Cannondale CAAD3 Cipollini ‘stars n stripes’

1997 Cannondale CAAD3 Cipollini

Stars, Stripes & Super Mario

Some racing bicycles are remembered because they won races. Others because they changed the way racing bicycles looked.

The 1997 Cannondale CAAD3 Cipollini belongs firmly in the latter camp – a machine from one of the most colourful periods in professional cycling and the beginning of Cannondale’s memorable relationship with Team Saeco and Mario Cipollini.

For the 1997 season, American manufacturer Cannondale entered the European professional peloton with Saeco and one of cycling’s biggest personalities.

Mario Cipollini – Il Re Leone, the Lion King.

Already one of the fastest sprinters in the world, Cipollini was also unlike almost anyone else in professional cycling. The bikes, clothing and theatrics surrounding him became almost as famous as his victories.

Cannondale proved to be the perfect partner.

CAAD – American Aluminium

At the heart of the bike is Cannondale’s CAAD aluminium chassis – Cannondale Advanced Aluminium Design.

During the 1990s, Cannondale was pushing aluminium frame construction to extraordinary levels. Huge, beautifully formed tubes and oversized joints produced bikes that looked completely different from the slender steel machines that had traditionally dominated professional cycling.

Light, extremely stiff and unapologetically purposeful, these early CAAD machines helped establish Cannondale as a serious force in top-level road racing.

And in the hands of Mario Cipollini, they became impossible to ignore.

4 July 1997

One of the greatest stories associated with this bike came during the 1997 Tour de France.

On 4 July – American Independence Day – Cipollini appeared aboard a specially decorated Cannondale carrying a spectacular Stars and Stripes theme, celebrating Cannondale’s American heritage.

Naturally, Cipollini didn’t stop with the bicycle.

His clothing joined in too.

Professional cycling’s authorities were less enthusiastic about his disregard for the normal team uniform and Cipollini was fined, but the stunt achieved exactly what Cannondale and Super Mario were so good at doing:

Everybody noticed.

More than a quarter of a century later, the Stars and Stripes Cannondale remains one of the most memorable machines associated with Cipollini’s Saeco years.

This Bike

This example captures that extraordinary period beautifully.

The brilliant red Cannondale frame carries CIPOLLINI proudly along the top tube, while the rear of the bike receives the unmistakable American treatment.

Stars and Stripes run across the chainstays and rear triangle, contrasting with the traditional Cannondale graphics and vivid red aluminium frame.

Then there are the wheels.

Spinergy Rev-X

Few components scream 1990s superbike quite like a pair of Spinergy Rev-X wheels.

Their enormous four-spoke carbon construction looked almost impossibly futuristic when they appeared in the professional peloton.

Cipollini raced Spinergy equipment during this period, and photographs of the famous Stars and Stripes Cannondale show the unmistakable four-spoke silhouette beneath him.

On this bike they completely transform its appearance.

Even standing still, it looks fast.

Today the Rev-X has become an icon in its own right, and paired with a late-1990s Cannondale it creates one of the most recognisable silhouettes of the era.

Shimano Ultegra

This particular bike is equipped with a Shimano Ultegra groupset.

The polished alloy components suit the bike perfectly and preserve the wonderfully mechanical appearance of a late-1990s racing bicycle.

Sitting immediately beneath Dura-Ace in Shimano’s hierarchy, Ultegra brought much of Shimano’s racing technology to a more attainable groupset and became a familiar sight on high-end road bikes of the period.

There’s no electronic shifting here.

No hydraulic hoses.

No hidden cables.

No disc brakes.

Just beautifully simple mechanical shifting, polished aluminium components and rim brakes.

Exactly as a bicycle of this era should look.

The Cipollini Connection

It is important to distinguish between a Cipollini-edition bike such as this and a documented personal Cipollini race bike.

Without specific team provenance, we wouldn’t claim that this particular machine was ridden by Mario himself.

What it unquestionably represents, however, is one of the most memorable chapters of the Cannondale–Cipollini story.

And what a story that became.

Cipollini won five stages of the 1997 Giro d’Italia and another two stages at the 1997 Tour de France, where he also spent several days wearing the yellow jersey.

Over the following seasons, the combination of Cipollini, Saeco’s brilliant red jerseys and Cannondale’s oversized aluminium race bikes became one of the defining images of professional cycling in the late 1990s.

Cannondale had found its perfect frontman.

Why We Love It

This is exactly the sort of bicycle Retro Velo exists to celebrate.

The enormous aluminium tubes.

The polished Shimano components.

The absurdly wonderful Spinergy Rev-X wheels.

The skinny tyres.

And, of course, that paintwork.

It comes from an era when race bikes were becoming technologically sophisticated but still retained the beautifully simple mechanical character of a traditional racing bicycle.

More importantly, it has a story.

The Stars and Stripes graphics take us straight back to 4 July 1997, when Mario Cipollini turned up at the Tour de France on an American-themed Cannondale, ignored cycling’s conservative conventions and made sure that everyone was talking about him – and his bicycle.

It was outrageous.

It was unnecessary.

It was completely brilliant.

And it was pure Super Mario.

1997 Cannondale CAAD3 Cipollini – Stars, Stripes and one of the most charismatic periods in Cannondale racing history.