Cannondale Habit 2 Review
In this article, I review my Cannondale Habit 2. I’ve had this bike for about 6 months now but is it as good as it looks? Let’s find out.
“Habit is a trail bike with one simple mission – to keep your fun-meter pegged on any trail, in any terrain from the fast and flowy to the rough and rowdy.”
The Cannondale Habit is a trail bike with progressive geometry featuring a 140mm fork with 130mm rear travel. It is a 29″ bike that is best known from the Cannondale Waves teams videos where they use this fun bike to show off their incredible jib style trail riding.
Habit 2 Frame
The Habit 2 frame is made from composite carbon fibre but has an aluminium rear triangle. Even though the frame is carbon it’s still quite a heavy bike weighting around 13.5kg depending on the frame size. Having said that you do not notice the weight whilst riding and the bike climbs really well but where it really shines is on the descents. When set up correctly the bike is predictable and is easy to handle allowing you to ride playfully. The low bottom bracket makes cornering a dream, I could ride this bike on a set of good corners all day long and never get bored.
Cannondale Proportional Response
The Habit frames all feature Cannondale’s “Proportional Response” which utilizes size-specific centre-of-gravity data. Meaning that each frame suspension has been custom-tuned to the frame size which makes complete sense when you think of how different sizes and weights affect suspension setup.
Cannondale AI Offset
As with the Jekyll and many of Cannondale’s other bikes they have included their AI offset when designing the Habit’s frame. The AI offset is designed to open up the rear triangle to allow for more tyre clearance whilst keeping the chainstay short. This also results in a stiffer stronger rear wheel.
Cannondale Habit 2 Specs
The Habit bike line goes from Habit 1 to Habit 5 and also include a Habit SE version. The lower the number the higher-spec the bike with the SE model slotting in between 1-2.
Here are the Habit 2 Specs:
- Frame – 130mm travel, BallisTec Carbon front triangle, SmartForm C1 Alloy swingarm, Proportional Response Tuned, Ai offset drivetrain, ISCG05, PF30, Post mount brake, tapered headtube
- Fork – RockShox Pike Select+ RC, 140mm, DebonAir, 15×110, tapered steered, 51mm offset
- Shock – RockShox Select Deluxe+ RT, DebonAir
- Number of Gears – 12
- Shifters – SRAM GX Eagle, 12-speed
- Chainset – Truvativ Stylo 7K DUB, 30T, Ai offset
- Cassette – SRAM XG-1275, GX Eagle, 10-50, 12-speed
- Chain – SRAM XX1 Eagle Gold
- Rear Derailleur – SRAM X01 Eagle
- Bottom Bracket – SRAM DUB PF30 MTB83
- Pedals – Not included
- Rims – Stan’s NoTubes ARCH MK3, 32h, tubeless-ready
- Front Hub – Hollowgram 15×110
- Rear Hub – Hollowgram w/ DT internals 12×148 w/ XD driver
- Front Tyre – Maxxis Minion DHF 29 x 2.5″ WT, 3C compound, Max Terra, EXO puncture protection, tubeless-ready
- Rear Tyre – Maxxis High Roller II 29 x 2.3″, 3C compound, Max Terra, EXO puncture protection, tubeless-ready
- Brakes – SRAM G2 RSC hydro disc, 180/180mm Centerline rotors
- Brake Levers – SRAM G2 RSC hydro disc
- Handlebars – Cannondale 3 Riser, 6061 Alloy, 15mm rise, 8° sweep, 4° rise, 780mm
- Grips – Fabric Funguy Locking Grips
- Headset – Integrated, 1-1/8 to 1.5″, sealed angular contact bearings
- Stem – Cannondale 1, 3D Forged 6061 Alloy, 1-1/8″, 31.8, 0°
- Saddle – Fabric Scoop Shallow Elite, cro-mo rails
- Seatpost – Cannondale DownLow Dropper, internal routing, 31.6, 125mm (S), 150mm (M-XL)
Habit Geometry
Review
The Cannondale Habit 2 is a trail bike but it’s more than that. It’s a really fun bike that you can move around easily on the trails but it also performs really well on the descents. I’ve actually raced this bike UK National enduro events and could easily keep up with all-mountain/enduro bikes despite the shorter travel. The Habit may not climb as well as other trail bikes which are more towards the XC end of trail bikes but if you want a do it all bike then this could be the bike for you.
Priced at £4,400 this bike is well placed in the market and features components such as the SRAM eagle GX, Rockshox Pike and SRAM G2 RSC Hydro disk brakes which I personally think are underrated.
Cannondale has nailed the Geometry making this bike a great all-round trail bike. The only thing I’m not a big fan of is how slack the seat post angle is.
Cannondale Habit 2 Modifications and Upgrades.
Since writing this review I have made a number of modifications and upgrades to my Cannondale Habit. This bike is my own personal bike and not one given for review. The review above was all conducted using the default build kit for the Cannondale Habit 2 at the time of testing. However, I thought you might be interested to hear what changes I have made to my bike and why.
The first was to replace the default Stans wheels with some custom Stan’s CB7 Carbon Wheels. These wheels are far stronger and stiffer than the Arch’s the bike comes with. I like stiff wheels as I find them more predictable but these also track really well.
Another upgrade I made was to adjust the suspension to better suit my riding style. Arguably you could say I chose the wrong bike for my style but I just love the way the habit feels with the Pike fork with an additional 10mm of travel. So I upgraded the Rockshox damper from 140 to 150mm. The downside of this was that I felt the rear shock blew through the midstroke too quickly so my next upgrade was to add a Rockshox Megneg and make it quite progressive giving back the bikes intended mid-travel support. The reason I changed the suspension which in turn has affect the geometry is that I like to ride steeper trails where an Enduro bike would be better suited. However, the playful characteristics of the Habit are still present but now I feel more comfortable riding steep trails without feeling like I’m going to go over the bars.
Other than these mods I changed my grips to the Deity Supercrush and my saddle to the SDG Bel Air 3.0 Lux.
Let us know what you think of the Cannondale Habit 2 and whether you own or have tried one. What is your favourite trail bike and let us know if you have made any mods to yours.
You can also read my first impressions article that I wrote a few months ago here.
Here are some other Cannondale articles we have written/published:
