Introduction

This bike was born out of the desire to own and ride a 1992 Cannondale Track without having to pay the cult-status premium. I also didn’t want to take the risk riding 30+ year old aluminum. I figured if I was going to reproduce the frameset, I wanted to make some changes while preserving the integrity of the iconic track bike. I decided that I wanted to make it out of titanium.

Planning

The first task was to figure out the geometry of the original bike. Consulting online forums, I was able to source this geometry sheet from a 1992 Cannondale magazine:

I typically ride a 52cm frame (520 top tube), but the C-Track 52cm is slightly longer. I figured I would try and go in-between a 50cm and 52cm.

The next step was to source tube diameters. I was able to ask around on Instagram from those who owned a C-Track, and I collected the following:

• Toptube: 38.1mm
• Downtube: 50.8mm
• Seattube: 31.8mm
• Seatstay: 16mm
• Chainstay: 22mm ovalized to 18mm by 26mm, then tapered to 16mm
• Head tube: 38.1(?) ← unsure about this measurement, was hard to accurately gauge

With these numbers, I was able to start planning in CAD:

I quickly identified two issues:

1. A 1” threaded fork is out of date by modern standards, should I change it?
2. How would the tubing work for the downtube/headtube junction? Can titanium be welded with oversized tubes?

The first question was rather easy. I knew I wanted the front end to be less flexy than the original C-Track but to preserve the look, I knew it had to stay straight. That meant a 1-1/8” fork with the skinniest possible head tube around it. I also knew I wanted to use a Chris King headset, and in order to achieve this goal I picked the DropSet 4 which uses an IS42/IS42 top/bottom bearing, effectively giving the headtube a diameter of 46mm.