Upgrade to enjoy this feature!
Vital MX fantasy is free to play, but Premium users receive great benefits. Premium benefits include:
- View and download rider stats
- Pick trends
- Create a private league
- And more!
Only $10 for all 2026 SX, MX, and SMX series.
Barber ....
Barber is one cool place.The amount of stuff there is unreal! For the people who have never been, put it on your bucket list.
In the library they have a book for everything they have in the museum. Also have the machine shop to make any part they need to complete something. It’s been a good while since I’ve been there, 2008 or so. They had bought everything from Cannondale in an auction when they went under. They had a few Cannondale bikes when I was there last.
People that I know that worked on the project said that the engine budget was $10 million and the chassis budget was another $10M. The engine was under powered by the time they got it to market. That's why they started to make a 4 wheeler version.
That chimney!!
The Shop
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
Free shipping: VITALMX
It would have been really cool if an american company had succeeded in breaking in to the us dirt bike market. I really wonder how much more support the racing series/tracks, local tracks.. etc could have gotten if there was an american company with factories/workers/jobs to lobby for the industry.
Cannondale was/is a really innovative company that makes some of the best bicycles. Unfortunately they tried to innovate on literally everything at once when breaking in to a new market, which basically never works. If they had went for a more conventional motorcycle who knows maybe they could have been like ktm and had a slow build over time. I feel like cannondales very public and very spectacular failure scared away other potential us companies who could have tried to enter the market as well.
With ducati, triumph, and beta all entering the market at once theres probably not any room for any more manufacturers, hell one may even need to go (suzuki? Hope not) but it would still be as cool today to get a us manufacturer. I guess with the alta and harley it would have technically counted, but that didnt work either.
I wonder if cobra ever ponders building an 85cc and 125cc? Sure they have their niche, but with yamaha releasing a new 65 recently, plus ktm putting out husky and gasgas 50s theyre probably losing a lot of market share. If they want to grow as a company theyll need to do something, but I dont really see them putting out big bikes.
Watched Robbie Reynard destroy the field at the 4 Stroke National held at Cycle Ranch in the early 2000's on one of those.
Until the engine ventilated itself. In both motos.
I'm sure Robert Reynard was not amused.
And then sideload SmartTube for your android / firestick streaming device and no mo ads ever
Definitely……or not!
I was out for a desert ride in Plaster City back in 2001 the first time I saw a Cannondale in person. The guy unloaded it, put on his gear, started the bike and rode it no more than 200 feet before it quit. I watched him push it back to his truck, motor dripping oil, loaded it back up and he left.
Some guy raced a Cannondale at Day in the Dirt back in 2010ish (when it was at Pala). The bike was leaking oil the entire time we were waiting in the staging area to practice starts.
Concerning MXA warning everyone how bad it was What magazine had it as the bike of the year?
Dirt Rider. Ken Faught was the editor at that time, probably the worse Moto journalist of all time and not just for the Cannondale debacle. They had a TV show where they would test bikes and do shootouts - told all of his test riders they were not aloud to say anything negative about any of the bikes. All tests, be it bikes, parts, Accessories, etc were all paid advertisements.
I'm a bit of a collector and thought two things when the bikes came out: first, that all the innovation was quite impressive and, second, that the thing would in all likelihood become a collector bike. I've since acquired three of them: Bike #80, brand new, unstarted, without the recall head mod and with both sets of new plastic (black and red); a brand new X440; and a rider X440. As new, collector bikes, these are great to look at and the list of innovations gives talking points for hours. As a rider, they definitely have issues. The first thing of notice is the noise. Because of the short header space, they had to reduce the length of the exhaust can in an effort to stretch the header as far as possible. So its noisy, and it revs quickly. Don't be looking for much torque in this package, as even the 440 sounds (and rides) more like a 300 than something close to a 450. And maybe that was a contributor to the poor reliability, as guys revved the crap out of them in an effort to get it up to speed.
I think part of bigger problem was that, despite being creative on one hand, on the other hand the Cannondale engineers were following some (or too much) of the old school thumper design, principally that any thumper needed to have a dry sump engine with a giant oil reserve stored both in the cases and the frame. Three quarts of oil and all the supporting architecture for it makes duplicating the smaller cases design of the '98 YZ400 much harder to achieve. Maybe they figured all that oil would cure any internal design flaws in the motor, but I suspect there was no amount of oil that would fix everything. This also contributed to the top-heavy feel of the bike - that, and the giant radiator and heavy frame material (even aluminum is heavy when there is too much of it). The fuel injection was an impressive add-on, but the electric start probably added a bunch of complexity and weight that was hard to justify.
That being said, I always try to get the rider out a couple times a year. As an old guy, I'm probably about the same speed on the Cannondale as I might be on a modern bike, and riding round on a unicorn can be plenty of fun as well.
I dont think I completed the lap that I started on one at OCR in Bithlo, FL. It was in a different galaxy than my YZ 426. Dont forget, Keith Johnson (New England) holeshot nearly every national moto in I think 99 or 2000 as factory rider, only to DNF. Just a totally unfortunate situation.
I totally agree about Faught and when he left DR and Jimmy Lewis took over the mag totally was much better right away.
Any actual owners remember the steering head brace being added as recall? I would love to find a well sorted Cannondale for a couple tomes a year rider. Wish I never got rid of mine.
Really well done enjoyed it 👍
I can confirm those at Cannondale at the time did not find it amusing -
Once upon a time I worked for a guy who was a VP for Cannondale during the time they came out with the dirt bike….I made what I thought was a funny dig at the bike, and holy shit was I informed that was not ok.
A lot of people put everything into that bike, and the fact it still bothers those involved so much says a lot -
Didn’t shift well, little down on power but fun to ride.
Pit Row
I had seen this a while back here in Fort Myers. Looks to be in really good shape and the conversion was well done. It was cool to see one in the wild still.
Dial up Jim Gibson, he was hired to race and ride the scooter... think.
Gary Jones managed to win a vet title on one if memory serves.
I heard it was Cannondale’s first attempt at BB30A, the whole bike.
I think you meant Jeff Gibson. He did race it at a few nationals.
Keith Johnson also . His best moto finish was a 14th at Broome Tioga .
I bought my MX400 used, but looked like brand new. I never rode it other than in my yard, could never get it to run for long. I wound up parting it out on Ebay! Even had the frame DMV titled, thought I had won the lotto when I got it, then felt the burn of the taxes after owning it for a month, LOL!
I think I remember those articles. The first was written in the standard MXA hyperbolic and thin fashion. As a young adult I was impressed with what Cannondale had done, according to MXA. Then the second article stated the bike was a disaster claiming they listened to the wrong people for final set up, if I recall correctly.
I couldn’t figure out how it went from so good to so bad, and that’s when I began to really question what magazines were telling us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZvSl4kvAbE
This is also great one by Tony Blazer the motocross vault.
I swear I saw this as a bike build on here!
https://www.vitalmx.com/forums/Bike-Builds,46/2003-Cannondale-X440-SM-C…;
I think its different, what a trip there is 2 of em at least haha
Post a reply to: How bad was the Cannondale MX400 really ?