Show/tell your Cannondale SM/M**** please!

My old 1987 SM800

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Almost finished 1992 M800 'Beast of the East'

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Since I've been keeping an eye on eBay etc for a Cannondale, by far the most numerous model is the Beast of the East. I've seen at least 5 in the last couple of months. Which surprises me, as they were kind of a specialist bike for a specific type of rider. I thought they would be much rarer than other models, but apparently not. Maybe their owners just looked after them better, and more have survived to the present day 🤷‍♂️
 
Since I've been keeping an eye on eBay etc for a Cannondale, by far the most numerous model is the Beast of the East. I've seen at least 5 in the last couple of months. Which surprises me, as they were kind of a specialist bike for a specific type of rider. I thought they would be much rarer than other models, but apparently not. Maybe their owners just looked after them better, and more have survived to the present day 🤷‍♂️
Intersting thought. Maybe they are quite common, as they were (almost) only bike at the time offering that dedicated geometry. So possibly even riders that otherwise would have chosen different brand choose them for the difficult terrain bikes.
 
Here's my '92 M2000 in original spec:
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This is one of those bikes with a recalled Pepperoni. The problem is that the aluminum steerer can disintegrate from the fork legs. I've never seen or heard that happening but apparently that's an issue according to Cannondale.
BITD Cannondale sent out RockShox Quarda 10s to dealers to replace the Pepperonis. There was an option to replace the faulty forks with new Pepperonis as well. In all cases, they were painted gloss black. So if you see a 92 Cannondale with a black Pepperoni that doens't match the paintjob, that's a change fork then. When I worked for a Cannondale LBS back then, I actually never saw those black Pepperonis, we only got Quardas (piece of sh*t forks). As a matter of fact, I did have a 92 M700 back then and I should have swapped my Pepperoni fork but since I was already using a Manitou 2 suspension fork, I didn't bother doing that.

One thing to note is that up until 91, the frames used 1" headsets, then 92-94 used 1 1/4" headsets and finally after 95 they changed to 1 1/8" ones. Out of these, the 1 1/4" headsets, forks and stems are hardest to find.

Regarding the cool paintjobs, I especially like 91 SM1000-92 M700/800 Black/Blue Hyper-highlight, 92 M1000 Sahara Gold and 91 SM800 Jade Green. Many people like 91 SM700 Black with lime splatter and SM800 black with orange splatter paintjobs.
 
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