A detailed gallery of the brand's lightweight, aero and time trial machines
(Image credit: Gustav Thuesen)
This week, as the Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes draw near, EF Education-EasyPost and EF Education-TIBCO-SVB reveal their second collaboration with Palace Skateboards.
The resulting Rapha x Palace kit was as wild as we all expected. The ducks had been dropped from the design, replaced by dragons in what would, in an evolutionary context, be deemed a drastic regression. But judging by the positive reaction on social media, the design worked.
In that story, we touched on the fact that the collaboration extends beyond Rapha kit. There are also POC helmets, Whoop bands, Wahoo computers, and the subject of this article: Cannondale bikes.
SystemSix
The aero bike in Cannondale's arsenal, the SystemSix, uses deep tubes for their aerodynamic properties, but that has the added benefit in this context of providing a nice large canvas for the Palace designers and the artist tasked with designing the bike.
As with all of the designs, the base is a tricolour of blue, white and hot pink, with the usual 'Cannondale' logo in dark blue. The dragon sits pride of place on the seat post cluster, where he's joined by a collection of other logos in a sort of sticker bomb arrangement.
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(Image credit: Gustav Thuesen)
(Image credit: Gustav Thuesen)
(Image credit: Gustav Thuesen)
(Image credit: Gustav Thuesen)
SuperSix Evo
The SuperSix Evo is the all-rounder in the range. With a smattering of aero cues while not losing focus on overall weight, the SuperSix Evo will be used by the team in the mountainous stages.
Here, the design is largely the same as the SystemSix, but with logos and dragons moving to different positions, presumably due to the constraints of the smaller tubes compared to the aero bike.
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(Image credit: Gustav Thuesen)
(Image credit: Gustav Thuesen)
(Image credit: Gustav Thuesen)
(Image credit: Gustav Thuesen)
SuperSlice
This time trial bike has been in use by the team since early on in the 2021 season, when we spotted Rigoberto Uran using it. Cannondale hasn't technically launched it yet, but we assume it will take the name of its predecessor and be called the SuperSlice.
It's on this bike that components brand Vision has gotten involved with the wild design, and provided what appears to be eight different colourways for its Metron time trial wheels. Check them out below.
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(Image credit: Gustav Thuesen)
(Image credit: Gustav Thuesen)
(Image credit: Gustav Thuesen)
(Image credit: Gustav Thuesen)
(Image credit: Gustav Thuesen)
(Image credit: Gustav Thuesen)
(Image credit: Gustav Thuesen)
(Image credit: Gustav Thuesen)
The close ups
What is it they say about the devil being in the detail? In this case, it's the dragon in the detail, alongside a splash of logo designs for Palace, Rapha and others. Scroll down and feast your eyes on the close-ups of the bike and its components.
Josh is Associate Editor of Cyclingnews – leading our content on the best bikes, kit and the latest breaking tech stories from the pro peloton. He has been with us since the summer of 2019 and throughout that time he's covered everything from buyer's guides and deals to the latest tech news and reviews.
On the bike, Josh has been riding and racing for over 15 years. He started out racing cross country in his teens back when 26-inch wheels and triple chainsets were still mainstream, but he found favour in road racing in his early 20s, racing at a local and national level for Somerset-based Team Tor 2000. These days he rides indoors for convenience and fitness, and outdoors for fun on road, gravel, 'cross and cross-country bikes, the latter usually with his two dogs in tow.
