His builds span a wide range, and he’s played with everything from wild track bikes to that premium “monster cross” bike to awesome full suspension mountain bikes like this BMC Speedfox. Some exist as computer renderings, while others are real-world carbon and metal.
Daniel’s favorite bicycle company was Cannondale long before he was a designer. His first real mountain bike was a Cannondale, and he says he has always admired the brand for doing things his way and driving the industry forward. After spending the past eight years freelance in automotive design, sports design and interior design, as well as design for Husqvarna, the opportunity to work with Cannondale was a dream come true, he said. -he declares. Working with Cannondales both inside and outside of his job, here are some of the bikes he reinvented.
Fortunately, there was no longer any warranty to cancel.
One of the first steps was to shave off all the parts that Daniel considered to be âhorrors,â like the front derailleur hanger and all of the outer cable guides. It made a lot of holes in the frame, but he had the carbon working skills to patch the holes. He also drilled new holes for internal cable routing. He had to look clean, after all.
With the frame itself composed, it was time for the colors to burst.
Daniel paints most of his bikes himself, but for the F29 he got a friend from a local bike shop to go wild with him in an effort to recreate an ’80s and’ 90s vibe. With the change AXS gear and a mix of old and new parts, the bike plunges its toes into five distinct decades.
For his next Cannondale build, Daniel decided to bring all of his old parts together in one âneo-retro super bikeâ while celebrating the iconic Y-frame of the Cannondale Super V: âCompared to modern full suspension bikes,â he said. he said, “this one doesn’t hide anything, the design is like a big V for the victory hand sign.” In his first Instagram post on the bike, he explained that it wouldn’t be a vintage bike, but that it would incorporate parts from the late ’80s to the early 2000s.
While imagining his Super V build, he began to dream about what it would take to modernize the geometry of the Super V to match that of the modern Scalpel. Although this bike does not (yet) exist in real life, he started the sketching process and hinted that such a project was in the works.
As far as his current Super V goes, the biggest change he’s made has been the suspension, shortening rear travel to 20mm to make it “less crappy,” he said. “I built my own rear shock, took a coil shock from a moped and shortened it and slapped a Headshok boot on it, so the bike is basically a softtail now, and that’s a good improvement over the previous rocking chair experience. “
Two sides, a lot is happening.
Daniel’s favorite thing about the bike is that the training side is supposed to look more retro while the non-training side is a nod to Rapha-Palace bikes and EF racing bikes, many of which have featured. various blue-purple-pink color schemes over the years.
Ano violet is real.
Compared to modern mountain bikes, Daniel is well aware that his Super V won’t live up to a race bike no matter how nostalgic or historically intriguing it is. Still, he says, it’s cool to have brought him back. âI brought it back to life, maybe not like a mountain bike racing machine it once was, but maybe more like a low-instep commuter on acids and steroids,â he said. he declared.
The biggest thing he learned, he said, was to create the purple fade on the swingarm. It’s basically a clear polish on foil, but he added a bit of pink and blue and was impressed with the result. It’s a method he will play with in the future, he said, as he designs and builds more bikes.
What about his other notable bikes? He said the monster cross bike mentioned earlier was awesome to build, his Scott Sub made him realize the effects a simple color change can have, and his BMC build is still the best looking trail bike ever. eyes.
Scott Sub, before and after.
The Lotus Project, another celebration of the strange and the marvelous.
This year, outside of his job, Daniel plans to build two road bikes, a mountain bike and a children’s bike. Plus, he challenged Dangerholm to build a kid’s bike. What do you say, @bikerider?