I have acquired a cosmetically rather rough but mechanically very sound Cannondale M800 (except for the fork, which is now just a heavy rigid, and the chain and cassette).
I have no interest in a restoration back to all original parts, despite it coming with a few of them, because I want to build a bike that I am more likely to ride.
So I’m planning a restomod gravel bike/urban hooligan build.
Paint stripped and alu polished to leave nice shiny bare frame, with original design purple and black decals added back on.
Drop bar with shorter stem.
1x 10 groupset - likely micro shift Advent X to give a good range.
Purple cantilevers to remain, and a few purple items added here and there to match the brakes and decals.
But I have a few problems to solve:
Fork, headset and stem - I want so switch to Threadless, but it’s a 1 1/4 steerer and 37mm headset cups. I need a replacement fork, so it’s either find an original Peperoni fork and use a quill to threadless adapter (not many about), or I need to find a headset that allows the running of 1 1/8 fork (like rocking horse shit - there appears to be a Woodman one, but it’s expensive, and reducer cups to allow 34mm headset use were a thing, but any I could find were crazy price).
Rear hub is 7 speed DX M650, which look maybe original, but appear to be incorrect width (130 whereas frame is apparently 135) - It looks like it’s possible to switch to 8 speed freehub, which would thus also allow 9 or my planned 10 speed, but I need to find an appropriate compatible freehub from a donor hub, and I’m not completely clear on which would be compatible (Shimano LX Parallax maybe?).
I’m interested in thoughts, tips, and any info that may help from all you fellow escape geeks. Oh, and I’m in the UK, but happy to buy from abroad if postage isn’t silly, and I can be confident the parts will be compatible and functionally sound.
Very nice old bike. I have a bit of experience with similar builds. I’ve found adapters fine to use for quill to current standard stems. It seems a little inelegant but does the job. My LBS gets the adapters in easily, and you could potentially talk to them about fork options too.
Updating to a new headset to put in a threadless form sounds cool but I have no experience here. Again, I’d talk to someone at a LBS that hopefully knows these older bikes well enough.
I’ve switched out freehubs without too much trouble and have replaced with AliExpress options. There are a few different types but if you can pull off the current one it’s pretty easy to see what you need.
Sticking with the cantis is a good option. Those ones look cool. I have mini v brakes on mine but they were a bit of a faff.
Nice build, and silhouette wise, pretty much what I have in mind.
there are no decent local shops unfortunately, at least not ones for vintage stuff. I used to own and run one myself in the area but there just wasn’t the business to justify the effort.
Didn’t think to look on AliExpress for freehubs, although as the spindle length is wrong anyway, I might try to source hubs. Vintage looking would be fine, as matching aesthetically and functioning well is more important to me than being historically correct.
And I remembered seeing a video of someone converting threaded to threadless with cup changes. I found the video here. Not sure if it will be helpful, but you might enjoy either way.
I’m really happy with mine. The position is taking a little to finesse just due to the low stack in comparison to my other bikes, but it’s cool to cruise around on. It’s a fairly new build so I still need to get it out on a proper gravel ride.
I haven’t found the time to strip the rear hub yet to inspect.
The quill to threadless converter would need to be for 1 1/4" steerer, so 28.6 to 28.6, which is harder to find than the 22.2 to 28.6, but I think I’ve located a source for one.
Changing headset cups is not the problem - I have all the tools needed to do that - the issue is finding the correct headset to press in. Headsets for the 37mm ID head tube the M800 has seem to be very thin on the ground and expensive.
