Cannondale 2.8: The last generation before CAAD

Great choice, Athena is the last nice silver groupset Campagnolo made. Should really suit the build!

It's going to start looking like mine soon...

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Looks great , what are the bars ?

Dang, bro must have long arms

By the way, why are they called cantilever drop outs?

Silver components look lush

I assume because they cantilever out from the rear triangle

Some generic track type bars I picked up free cycle from someone on here years ago. Looking to change them to something more appropriate soon.

Holy fuck that polished up nice. I'd forgotten how sweet things look with a bit of brasso on them - last used when I built up my first ever fixie...10 years ago now!!! Cripes

Btw, looking to get rid of the Laprade now you've gone campag, perhaps? I'm after a shiny seatpost atm...

(sweet build btw, looking forward to seeing the final evolution 🧬)

Few updates
Polished the cranks as usual... They came up quite nice. Sadly had to sand away the Campagnolo logo, but have replaced it with a decal. These decals are quite nice and seem not that noticeable

I got a 115mm Centaur ISO Square taper BB to mount them on, I had one of these spare as it fits my DA NJS track cranks too. Drive side mounted a little close roughly chainline of 42.5mm so decided it was good... However once I mounted the NDS I discovered it just kisses the chain stay... it only needs a few mm to clear. From what I could tell from googling 115mm should be about right, but I guess these tapers are 30+ years old so likely worn and don't sit correctly.

Anyway, I had a 110mm JIS BB sitting around, JIS tapers are a bit fatter than ISO so normally they don't go in as far and the crank sits further out. However this sat quite nicely and looks like the taper went well in with only a few mm to spare

And voila! The NDS clears by a good 3mm. the 110mm JIS is actually asymmetric from what I can tell anyway so the NDS sits a bit further out. This gives a chainline of about 43-44mm so close enough.

And here's a shot with the Athena groupset (Both Athena group sets from two era's combined!). I've always liked Campag stuff, and to be honest the quality of the components tends to be noticeably better than Sram or Shimano. The shifters still worked perfectly, considering they are 10+ years old. I haven't used Sram or Shimano shifters that felt this good at the same age. Also I forgot how good the rim brakes are from this generation.

A few notes, the Athena rear derailleur is short cage and can't handle more than the factory 12-29t cassette. This is an 11-32t and it was obvious it was struggling to shift the whole range. Surprisingly the 52/42t rings shifted perfectly fine with the 11sp chain.

Next steps, have to sort out the wheels. Needs to be silver/polished rims, hubs and spokes.

Very nice

Ok so bit of an update. It's wheel build time

Here are the specs

• Novatec A171SB Front 20h
  
• Novatec F171SB Rear 32h
  
• Hal0 Devaura rims (These are rebranded Kinlin XR-31T) 20h front and 24h rear (16:8 lacing)
  
• Sapim Race silver spokes w/ brass nipples
  
  

The plan is to lace them 20h radial front and the rear as a 2:1 spoke arrangement with 16DS spokes and 8NDS spokes. I've built a 2:1 rear wheel before and liked how the spoke tensions are much more even than a conventional wheel. This is more of an issue with 130mm spaced 11sp wheels, as this is typically the worst wheels commonly seen for DS/NDS spoke tension balance.

A conventionally spoked wheel of this type has NDS spokes about 40% of the DS which means you end up with potentially spoke tensions of 50-60kgf which is really quite low. A 2:1 lacing means you basically double this so it's more like 80% or thereabouts.

The main aim for the look of these is inspired by 90's Campagnolo type stuff, which is why I chose those hubs. I would have loved to have a pair of vintage Shamals/Ventos or similar but these rims are not really available new. So the closest thing commonly available are the Kinlin XR-31T.

A few observations on the rims. The finish on the visible parts is really quite nice, not a big fan of the Halo logos but they are lasered on but not too obvious. The inside however looks a bit roughly finished, the area where they are sleeve jointed had too much gunk and had to be chipped away at as it was interfering with the nipple seat. Funnily enough the Chinese on the sticker says "two left one right" which technically is wrong as a 2:1 wheel has 2 right spokes for every left.

The front wheel built pretty easily, despite the finish being a little rough this was definitely one of the better, more round rims I've built. It came up to even tension quite quickly and was pretty easy to true. Tensioned to about 100kgf all around.

Rear one was a bit tricker, but this was the second time I've done this. I decided to go with 3x on the rear DS and radial on the NDS. Drive side done

The way I have built the rear is something I've read about in the past and learnt to do. As the rear wheel is so heavily dished, it can be tensioned about 70-80% DS only first, then a radial true is done as the majority of the radial tension comes from these spokes. After that, the NDS spokes are tensioned bringing the rim towards the middle and also truing it laterally at the same time. I was surprised how quickly I was able to build these as they were really quite straight and true.

You might be wondering why I have a 32h hub but a 24h rim, as this is a 16:8 the DS is effectively one half of a 32 spoke wheel. The NDS spokes skip every other hole which gives you 8. I decided to go heads in/elbows out as this gives you a slightly higher bracing angle and more lateral stiffness.

All done!

Excellent update, what tyres are you going to go for?

Heya currently have a pair of GP5000 black at the moment, but prob will go for some nice tan walls at some point. Probably a bit fatter as the bike will clear 28-29mm

Couple of new pics

New wheels are an absolute winner!

nice work! that red is screaming for tan wall corsas

Yep, actually one of the rear tyres has a hole in the sidewall so likely should be retired.

Just got some Michelin Power Cup TLR Tanwalls fitted to replace the GP5000's. These are 28mm and I was a bit worried they would not fit as I have read that the 25mm version sizes up quite a lot. Not to worry, they installed quite easily, not too tight and sealed with the help of a tubeless tank. On my Kinlin XR-31T w/ 19mm internal width they have now plumped up to 29.3mm wide which is about the limit for this frame. Roughly 3mm clearance on the tyres so not much room to play.

Campagnolo Athena calipers just clear it with about 3mm to spare...

Chainstays ditto

Compared to the tubed 25mm GP5000s these give a significantly more plush ride quality. Still playing with air pressure but so far pretty happy with these, they roll fast and are very grippy.

So sick. Funny that I used to hate those dropouts and the way they point out of the rear triangle, but now I think it's a cool point of difference. Rad build regardless.

Dreamy, just needs some period Cannondale bidons.

Really nice