Cyclist
The complete history of the Cannondale SuperSix
Cannondale has been making bikes for more than 50 years and, among the wide range of models it has developed in that time, the SuperSix has proved to be one of its most enduring and popular platforms. Born out of the original SystemSix design that was made in Bedford, Massachusetts in the US, the SuperSix launched in 2008 as Cannondale’s first full-carbon race bike, its design almost entirely about attaining a formidable stiffness-to-weight ratio.
‘The first SuperSix was a crazy, lightweight bike that was oriented entirely around stiffness and weight,’ says David Devine, senior product director at Cannondale. ‘It was primarily focussed on Grand Tour racing, where stiffness and weight were the two main components that drove performance. We had an Italian WorldTour team [Liquigas] and for them sensation really mattered. The SuperSix was a bike that had high stiffness, low weight and gave a rocket-like sensation, and people loved it.’
When Cannondale moved its production from the US to Asia, it led to further developments for the SuperSix.
‘A big part of the evolution was in design philosophy, but then also in manufacturing,’ says Devine. ‘When we brought it to Asia it was largely a similar design, but the manufacturing changed some of the design elements, as a lot of the tech, research and development around the full monocoque design was located there. We went from having a lugged seat tube and seatstay area to a full monocoque semi-lugged bike, which dropped a bunch of weight for the second-generation SuperSix.’
Theory of evolution
The SuperSix’s update, the SuperSix Evo, launched in 2011 and had a widespread impact on Cannondale as a business and the industry as a whole.
‘The SuperSix Evo was a bike that headlined with light weight – we had the first 725g frame and a fork just over 300g,’ says Devine. ‘We had a frameset that was coming in around 1,100g, which was basically the lightest bike at the time, and it was winning torque tests.
‘The original Evo was the first bike that had huge rear end moulds, where the seatstay, dropouts and chainstay were one piece,’ he adds. ‘The dropout was almost hollow but had compression-moulded parts, so the frame was essentially three pieces. Pivoting to one-piece rear ends was a big evolution for the bike and is not too far off from what we do today.’
Another notable development in this generation was the focus on comfort and smoothness with the introduction of Cannondale’s Save concept into the Evo, which included features such as offset fork tips and tube profiles designed to encourage vertical flex.
‘The Evo was the first time we brought Save features into the chainstays and the fork, and it was the first time somebody was talking about smoothness and development around chassis dynamics,’ says Devine. ‘Instead of focussing purely on stiffness and talking about comfort and smoothness over speedbumps or comfort in the saddle, we had presented and tested fork deflection numbers and rear end deflection numbers that were drastically different from other bikes at the time. I think it was a turning point for the whole industry in terms of how they were thinking about race bikes. It was a huge paradigm shift.
‘It was quite a different bike to ride as it had a real confidence in it. Even some of the riders of our largely Italian team needed the proof that it was going to be faster, but soon the Evo started getting results and then it just snowballed. It was bike of the year across a number of magazines and every editor wanted to test one. The Evo provided a lot of strength in our road bike business and we spent the first two or three years chasing volume and just trying to keep up with demand.’
Speed is of the essence
The next major development, which arrived in 2015, was in the bike’s aerodynamics.
‘The second-generation Evo, and third SuperSix, is really where we started to understand that in order to go faster it wasn’t just about stiffness, weight and chassis dynamics but we needed to bring in an aerodynamic component,’ says Devine. ‘We started learning on our own but hadn’t built up a core competency in the company, so we did minor things that we could do without having an in-house aerodynamicist. We played with some of the spec, made small adjustments to the frame that wouldn’t impact weight, and we had a 6-watt difference between the first Evo and the second Evo at about 45kmh.
A ‘version 2.5’ of this bike came along in 2017, making it the first SuperSix Evo with disc brakes, then the bike was given a drastic update in 2019, being designed exclusively around disc brakes and with extensive aero profiling.
With a certain sense of symmetry, the third SuperSix Evo was informed by the development of the relaunched SystemSix platform, also released in 2019.
‘We took the proven design philosophy of the SuperSix and brought in new technical knowledge gained from the development of the SystemSix,’ says Devine. ‘This gave us a 21-22 watt improvement between generation two and generation three of the Evo. We also rolled out the new livery with the EF team. It was cool seeing it re-energised.’
Sponsoring WorldTour team EF Education-EasyPost and EF Education-Tibco-SVB, who have been heavily involved in performance testing and carbon composite development, has led to some surprises: ‘One of the more shocking things was working with Magnus Cort and the engineering group. In general, it’s challenging for humans to perceive a less than 10% change. Magnus was picking out less than 5% differences in stiffness; he would pick out less than 5% difference in a fork size and have a preference between the two. And it was all done as random testing.’
The generation game
While the 2019 update saw a huge leap in aerodynamics, it’s the latest generation SuperSix, launched in 2023, that has really seen Cannondale drill down on aerodynamics in the pursuit of speed.
‘We wanted to make an Evo that was comparable to competitors’ aero bikes, which is where the fourth generation comes in,’ says Devine. ‘It brings the platform closer than ever to the performance of the SystemSix but at a considerably lighter weight.’
A key feature is the redesigned steerer tube, which Cannondale calls the Delta Steerer.
‘The new steerer tube design is a rounded triangle that leaves room on each side for cables and keeps the head tube narrow, which has helped aerodynamics. The result is the latest SuperSix Evo saves 12 watts at 45kmh,’ says Devine. ‘The new generation also has our new Series 0 carbon construction, which has greater tensile strength than what we used on the first-generation Evo. It also requires less resin, so that has helped trim some weight while remaining strong for the amount of material being used.’
Since the SuperSix’s launch 15 years ago, the bike has evolved in both name and construction, and it just keeps getting faster. Where will it go next? Devine won’t disclose, but it’s clear the SuperSix will remain core to Cannondale’s line-up for the foreseeable future.
Best of the Six
The Cannondale SuperSix’s greatest moments
2008: The first-generation SuperSix launches, designed entirely around stiffness and weight
2011: The updated SuperSix Evo debuts, setting new standards for lightness
2012: Riding with Team Liquigas, Peter Sagan wins the green jersey and three stages at the Tour de France on a SuperSix Evo
2013: Moreno Moser wins Strade Bianche for Cannondale Pro Cycling on a SuperSix Evo
2013: Sagan wins the Tour de France green jersey again
2014: Sagan wins a third Tour de France green jersey and is presented with a ‘Green Machine’ Cannondale SuperSix Evo for the final stage into Paris
2015: Second-generation SuperSix Evo launches, with a greater focus on aerodynamics
2018: Simon Clarke and Michael Woods (EF Education) win Stages 5 and 17 of the Vuelta a España respectively, both of them riding a SuperSix Evo 2
2019: The third-generation Evo launches. Alberto Bettiol wins the Tour of Flanders
2021: Elisa Balsamo wins the World Championships Women’s Road Race on the SuperSix Evo
2021: Cannondale unveils cyclocross and gravel versions of the SuperSix Evo road bike. EF Education’s Alex Howes wins the elite SBT GRVL race in Colorado, USA
2022: EF Education’s men’s and women’s teams ride special-edition SuperSix Evos featuring the Rapha and Palace collaboration design
2022: Chiara Consonni wins Dwars Door Vlaanderen. Rigoberto Urán wins Stage 17 of the Vuelta a España
2023: The latest SuperSix Evo launches. A 56cm frame weighs just 770g
• This article originally appeared in issue 149 of Cyclist magazine. Click here to subscribe
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