£1,900 Comfort-orientated fender-friendly all-rounder
Weight 9.53kg (54cm) Frame Aluminium Fork Carbon Gears Shimano 105 11-speed (11-34t, 50/34t) Brakes Shimano 105 hydraulic disc, 160mm rotors Wheels DT Swiss R470 DB, 28h, tubeless-ready Finishing kit Fizik Aliante Delta saddle, Vittoria Zaffiro Pro Bright Black 700x30c tyres, all Cannondale 3 6061 Alloy: stem, Compact handlebar and seatpost
Cannondale big up their top-line aluminium Synapse as a smooth-rolling, fast-riding machine that thrives on the road and beyond. It comes with a nearly complete Shimano 105 hydraulic groupset, branded wheels, tyres and saddle and clearance for widish tyres and mudguards, not to mention loads of fittings for bottles, luggage and the like.
It’s a nicely finished and well-put-together machine. Much like the Cube, it’s aluminium with a full-carbon fork, and the cabling is internally routed. Unlike the Cube, however, there are lots of fittings: double bosses on the seat-tube, triple down-tube bosses, another pair under the down-tube and, yes, bento box bosses on the top-tube. Its mudguard fittings are much more comprehensive than the Cube’s too, and combine with the extra clearance to mean that most full-length fenders should fit without issue.
The Cannondale’s geometry sits between the other two bikes on test, though slightly nearer to the Cube than the Kanzo. The head angle is a reasonably racy 71.9° and the seat-tube 73°, but the Cannondale’s wheelbase is 1.5cm longer than the Cube’s, which’ll make it feel a little more stable and a tad less racy. But at 1,009mm it’s not like a full-on endurance bike. The Cannondale has 5mm greater reach but the Cube’s stack figure is nearly a centimetre lower, to emphasise the Cube’s slightly more aggressive frame geometry.
All clear
Cannondale says the maximum tyre width is 32mm, though it also flags up the ‘big 6mm room on each side’, so I reckon you could go up to 35mm for a bit of rough-stuff riding. The DT Swiss rims are designed for 28-35mm tyres and the Vittorias specced are nominally 30mm wide but measure 32mm when inflated to 85psi; 32mm hits the sweet spot for comfort over poor road surfaces without adding too much weight. They’re pretty good tyres too, decently grippy in challenging conditions and with a more supple feel than their modest 26 TPI thread count would suggest. By contrast, the Cube’s tyres have a 180 TPI thread count. While the rims are tubeless compatible, the Vittoria tyres are not.
This bike, like the Cube Attain, uses Shimano’s 11-speed 105 grou
