Golden guns
Considering that Cannondale has been so influential in the development of bike design across almost every discipline, you could easily assume it has been dedicated to the technological advancement of frame materials and fabrication from the very beginning of its 50-year history. In reality, the company founded by Joe Montgomery and Murdoch MacGregor had no idea about what it wanted to make when it started. Yet if anything the brand’s indirect roots are directly responsible for Cannondale’s continued success along its eventual path.
Taking its name from the town’s train station in Connecticut, USA, Cannondale started as a small collection of outdoorsy types developing camping gear. Among them were two particularly gifted engineers, Ron Davis and Todd Patterson, who worked with Montgomery to develop the first product that would alter Cannondale’s course: the Bugger bicycle trailer (that doesn’t mean the same in the US as it does in Britain). Cannondale thought it was a better way to lug outdoor gear around than loading it all onto a bike.
Murray Washburn, Cannondale’s global director of product marketing, takes up the story: ‘Todd was one of
