Cannondale: Super-V Ready! Introducing (another) new, inclusive and cultural trend.

For those of you familiar with the KTM motorcycle company’s brand identity “Ready to Race”, I’m going to follow a similar theme regarding the iconic Cannondale mountain bike, the Super V. I can only assume that the bike got this name due to the V shape of the frame, although I could be wrong.  The V could also be for victory, which was also used famously by Winston Churchill, who regularly posed for photos with his two fingers making a V shape.

So here’s the game. If you own a VW Beetle or old VW van, you can’t pass another old Vee-Dub on the road without waving or holding your arm out of the window with fist clenched apart from the first and little fingers pointing out. This sign is a well used emoticon as well. My (possibly amazing) idea is that every time you’re out on your Cannondale Super V, you take a photo of yourself (like the one below) with your fingers in a V shape and in-line with the shape of the frame. Additionally, when you pass another Super V rider on the trails, you can give each other the V sign. This makes things very inclusive and friendly and strongly illustrates that you are ‘Super-V Ready‘.

I’ve even thought of a great title track to the theme, which is ‘Supermassive Black hole’ by Muse and you can see and hear it here Muse Supermassive Black Hole Live. I know the title of this anthemic track doesn’t have a ‘V’ in it, but it does have the word ‘Super’ in it, so that’s good enough. My prediction is that with the help of social media, a couple of magazine articles, and some famous brand ambassadors, everyone will be taking photos of their Super Vs with the two fingered sign. There is however, a serious flaw in this proposal though. Cannondale last made their Super V in the late 1990s and there aren’t many still being used in anger on the trails, so the chance of meeting a fellow Super V rider is at best, very unlikely. That is, unless some bright spark hosts the first ever, global Cannondale Super V weekend somewhere on the planet. Hmmm, maybe that is a good idea.

The fact that there are few Cannondale Super Vs around means that I could ride around the trails for years whilst humming that equally iconic Muse track, and never see another Super V. But wait a minute, nearly all bicycle frames have a V shape to them because they’re mostly made up of triangles. One triangle can provide 3 V-shaped-finger-photo opportunities and most traditional bike frames have two triangles, so it would work for any bike and photo angle. This means that I’ve just come up with the next global mountain bike greeting. Social media will embrace the extra millions of photos in a couple of days. The global Mountain biking community has a new way to bond, and let’s not stop at mountain bikers either. Lets be inclusive and invite every cyclist to take photos of their bikes with the new V sign. All cyclists will be ‘Super-V Ready‘

I can’t patent or register this new symbol of global greeting, even though it could generate new fashion garments like T-shirts etc. Actually, talking of T-shirts, I’m more than happy to send a fab ‘Diary of a Cycling Nobody’ T-shirt to the first person who subscribes AND tells me (via my email on this page) what year my latest Cannondale Super V Freeride (pictured below and in the featured image) was manufactured.

This is the first time this recent, and very shiny black Cannondale Super V acquisition has graced these posts, so I haven’t given the date away previously, although you can read about the other Super Vs in my life in other posts. So, leading by example, I count myself as exceedingly Super-V Ready!

All photos by the Author