1988 Team MTB?

[black lightning 1987]

Seller seems to know what he has, evidently one of the first sloping TT Cannondale MTBs. Kind of an odd parts spec though. Anyone know anything about this bike?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1988-Canno...=item468f45df34:g:PnQAAOSwXzNaaSim:rk:11:pf:0

 

[chumaman]

I would not have guessed especially about bikes before 90 'simply did not have the expertise .... but here is a very good description of Cannondale development
https://www.oldschoolracing.ch/archiv/cannondale/
I found this page asking more information about Florian Wiesmann http://www.wiesmann-bikes.de
https://www.oldschoolracing.ch/archiv/wiesmann/
because I own Tout Terrain with his signature ..... maybe it's off topic but an interesting biker and builder

 

[roKWiz]

I had a 87-88 Beast of the East back in the early 90s that looks identical to that frameset mine had rollercam brakes originally. Was a hideous Mauve colour, I stripped and polished it Steel front forks, later set it up with drop bars, Girvin flexstem and a 6061T6 fork. Sloping TT were not that sloping back then.

 

[black lightning 1987]

The Beast frame starts in the 3.0 era, but yours is worthy predecessor. I believe 1991 was the first year that "Beast of the East" was used. I think the BB height is the same as your frame, but your TT has less slope.

Interesting build with the drop bar and Campagnolo Ergo levers.

 

[roKWiz]

Yeah, was a predecessor to the Beast, 13in BB height and tall headtube. Sachs Ergopower levers, Scott bars.

 

[black lightning 1987]

I have several bikes built with Sachs, mainly road as the long cage RD and triple cranks are kind of hard to find. I think the levers with the black shift paddles are 7000 models, one step below New Success. I have a pair with red painted brake levers. I took a quick look but couldn't find them. Here's a photo of the 1995 7000 catalog page. Not very good, but gives you an idea of what the stuff looked like. 7000 was silver in other years. I have some NOS hubs if you are interested...

 

[roKWiz]

Yeah, later the Sachs stuff I reused onto my new (at the time) 95 Super V mtb "New Success" with quartz road shifters which had the plastic gear shift paddles within. The importer here sold me a heap of New Success polished alloy shift inner paddle kits so I could rebuild them if damaged. That's one of the reason I always favoured Sachs over Shimano stuff as it was totally rebuildable and didn't suffer from planned obsolescence. I still use Sachs today as it has lasted well on and offroad.
I replaced the long cage New Success rear derailleur with a Sachs Plasma direct pulled.
NB... the plastic inner gear shift paddles above on the early bike and the same levers now. below

 

[black lightning 1987]

Great stuff. Too bad SRAM killed the company.

 

[roKWiz]

yep, glad I got the good stuff when I did. Still have a few Sachs rear derailleurs.

Same bike when I sold it, note MTB bars and Sachs powershift.