Cannondale CAAD10 Ultegra

Has anyone any thoughts on whether this would make a good sportive bike? I have previously had a Specialized Roubaix Comp SL2 and an 'old style' Scott CR1 Pro, both of which I have found very comfortable over long distances. I am thinking of this alongside the Scott Solace 20 and Rose CGF3000. The Cervelo R3 is tempting but probably out of my price range

i got my caad10 last week and it is doing exactly that clanking noise.
it stopped for a couple of days, but now it's back.
not as bad, but definitely back.
feel free to pm me if you want to stey in touch about this

I bought a CAAD10 105 last August and it's generally excellent - very quick, handles well, comfortable over long distances and it has been totally reliable apart from one thing - the BB30.

Put some power down on a hill climb and the BB clicking starts, from then on it just gets worse and worse until it's an embarrassing clanking on every turn of the cranks, even under light pressure. The first time it happened was only 200 miles from new and the shop replaced the BB. After a few hundred miles more, the new one is clanking even more than the previous one did, and it's heading back for repairs again.

Anyone else bought one and had similar problems? Any luck talking directly to Cannondale about it?

I've had one of these for a couple of months, and have now covered enough ground on it to have a view. I've had alloy, steel, ti and carbon bikes in the past, but keep coming back to alloy for the combination of lightness and road feedback.

In fact, I still love my Specialized Allez, my first proper road bike, and the only one that's survived various bike culls along the way. But it dates from 2003 – back when the Allez was the big S's only road bike, though that sounds incredible now. Boy it's a tough ride: it majors on stiffness to a point where any route of more than a couple of hours leaves me aching.

The CAAD10 seems – though I haven't yet ridden them back to back – to have a similar degree of responsiveness and feel to the Allez, but it's unquestionably more comfortable. This is a pretty amazing trick to have pulled off, but when you start to look at the work that's gone into the frame, it becomes clear just how developed the tube shapes are. (It also lacks the Allez's habit of waggling its head at high speed, which is quite a relief.)

The running gear is all good, with a special mention for the SLK carbon crankset. Not so keen on the shape of the shifter hoods, but that's a personal thing; most people like Ultegra.

One final thing to note: as in the review, the head tube's pretty short at 155mm, but it does come with an high 25mm cone, taking the whole assembly to 170mm – pretty standard, I think, for a road bike?

I saw the caad10 2012 in a bike shop and i loved it´s looks. The 105 equipped black model had an fsa-gossamer crankset on it that harmonizes very well with the rest of the black caad10. Has anybody said yet how much of a beauty it is?
I test-rode the bike and went for it. The changes on the original setup i made were elite wheels instead of the shimanos and an ultegra 11-28 cog-set instead of the 12-27 105 cog-set.
I also changed the prologo saddle for my selle italia and chose keo carbon pedals. With two black aluminum bottle cages the caad10 weighs about 8,2 kgs.
The only thing i still have to adapt ist he handlebar for the bike came with a 46cm handlebar that is to wide for me. This will be done in the first service. And then i´ll fuzz around with spacers and saddle position.
What i like about my new bike ist hat it is light and very responsive. It rides smoothley and safely. It´s fun to ride it and the ride is silent, less noisy than some other aluminum or carbon bikes that i test-rode.
In spite of the trin seat stays it´s still an aluminum frame and (especially due to the selle italia slr-xp?) i feel a lot more of the road than on my classic steel bike, more than i had expected.
The „wireless“105 does a great job and i am very happy with it. The only thing is that the levers feel a bit knobby – or did the assembly line just do a bad job? I´ll see, when the steerer is changed for a narrower one, maybe the local mechanic can do a better job.
The bike came with schwalbe luganos and i´m not convinced of their performance yet. I feel unsafe on wet surfaces, felt safer with other tires (tufo cs33 special, schwalbe 4 seasons).
The first two rides i didn´t feel easy in fast turns, now i´m getting to know the handling of the bike and my trust in it´s bend-behaviour starts to grow. Yet in very narrow, very slow turns there is a point where the bike „comes faster round the corner“ than i expect it to. Will get used to that too i presume.
And as far as the frame-size discussion here: that depends on your individual physiology and likes/disklikes. I’m 1,83 m average legs and body. I think the 56 frame is perfect for me. Anyone interested should go and test-ride the bike.
By the way: in austria you´ve only got shimano-options whereas in the u.s. they also offer a sram rival equipped model (in light blue or silver).
Now way, i love the beautiful paintjob of my black caad10. ALTHOUGH and this is my only complaint: the mechanic dropped an allen key from less than 10 inches and it fell on the top tube. Hit a tiny little bit of paint from the tube, enough to see the aluminum underneath. That´s a shame! What a bad varnish! – Hey, why didn´t they anodize it in the first place? It´s made from aluminum, isn´t it?

Hi,

I'm 186cm and tested this baby last month;
I could have ridden the 56 or 58cm.

I think he'd be fine with the 56cm as I nearly went for
this myself but my shoulders too upright so 58 (57.5TT)
suited me.

I doubt RoadCC want to start sawing the steerer when they
are using a demo bike! When other testers want their hands on it!

Great review as I've come back from carbon and wanted a
smoother Alu frame with less road buzz than other Alu frames.

Use the wheels for winter but shift for some nice light sportive wheels to knock off 500g

Or go on a diet yourself

+1 on the bars set up.. many ''snappers'' like the old school set up where it was de rigeur to have drops lower straight section parallel with the road.. and a real good wrist twist when you had your hands on the hoods..

Would be interested to know how it compared to the tester's normal ride Orbea Onix - I vacillated between these 2 bikes for ages and went for the Onix in the end. Very happy with it but there's a guy on my regular route on a CAAD10 and I do still get pangs... it looks so FAST.

I was just about to comment 'nice to see someone set up compact bars properly for a change' - but I gather from the above that the testers sorted that. See so many product photos with the bottom of the drops parallel to the ground which does nothing to support your hands evenly.

Mat, who's riding the bike in the pics, isn't John, who tested the bike. Mat is 190cm. Interestingly though, he does quite often ride a 56. He's all legs.

I am 1cm taller than him and ride a 58 CAAD10. And if anything, it needs a longer stem on it. Maybe I am a gorilla or something.

Probably just wants to be a bit more upright - my stem is like that.

All those spacers under the stem! Is the tester kidding himself about what size he is?

Got to disagree about the welds I am afraid, I have a "made in the USA" CAAD 9 and the welds are much neater looking than those in your photo's. However that aside, my dale compares well to budget carbon (my other summer getting the miles in bike is a 2009 Boardman team carbon.) Love them both