I like working on (tinkering) and riding vintage MTBs. Yesterday I bought a Cannondale Dual Sport with a Fatty Headshock including lockout for $100. I love it, but a guy at the shop I just went to said that when the shock breaks the bike is essentially garbage. Is this true? There’s no way to repair a headshock? It’d be a shame to junk a bike with such a nice frame.
by Lucky_Disappointment
14 Comments
There is definitely a way to repair it, but I don’t know how
Nah its a relic, clean it up and attach it to a wall
Look like a pretty standard head tube size to me, so any fork should fit.
But maybe somebody else has more specifics on this bike.
There used to be adapter headsets (or bushings for a normal headset) so you can run a standard fork on the bike. I did one for a friend like 10 years ago…
Not sure if they are still made or whatnot
[These guys](https://cannondaleexperts.com/) used to sell a rigid conversion kit, which maybe they still do, but I haven’t looked. They might also sell the parts you need to service this fork.
You can also buy reducer shims for the headtube and then run a regular 1 1/8″ headset and fork.
But yeah, Cannondale has a lot of dead-end technologies. If you’re a tinkerer, maybe you can figure out a way to keep it going. I haven’t looked, but I imagine you’re not the only one out there trying this.
You can get a tool to dismantle and service a headshock. Not sure if you can replace the strips of needle bearings or not. I’m sure it will go for a good while and you can probably run it when the suspension doesn’t work any more. It’s not a bad price seeing as you got a set of BB7 calipers at the least. It’s cool! Ride it and have fun! Old mtbs are the best. If not necessarily for mtbing..
This is the guy you want to talk to.
https://www.mendoncyclesmith.com/
A coworker had one as a commuter, he found an elastomer conversion kit. This was also 15+ years ago. You lose lockout.
This era of Cannondale was just slightly unhinged, haha.
If you can find a shop with an old service kit on the shelf they can be serviced and rebuilt but anyone who has ever worked on one will tell you they are an absolute……… to work on and you need around 3 million hands to hold everything together when fitting everything back together.
But yeah if the headstock dies consider the whole bike toast.
I’ve owned a few and they’re actually really good forks. There are a couple different types, some with an air cartridge (with seals that do tend to leak over time) and some with coil springs that will basically work indefinitely. It’s hard to say which yours is, but I’m guessing coil spring. Either way, if it’s still working now, it should continue working for quite a while longer.
I think seal kits are still available but if you need to replace a damper or needle bearing you’re going to be SOL. headsets to convert this to a normal suspension fork are available.
When the shock breaks. Until then what a gem for $100
It’s not necessarily true. It could be that the guy at the shop knows a lot or knows nothing about headshocks. Ugh. I lost it (I’ll keep looking) but I had a handy chart that showed which headshocks were rebuildable and which weren’t. I guess the first question is whether yours has an air spring? There will be a schrader valve in the bottom of the steerer. If it’s not an air spring, I think you’re actually in luck because those are convertible to air springs, but you also don’t have an old air spring to blow out.
I’ve upgraded/changed quite a few of these, but I haven’t been at cannondale dealer since 22, so I don’t remember which headshocks are good and which are bad (as far as rebuilding goes). Again, I’ll keep looking for the chart to identify which cartridge is which. I wish I still had a login for Cannondale’s tech site.
You can service them. There are videos on YouTube on how to do it. Not sure where you get the parts from but I’m sure they’re out there.