hey’re straight, they’re stiff, and they’re everywhere. These are the best attributes of this year’s triathlon-specific Cannondales. What’s less-than-best about these bikes is going to take a little more time to tell.

When Cannondale burst onto the tri scene several years back with its R700, it revolutionized the tri-bike market. This was the first bike with tri-specific geometry that carried a pricetag that fit nicely over the fat part of the bell curve. But in recent years C’dale has struggled with its line. It seems that during "even" years they hit it out of the park, and in "odd" years they overthink their line. This seems to be one of the odd years.

The MS800 is a case in point. The idea behind the bike makes some intuitive sense: Novice triathletes aren’t so used to tri-bars and the tri-position, so why not make them a tri-bike (it has a 78-degree seat angle and 650c wheels) with a road-race bar, a Shimano 105 STI kit, and clip-ons? No argument with that, theoretically. But anyone who’s spent much time fitting people (properly) on forward-position bikes will tell you that if your clip-ons are bolted to a road-race bar, the "hoods" position will be too low and too close to the rider. The drops position will be completely unusable.

There is a way to fix this—that is, to make a tri-specific bike onto which a road-race bar can be fitted, but such a bike must end up with the road bar in its rightful place. It’s silly to put a road bar on a bike if you’re going to place it too low and close. You must make changes to both the frame and to the clip-on if you want the bike to fit correctly. "Correctly" in this case means that your position must be ergonomically superior while both in and out of the saddle and, while seated, in and out of the aero position.

air warning: For the next several paragraphs I will wax technical and tell you how this kind of bike should be built—specifically, how you’d fix both the frame and the clip-ons. If you start to glass over and wonder if I’ve thoughtfully provided a hyperlink to hotbabes.com, just scroll down to the paragraph starting with: "On to the spec itself."

The head tube on the MS800, in order to be the sort of bike C’dale is trying to make, must be taller, almost as tall as one you’d find on a road-race frame of similar size. This is because the road bar on a tri bike—if it is to be fitted with a road-race bar—must be close to the same height as the same bar on a road-race bike or the bar will, of course, be too low to be properly usable. The top tube must be one to two centimeters longer than the top tube on a full-blown tri bike because, again, the road bar must be in something close to its proper position, which is to say, not too close to the rider.

Unfortunately, Cannondale uses the same frame for the MS800 that it uses for the MS2000. The latter is a true tri-specific bike, with flat pursuit bars and full-blown clip-ons. C’dale has a nice idea with the MS800 but stopped short of executing it when they tried to stretch one frame design around two different handlebar schemes.

These frame adjustments, even if they had been made, would not make the bike perfect. Road-race geometry and road bar design have evolved together to provide good, ergonomic hand positions for climbing, braking and descending in or out of the saddle. But if you use a road-race bar on a tri-specific bike and you want the cockpit distance to be close to correct, the bars will all of a sudden be further in front of the bottom bracket than would be the case on a road bike. This is because the steeper seat angle of a tri-bike has "pushed" the front end of the bike further in front of the BB. If the road bars are in the "correct" position when you’re in the saddle, you’ll have to reach a bit for the hoods when you’re out of the saddle. So you must find a middle ground in top tube length: split the difference, more or less.

You’ve still got one more thing to fix. If you’re determined to use a road-race bar on your tri-bike, you’ve got to get it in something approximating the right spot, as is described above. But if you mount clip-ons you’ll be a bit stretched out and the armrests will sit too high—there won’t be enough vertical drop from your saddle to your armrests.

here’s a work-around for this, theoretically. First, you’ll want to use one of those "shorty" bars with extensions that only reach about three-quarters of the distance normally reached by tri bars. This shorter distance on the extensions will bring you back to the point where you won’t be too stretched out while in the aero position. With these types of clip-ons the armrests will not contact your forearms back toward the elbow. If they did, the armrests would be so far behind the road bar that your knees would hit the backs of the armrests every time you got out of the saddle. No, you’ll lay your forearms on these armrests midway between the elbow and wrist.

This is exactly the kind of clip-on C’dale’s product managers have decided to use on the MS800: You’ll find the Cinelli Corna on this bike. This is logical thinking on C’dale’s part. But the armrests are still too high, and really need to be at the same level as the "tops" of the road bars. It is not that C’dale spec’d the wrong "shorty" tri-bar. There really is no bar currently made that fixes this problem.

There’s one last thing, though. The height of the armrests on the Cinelli Corna can be lowered. There is a spacer underneath the armrest that can be removed and lowers the armrests 12mm, but you’ll have to go to the hardware store to get a shorter bolt. This might make the bike a better fit for certain owners.

