My bike: The Cannondale M800 Beast of the East

Back in 93 I bought a brand new M600 Cannondale, I chose this model after I had a Delta V 2000... This was a great bike but in those days FS bikes were not that good, so much so I went back to rigid. The M600 model was a cross between the conservative M1000/2000 and the radical M800 and featured a normal height BB like the 2000 and a sloping top tube like the 800. It was a great bike, however I guess I always wanted the more radical 'Beast of the East'.

One Friday night, maybe after one to many glasses of France's finest I hit buy it now on a bit of a shed of a M800 and this is what turned up....

Painted grey and a real mix and match parts build, a bit of a mess really... Using the website www.vintagecannondale.com I at least dated the frame to 1993...

So the first decision was how to build it, hardcore retro style as per brochure or hot rod style... It had to be hot rod, the same way we rode them back in the 90's.

The bike was stripped and the frame shot blasted and powder coated in the closest red I could match to Cannondale red. Decals were bought of the ebay and are not great, there is a guy that now does better ones so I may swap these out.

The build currently features XT thumbies with XT short cage mech running 8 speed, American Classic hubs on Mavic 217 SUP rims, FSA Ti b/b with Cook Bros crank and Pace chainrings, Club Roost riser bar, NOS headset, Zoom Stem and DX V brakes.

As a footnote I met Martyn Ashton at the Goodwood Orbital Festival last year and took a liking to the M800 and signed the frame for me. He mentioned that he had fond memories of the bike as when he signed to ride for Cannondale they sent him a Beast of the East and a week later he was World Champion!

Tech: ThreadFit82.5 a new BB standard? Not quite...

On Wednesday 5th March Colnago has released their brand new C60 superbike. Blistering with technology the C60 improves on the C59 in every area, however the all new ThreadFit82.5 bottom bracket rang my 'standards' alarm bell, that was until I read what it actually was...

What's really interesting is that Colnago have critically looked at the BB shell and come up with the following points.

1/ BSA threaded shells are good, brilliantly reliable and self aligning. The only negative being the limited available width for large tubes.

2/ Press fit B/B's have great width allowing the use of larger tubes but can be unreliable due to frame tolerances and frame deformation.

Colnago's solution for gaining frame width but keeping it reliable is actually quite simple...

1/ Colnago's Threadfit82.5 uses threaded press-fit adaptors that thread directly in to the frame, aligning the BB seats correctly and are easily removable and replaceable if damaged.

2/ The adaptors themselves take the (Shimano) standard BB86 bottom bracket enabling the installation of any crank set.

3/ Using an adaptor gives you a precision machined surface for the BB to fit to, opposed to carbon surface that can be irregular due to the manufacturing process.

4/ The increased diameter of the BB shell has allowed the Colnago engineers the freedom to increase the down tube size increasing stiffness and performance of the bike.

So in summery the C60 doesn't have yet another new B/B standard, it uses standard BB86 units with he addition of replaceable press-fit inserts meaning if you damage them you are not throwing a frame away...

My 'standards' alarm is well and truly silenced, clever stuff...

The C60 bottom bracket