CANNONDALE SYNAPSE CARBON DISC WOMEN’S ULTEGRA £2,699.99

ompletely redesigned for 2018, the Cannondale Synapse Carbon Disc Women’s Ultegra saves over 200g on the previous award-winning model, making it one of the lightest disc brake endurance bikes on the market.

At the heart of the Synapse is the Ballistec carbon frame. Ballistec is Cannondale’s proprietary method of creating a high-strength, high-stiffness carbon. It’s composed of ultrastrong fibres, akin to military ballistic armouring — hence the name — and allows Cannondale to engineer stiffness where it’s most needed.

However, Cannondale knows stiffness alone doesn’t create a great endurance race bike. In order to create a smooth ride on rough road surfaces the Synapse incorporates a design feature called SAVE (Synapse Active Vibration Elimination), acting like a micro-suspension system in areas of the frame and fork.

The frameset revamp also sees geometry sharpened up to make the bike feel more racier than the previous model, without sacrificing the comfort that long days in the saddle require, while increased tyre clearance now allows for up to 32mm tyres, or 28mm if taking advantage of the hidden mudguard mounts. In fact, it’s this extra tyre space that makes the bike incredibly versatile, allowing you to pop on a pair of gravel tyres, or even a set of knobblies and hit the trails.

The Synapse is a 12mm bolt-thru disc-specific range, featuring radical asymmetry in the frame and forks to cope with the loads of disc brakes on the non-driveside, with the fork leg and chainstays oversized to cope with disc-brake forces.

Equipped with the new R8000 series Shimano Ultegra Hydraulic disc brakes, matched with the much-respected Cannondale Si cranks with compact FSA chainrings, and, on this model, bombproof Mavic Aksium wheels, there’s a lot to like on this racy endurance bike.