With the current MS800 setup, your aero position is not going to be all that aero. You might conclude that this is OK because this is an entry-level tri-bike. But this depends on your philosophy of the market. Does an "entry-level" triathlete buy an entry-level tri bike? Or is that purchase a road-race bike? Which gets eventually fitted with a tri-bar? And eventually retro-fitted to mimic a steep seat-angle bike? At which point the buyer finally falls over the edge and into the full-fledged tri-bike abyss. Might such a buyer then just make another purchase, this time a full-blown tri-bike? This philosophy would cause the product manager of a tri-bike manufacturer to reconsider building a line of bikes that are part road and part tri, and instead just build a line of full-blown tri-bikes in a variety of price ranges. C’dale’s triathlon lineup is reminiscent of those posters that show the evolution from ape to Modern Man—with a geometry and spec that fits anyone who wants to be a given distance from road-race to triathlon. The MS800 is Homo Erectus.

e, I’m not a cosmetics guy. Anything less than the stenciled paint on the new Colnagos is, well, paint. I like the colors more than last years’ colors. But I’m not the guy to ask. When I was making bikes, my staff used to shoo me out of the room when it came time to decide on paint schemes. I can tell you if they ride good. I can’t tell you if they look good.

But at least they make the thing in different sizes, eight of them, from 48 to 62 centimeters. Don’t get me started on one-size-fits-all bike frames.

This bike sells for $1,699. Hmmm. QR’s Kilo is $1,395, Fuji’s Aloha is $1,199. They have 105 too. But then Trek’s Hilo is $1,795, and it also has 105. Of course the Trek has Rolf wheels. On the other hand, THESE Rolfs are the anchors of the line. (And by "anchors" we don’t mean the "flagships" of the line, we mean the things that keep flagships from going anywhere).

Like we said: They’re straight, they’re stiff, and they’re everywhere.

What we mean is, if you compare any 56cm C'dale road-race bike with C'dale's aero series, the geometries are pretty much similar. Except for the head tube lengths. In this particular size, the head-tube top on the R1000 Aero (and the R3000 Aero, for that matter) sits about an inch closer to the ground.

Another way of saying this is that in the 56cm size, Cannondale take's its road-race geometry and reproduces it almost exactly in the R1000 Aero, except this bike's top tube is lowered about one inch (23mm, to be exact). Lowering the top tube lowers, of course, the top of the head tube as well. This means the whole front end -- handlebars, brake levers, etc. -- sits closer to the ground. This is great if you are making a tri-bike, because you need to get the front end lower so that you can slap on your clip-ons and not have the armrests too high off the ground. But then why doesn't this bike come with clip-ons? Is C'dale saying that this is an individual, idiosynchratic choice, like pedals, and so is left to customer discretion, as an aftermarket purchase? Okay, but then why do they put clip-ons on to the MS800?

Another dealer we talked to said the bike is what road-racers want to buy when they want a time-trial bike. Like when they have to do a little stage race or omnium that requires a timed race in there somewhere. Whatever. Cannondale points out that this is an UCI-legal bike, and this might be their justification for choosing shallower seat-angles. We suppose what they mean is that the MS800 and MS2000 may not be UCI-legal, because of their saddle nose to BB measurements. But C'dale could have made these bikes with steeper seat-angles and they'd still have been legal (and -- as those who follow these rules know -- roadies who time-trial regularly invoke the "morphology exception" to get around this rule.

Personally, we can see two legitimate functions for this bike. We'll sort of buy the idea that roadies might like this bike for their occasional time-trial. SMALL MARKET! But, more legitimately, we must remember that some pro triathletes, notably Peter Reid, Tony DeBoom and Cameron Widoff, ride tri set-ups which are pretty close to road geometry. Peter Reid has a slightly forward seat-post, giving him about 76 degrees of relative seat-angle. All three of these guys ride 700c wheels. This bike has 73.5 degrees of seat angle in Reid's size, and it has the bigger wheels. Fiddling around with the seat post you could make this a 76-degree bike. So, OK, we can buy this concept for the bike. But we never heard this from any Cannondale dealer. We made it up on our own.

For this latter purpose the bike is actually not wholly bad, especially for $1,799. But it never should have been spec’d with road bars; it should have a conventional tri front-end. With this one spec’ing modification this is not a bad bike for a rider who is looking for a Peter Reid-style set-up. But hey, C’dale, if you’re listening out there, decide what this bike is for. Then send out a circular to your dealers and let them know.

(OTHER TRI BIKE REVIEWS)