New Project. A 'relaxed' Cannondale Raven II

[jscordia]

Hi guys. I'm fairly new to this forum, and this is probably my second(ish) ever post. I'd welcome your expertise and advice!

I'm a bit of a 'dale-a-holic, currently running 3 and a half old Cannondales continuously built up over time. I have a really nice Raven II frame which until a few months ago was built up with a titanium lefty and Woodman/Mavic 317 wheels. Pretty nice. But I took these components off and stuck them on a great, lightweight F600 hardtail, thinking I was going to sell the Raven. I cant!

The reason I stopped using the Raven is that for a dual susser I found the head angle too steep.

I wondered whether anyone here has ever experimented with slackening the head angle on a Cannondale with it's 1.5" headtube using one of those Project 321 1.5 to 1.1/8th stearer adaptors plus a set of K9 industries head tube angle reducers?

If you CAN slacken the head angle by a couple of degrees what does that mean for the overall geometry for a bike like this given the same fork length.

Anyone dabbled?

I know this is a rather quirky highly specific second post, but I'd welcome any comments you guys have!

Cheers

Jon

 

[shovelon]

I say go for it!

I had the same problem with my Proflex 957. The head angle was too steep and the crosslink fork tucked under when braking nearly launching me. I went with a telescopic fork with more travel, and it slacked the head angle, and raised the front a bit, but not so much as to lift the wheel while climbing.

Good luck.

 

[jscordia]

Interesting. Thanks for the encouragement! Do you know whether any of the longer travel Leftys (the original on my Raven was a 100mm I think) such as the 110, 130 and 140 Leftys are actually longer overall and will therefore affect the bikes overall geometry and stance?

A combo of relaxed angle and longer lefty might be interesting.

Cheers

Jon

 

[shovelon]

You should be able to find out axle to crown race size somehow.

Another way to slacken head angle is to use a shorter shock if it fits.

Here is a pic of my Oz, also a carbon bike. I went from an 80mm crosslink to a 150mm telescopic. Works great.

 

[P20]

As far as i know all headshok compatible Cannondales have the same headtube length, so you should be able to fit the longer leftys. I fitted a lefty to a mk1 Raven which was originally spec'd with a fatty80. Works fine, though its roughly same length axle to crown. Its proper old school twitchy compared to modern stuff, but its fun

 

[amedias]

the longer travel leftys are longer by quite a bit

I used to run a 140mm travel lefty MAX witha 40mm travel reducer bumper installed for exactly this reason, slackens the head angle off but keeps the travel balanced (and stops you having the same problem at full compression)

They are a bit heavier though, the lefty MAX that is, but I'm sure the carbon one's aren't that much heavier...