'new' 2.8 Series road bike frame-up build

[AirWreck]

Greetings from St. Louis, Missouri!

I love my 1996 R600, but it's getting long in the tooth. I'd like to put it into semi-retirement, and find a frame from a similar era Cannondale and build it up with new components. I have a couple questions, though: do you think I'll have any issues running 25mm tires on this frame? The 2.8 Series frame, what years did it run? Are there any years better or worse than others? Should I consider something outside of this range? I do like the tapered downtube look, which I think was exclusive to the 2.8. This is still in the concept stage, so I am open to ideas and suggestions.

 

[black lightning 1987]

2.8 road frames are all the same I think. They were made for model years 1992-1996. There was also a 650c wheeled time trial 2.8 frame. Forks may vary, but the most common is the AL one. Yours looks great.

CAAD 3 and 4 still had the same tapered tube look and threaded headset. Most obvious difference is that they don't have cantilevered dropouts and are probably a bit longer lived as a result. Most would consider the carbon forks an improvement over the 2.8s AL fork.

Here's my Mavic Equipped 1992 R1000 and my team blue CAAD4 1999 R4000.

 

[AirWreck]

Thanks, Black Lightning, for the info on the 2.8 frame! I probably want to expand my search to include CAAD 3 and 4, which is a good thing, if only for it being a newer frame and probably having less miles on it and being in better shape (assumedly). Do you know what years those ran?

My bike does have a carbon fork, but I can't remember if it came that way or if I paid for an upgrade. While it has the R900 decals, that is actually an R600 that I had the shop custom paint yellow, when I bought it new.

Yours are some fine-looking examples! Thanks, again for sharing your wisdom on the topic.

 

[black lightning 1987]

I wondered about the yellow as I only remembered the Mavic bikes and a TT bike being yellow in the 2.8 era.

I think there was still a CAAD4 R400 in 2003, though it had a threadless fork I think. Not sure if 1" or 1 1/8". A CAAD5 is just like a CAAD4 only with the addition of the 1 1/8" integrated headset head tube. So if you don't mind threadless you can get into a quite a bit newer frame if you expand the search to CAAD5. Believer the CAAD6 was the same as the 5 but had the BB30 bottom bracket. Not many of those seem to turn up.