my training we dissassembled the engine and tons of gears and tons of gear lash. well anyway my opinion of these bikes, some guys spent $10000.00 on a brand new blaze and ran the crap out of them and some spent that much for nothing but headaches.

[SWIGIN]

The way they breath thru the front and exhaust thru the rear (head is backwards to any other quad out there) is still a cool and advanced feature, among a lot of other little details.
But agreed, they were and still are ahead of their time. Ahhh and were UGLY AS HELL.
TORKER.

so the head is like a old lt 80....lol

they were a little to advanced for the time....but your right about the ugly part

they always reminded me of a bull frog from the front

[Lomax]

I have had mine for awhile now. There have been several "updates" done to mine so reliability hasnt been and i dont think will be much of an issue. The handling is differnt than other 450 class machines ( a little tall feeling) but nothing that i find objectionable. As far as looks, I like it because it doesnt have the "knife cut look like everyhting the hell else styling". Power wise, i am not familer with a bone stock one but mine has very little problem disposing of piped/modded YFZ 450's and 700 Raptors.
Mantinence should be on the high side of things. I change my oil every 2-3 tanks of fuel. I failed to do this once and the check valve stayed open and filled the engine and cyclinder up with oil. Changing the plug is also beyond a chore in comparision to some (not all) ATV's.
I think alot of the dislike has to do with understanding. Its not as simple as going out there and changing jets in the carb, rather, I plug in my laptop ( I have a D&M kit along with every basic map program along with many, many custom ones) to get things panned out. Its not just a simple drain plug on the bottom of the engine but rather several of them in a few locations to deal with. I dont have an airbox anymore but from what I could tell, taking the seat off and removing a few clips would be far easier than what this machine required.
I have it for a collectors item more than anything. There were only around 4000 of them made and there have been many of them parted out or destroyed. that doesnt make it near as rare as a Tiger but does make it already more uncommon than the 350x for example, will ever be,
-Will

[SWIGIN]

well said

most dale guys say with the updates they are pretty reliable.....and atk or who ever is makeing them now sell them with all curent updates already installed (i got this info from the cannondale thread on atvrides)