History of Cannondale Bikes

The Cannondale Bicycle Corporation is a major American bicycle manufacturer, headquartered in Bethel, Connecticut USA with manufacturing in Bedford, Pennsylvania USA. The company was founded in 1971 by Joe Montgomery to manufacture backpacks and bags for camping and later bicycle trailers for bicycle touring. Today, Cannondale produces many different types of bicycles, specializing in aluminum (rather than steel, titanium or carbon fiber) frames at mass-market prices, a technology in which they were pioneers. The name of the company was taken from the Cannondale Metro North train station in Wilton, Connecticut.

In the late 1990s Cannondale attempted to move into the motorsports business, producing a line of off road motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles. According to an interview with Cannondale Communications Director, Tom Armstrong, the company was unable to drive down the cost of their motor vehicles fast enough. Sales took off when the company was still losing money on each motorbike they shipped. This gap drove the company to seek bankruptcy protection in 2003. However, management was able to quickly sell the company off to the private equity firm Pegasus Partners, which supported the company's renewed focus on bicycle production.

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