Cannondale Synapse Hi-mod
Cannondale has made some daring changes to its popular model
Thanks to Google constantly spying on our every mouse click, we know that the Cannondale Synapse is one of the most searched for bikes on the internet. The reason is fairly obvious: it’s a very good bike. Look through past reviews, including my own, and you will struggle to find anything but high praise for Cannondale’s endurance bike.
As such, it would be tempting for Cannondale to avoid making any big changes to the Synapse, but this 2018 edition represents the most significant redesign since the Synapse went full carbon back in 2013. And what Cannondale has done is rather intriguing.
With a growing appetite for bikes that offer ‘versatility’ – that is, being able to cope with a variety of road surfaces – many brands have pushed their endurance models closer to the off-road end of the market, with the addition of mechanical suspension systems to absorb road shocks. Cannondale has done no such thing. In fact, it has done the opposite.
Go your own way
The 2018 Synapse is now closer in style to the company’s pure road racing machine, the Supersix Evo. It’s both lighter and stiffer than its predecessor, and even the geometry and performance attributes of the frame and fork are now more aligned with its race-bred brethren. What is the reason for this? Cyclist called Cannondale designer David Devine to find out.
‘We designed the new Synapse conscious that the endurance rider still wants a lightweight, responsive bike, the same as a bike racer,’ he says. ‘I think this direction becomes natural once we accept that suspension belongs in a different category. I’d call that “all-road” and we have the Slate for that. To me this [endurance] category is better served having race bike performance, but melding in some of the functional features that make an endurance bike its own: room for bigger tyres, mudguard compatibility and disc brakes. These aren’t passive bikes – they’re made to be pushed – and so the Synapse gets the same construction tech
as our lightweight race bikes such as the Supersix Evo and Superx. There’s not a whole lot of fluff, fewer bonded pieces, more integrated manufacturing. Its inherent beauty is in how simple and refined it is.’
I agree with Devine’s stance regarding the endurance road category. I feel it’s often misunderstood. Front ends don’t need to be so tall that they require you to duck low flying aircraft, and while no one wants to be beaten up by their bike, most of us don’t need gooey-marshmallow levels of compliance either. What can be said with certainty is that everybody likes to go fast, whether it’s placing highly at a gran fondo or just giving your mates a kicking up the local climb. On those points, this new Synapse delivers.
Where its predecessor was ‘very good’, this new model has stepped up to ‘excellent’. It has a snappier feel and sharper handling, with poise in the corners and stability at speed. As promised, it feels much closer to the Supersix Evo. I was able to test the Synapse back to back with the current Supersix Evo Hi-mod Disc, and in terms of acceleration and handling I struggled to definitively split them. What’s more I could run with the stem slammed on the slightly taller front end of the Synapse, where I needed a 20mm spacer stack on the Supersix, so for my fit dimensions the Synapse arguably looked more ‘pro’.
So what does split these two bikes? The answer is comfort. There’s nearly 6cm difference in the seat tube length of the two (size 56cm) bikes, resulting in the Synapse having a lot more exposed seatpost that can flex under impacts. This does much of the hard work towards smoothing out the ride feel single-handedly.
The Synapse was sublimely smooth over even the most pitted road surfaces
Then there are the tyres. With clearance for up to 32mm, plus tubeless-ready wheels, the Synapse offers lots of scope to fine-tune the feel. In testing I used the supplied Vittoria Corsa G+ 28mm tyres (which actually measured 29.5mm) with inner tubes, and gradually dropped the pressure with each ride. Starting out at 85psi, I came down in 5psi increments until I was riding at just 60psi, which felt amazingly smooth, although by this point I felt I was pushing my luck a bit and risking pinch flats. Had I converted to tubeless, though, I would have been happy even at this low pressure. I settled eventually on 70psi front, 75psi rear as a happy medium for the superior grip and comfort it offered without seeming to impact significantly on rolling speed. Set up in this way the Synapse was sublimely smooth over even the most pitted road surfaces, and grip in corners was confidence-inspiring.
What the new Synapse delivers is a noticeably racier feel compared to the outgoing model, but with no less comfort. When I consider the other bikes I’ve tested recently in the endurance sector – Trek’s Domane SLR, Specialized’s Roubaix S-works, BMC’S Roadmachine 01 and Canyon’s Endurace CF SLX Disc – it seems clear to me that Cannondale has set out to distance itself from those brands.
The new Synapse is not as noticeably comfortable as some of those other bikes, especially the Domane with its plush rear end and the Roubaix with its sprung shock absorber upfront, but that’s not its main purpose. The Synapse feels every bit like a race bike until you get home from a four or five-hour ride. That’s when you realise how well it has been taking care of you.
The question I was left pondering is has Cannondale made this new Synapse so capable it will harm the sales of its Supersix Evo? It’s possible. For many would-be Supersix customers (myself included), unless all you plan to do is race, the new Synapse is arguably the smarter choice.