Cannondale Criterium 3.0 project

Bought this purple beauty on a bit of a whim from TomVanHalen, should get it next week, now debating what to do with it. Love the paint, but suspect it may need a little sprucing up. Love the idea of taking it back to its roots with a 7400 groupset, and possibly a new paintjob. Also wondering whether it might be worth investing in a carbon fork to take a little of the stiffness out of the ride... Any suggestions would be appreciated...
http://i.imgur.com/1t2jSD8.jpg

Don't respray, just touch up, t-cut and polish it. Keep the original fork, stick some 90's shimano on it and jobs done

Keep the paint and fork.

7400 = 5/5

i'm with the above, for the paint, clean up any chips and fill with clear/close match nail varnish and keep the forks; and 7400 would finish the job nicely but you could get away with something more modern, these might be of note if you go the 7400 route:
http://www.lfgss.com/thread118800.html#post3984477

I'm either all or nothing for paint, either re-paint and get it perfect or love all the little imperfections!

Please don't 'touch it up'

I'm either all or nothing for paint, either re-paint and get it perfect or love all the little imperfections!

Please don't 'touch it up'

This

i would keep it as it is.

Gonna see how it looks in the metal. But agree - touching it up is not a route to go down. If the paintwork is really ropey then will consider a bare metal stripdown / then fresh paint job matched to original colours with new decals from vintagecannondale.com, but otherwise it will probably just be a matter of cleaning it up and fitting out with a decent groupset..

Don't respray, just touch up, t-cut and polish it. Keep the original fork, stick some 90's shimano on it and jobs done

i am not sure if it is original fork anyway. if i remember properly, they should colour match the frame and originally there was a choice of steel and aluminum ones. look on http://www.vintagecannondale.com/ among the catalogs for more info. frame number will tell you manufacturing date and you can find the bike spec in catalogs. if you want to keep the rear brake, find some top tube plastic cable holders now as they are pain to get hold off. i had to get my ones from finland via retrobike forum but it took ages. the same with wolber rims- i am searching for 6 months now as i try to keep my bike original. great bike- apparently, when they made it, it was the lightest high performance frame available

Seriously considering stripping it back to the metal and getting it professionally polished and lacquered with fresh decals. Embrace its aluminium goodness...

I love this frame, almost went for it myself as I've just finished building a stripped Cannondale Track CAAD5 and this would have been the perfect geared companion! Please keep the paint, it looks lovely!
Good luck with the build!

I once asked Sheldon Brown about replacing a fork on my Black Lightning and he was adamant,
Why replace a vey good steel fork for a plastic one. The frame was designed to be used with steel.
His exact wording. I followed his advice. Never regretted it. On another note, these cantilevered frames make exceptional time trial machines. I turned my Black Lightning into TT a machine and is brilliant.
http://velospace.org/node/36621

Kindest regards

Just collected the frame from Tom and it's a lovely thing, light and clean and dent free. However the paintwork is not great, poorly touched up, and tired, after all it is 24 years old. The fork is also not original and plain ALU - with some mild corrosion meaning that it needs at the very least to be stripped polished and clearcoated. So...I think I'm going to go for a respray and new decal set from vintagecannondale.com after all. Question now is what colour... so, to the floor:

original options are:

Red / white decals
Blue / white decals
Black / gold

Or should I look at something more interesting / contemporary? Basically I have all the colours at Armourtex's disposal to play with - but only have black / white / gold decals ...

Thoughts?

Don't respray, just touch up, t-cut and polish it. Keep the original fork, stick some 90's shimano on it and jobs done

Keep the paint and fork.

7400 = 5/5

i'm with the above, for the paint, clean up any chips and fill with clear/close match nail varnish and keep the forks

Thoughts?

keep it purple. purple bikes are raddest

^ so much this, it'll look real nice built up with silver bits and you'd probably be able to have white saddle and bartape to go with the decals

But if you've got your heart set on a respray, bumblebee would look quite good or yellow with red decals (speak to roboto, he'd probably be able to sort out something)

All good advice, but sadly it looks like this frame and I are going to have to part ways. It's a 54cm frame, not 56cm. At 6'1" It's just too small for me to ride comfortably, especially given the already quite aggressive geometry. Going to put it up for sale at the price I paid for it (£130) on the classifieds thread. PM me if you're interested....
Pics and details: http://www.lfgss.com/thread119185.html

Sorry it didn't work out for you, it's a pretty aggressive stack measurement. Good luck to the new owner!

It's a lovely frame, really sorry it's not quite right. more I looked at it the more I felt it was just a little too small, and having built up a bike a size too small before and being hugely uncomfortable I decided this just wasn't worth the risk. Going to keep an eye out for another. Hope you had a good journey to the US and all the best.