Tonight's Bike At Bedtime remembers the Cannondale Slate, a bike that was perhaps a bit ahead of its time despite launching just eight years ago
Tonight, we're remembering one of the great Marmite bikes of the last few years, probably only rivalled by the GT Grade or that Canyon Grail with the double decker bars. At road.cc we’d say that to ride the Slate is to love it. First appearing in late 2015, it was a 'proper' gravel bike before gravel was really even a thing. If you still own one you're know you can ride it almost anywhere and it really handles well.
By now the advantages of 650b have been well rehearsed, but the gist is you get a smaller, stronger wheel, that you can accelerate faster and fit fatter rubber on . That rubber was tubeless, too. That’s not all. Up front the aluminium frame was hooked up to a Lefty Oliver fork - Cannondale’s one legged suspension fork - dishing out 30mm of travel which you could lock out on the fly for climbs. That wasn’t the only suspension up front, as the Slate also boasted one of Cannondale’s integrated Headshocks too.
It was also surprisingly quick going downhill too, and one of the Cannondale guys on the ride reckoned it was their fastest descending road bike. It was when things got rough that it really came in to it’s own, though, turning what would have been a sketchy descent down a rutted lane in places hub deep in mud into one of the most enjoyable 15 minutes I’ve had on a bike in years. The combination of the frame, fork and fat tyres giving a fast, agile, sure-footed ride.
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