Another day, another launch and today sees the new Cannondale Habit come to life.
The eagle eyed amongst you might recognise this one from a few of your favourite pans n’ zooms edits of the last few months, right?
The all new Cannondale Habit launches today with a modest 130mm rear travel, 29″ or 27+ wheels and some really good but not-too-wacky numbers.
With carbon, alloy and women’s specific versions available, some great price tags and a really interesting approach to sizing and suspension design it looks like a bike we’d love to spend some really decent time on.
The new Cannondale Habit
The new Cannondale Habit will be available in a whopping 9 different versions – all of them with Fox Suspension front and rear, space for a water bottle and big tyres and short stems and wide bars.
There’s three women’s specific versions (one in carbon, two in alloy) and another three carbon and three alloy versions for boys and girls alike. The Cannondale Habit 6 is the lowest spec version and (you guessed it) the Habit 1 is the top end, posho, bells and whistles version.
The one you might have seen firing around the internet already is the Cannondale Habit 4, which comes with a very nice blue alloy frame (see below), Fox 34 fork, SRAM GX Groupset and various other bits from WTB, Maxxis, Cannondale and Fabric.
Sizes and suspension
What’s really interesting about the new Cannondale Habit is the “why didn’t they think of that before?” approach to suspension.
Cannondale explained to us that they started from scratch with the Habit and brought in the help of Suspension Scientist Luis Arraiz (you might remember him from K9).
Luis and Cannondale worked out that rider size and weight has a massive impact on the way a bike behaves. Generally, they found that smaller riders experience worse suspension performance under braking and bigger, heavier riders experience worse pedal performance.
They fixed this by researching where the ideal centre of gravity is for all sizes of riders and adjusted the suspension on each size bike to match what they found. Each size of bike now has its own uniquely sized suspension yoke and linkages.
Cannondale reckon that you can now jump on any of their sizes and the suspension and ‘feeling’ of riding the bike will be the same. They reckon they can cope with a difference in rider height of 37cm and in weight of 48kg.
If you want to really geek out, Luiz and Cannondale have published a research white paper of their findings, which you can read here (opens in a new window as a PDF).
Sizes, shapes and suspension
The numbers point the Habit clearly at an awesome do-everything, ride-anywhere style of bike. The 66° head angle isn’t steep or slack and the size of the bike feels like a good all-rounder with a 460mm reach and a 745mm seat tube.
You obviously shouldn’t believe everything you see on the internetz but give the video a look below if you need any convincing that a short travel bike can go hard.
Conspiracy theories
And yep, that’s right, you’ve seen the Habit piloted by 50:01’s own Max Nerurkar with a segment in their latest Whistler edit.
With the internet literally imploding over Bryceland’s potential move to a brand that he’s working and his hint that it has “new opportunities to mentor two young riders” we’re starting to draw some parallels.
But of course, we don’t know any more than you guys do and Cannondale aren’t giving anything away so… we might just be making wild guesses!
Want one?
We’re still waiting on availability but pricing is already nailed down for the UK.
The carbon bikes range from £3k ish to £6kish with the top spec Cannondale Habit 1 costing £5,999.99.
The Alloy bikes look super well priced, starting at £1,799.99 for a Cannondale Habit Al 6 and topping out at £2,599 for a Habit Al 4.
You can learn more about the new Cannondale Habit over at Cannondale’s website here.
