Restoring a classic

[smithcorp]

My old Cannondale mountain bike has been sitting in the garage, rotting away, for about 6 years or so, but I finally took it down to the new local bike shop to make it rideable.

The bike is an interesting piece of kit - it's the SM-500, the first mountain bike Cannondale released (1984). It's notable for having different sized wheels (26" on the front, 24" rears) and a high bottom bracket clearance. I did a bit of research and found its a classic and that good ones are pretty rare these days. It has an Al frame.

I was given the bike by an American transport consultant in the early 90s. She brought it out to work here for a while and we rode together a fair bit. When she left to go home, she gave me the bike. I was never really into mountain bikes, but I rode it locally, messing about on it. It had big wide bullmoose handlebars which I stupidly replaced with straight bars and then chucked the old ones away and a fat plastic seat with springs, which i replaced with a narrower racing-style saddle.

It's pretty tired and grimy now, perished tires etc and it needs a fair bit of work to get it back to rideable - I figured beyond my time or skills these days. However, after I had done some research on the bike, I decided I wanted to bring it back to original style as much as possible.

Consulting with the bike shop dudes (they really liked the bike - blown away by the 5-speed casette on the back!) they figured the tires will be the hardest things (I'll probably have slicks put on if they can find matching 26" and 24" ones), but the mechanic needs to look at it and get back to me.

I'm hoping to track down some bullmoose bars to put back on it, and keep all the original cranks, brakes, derailleurs etc (since they are certainly not worn out from my inspections).

I'll update this post when I know more, but I'm quite looking forward to getting back on the bike.

smiss

ps - this is how it looks now...pretty sad and neglected.




After I busted

[norbs]

What sort of handle bars are bullmoose? Like my old Holstar?

[smithcorp]

Like this: " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Bars and stem integrated.

[macca]

That'll be a cool little project, I like those early hard tail type mountain bikes, probably because I've got an old Trek bike just like that (but not as old, probably early '90's).

Mine has the big arsed comfy seat with the springs, love it, with straight-ish bars & the extenders like yours. Mine did cop a bit of a pouinding in the day though, usually rolling end over end following me down the slope ahh, I couldn't ride like that anymore.

Like those moose bars

[Cutter]

Smiss.
My MTB obsessed son begs for more pictures of the brakes and gears.
Also this would be a great photo essay as it gets back to condition.

[smithcorp]

It's currently stil lat the bike shop, but here's a site with more info on the bike including some close-ups: http://mombat.org/MOMBAT/Bikes/1984_Cannondale.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The brakes are just BMX brakes on the rear (and pretty weak) and the gears are a 5-speed cassette. The rear cassette's in great nick, no hooking or bad wear, but the rear axle is stuffed, so a new wheel is needed.

smith

[smithcorp]

Long time since I updated this thread. Forgot all about it and remembered when I had a ride today - the most glorious Autumn day. Here's a shot of the bike post-fix-up. It's a nice comfy ride for cruising about. Next step is getting one of the road bikes back on the road.



smith