FSA Metropolis 2 speed crank on this red Cannondale

[rickpaulos]

Trying to identify the model and year for this partial bike.

The FSA crank is broken/jambed. works in 1:1 ratio when you pull the shift cable. Won't budge when the cable is slack.
disc brakes front and rear.
non-cannondale Rock Shox Dart 2 shock fork
sun Black Eye rims (the rear wheel consists of a rim, tube & tire only)
There is a bit of velcro very securely stuck to the top tube over the model name.
rear brake lever broken.
many missing parts
yet the paint seems very good.

I've done some www searching with various results.
FSA Metropolis 2 speed commuter crank introduced in 2010?
Cannondale head badge 2000-2007+
bar code sticker on bb starts with R (2006t ?)
serial starts with 11 (1997, september?)

 

[black lightning 1987]

First letter of the bar code sticker should give the year of build. R would be 2006. I'll have a look and see if I can find it. No luck so far. What wheel size? Is it set up for a front derailleur? I did find the Black Eye rims listed on a 2007 Caffeine so I'm going to assume it has 26" wheels.

 

[black lightning 1987]

It's a 2007 F5. That crank is not original to the bike, original was a TruVativ Isoflow 22/32/42. Rims and fork are original.

 

[rickpaulos]

yes on the front der. It has a plastic under the bb cable guide with some cable wear but there are no marks on the frame from a clamp on derailleur.

26" wheel on it. I don't think there is room for a 29er. And 27.5 were out then?
XL sticker on the frame so that appears to match up with the XL on the bb shell.
the bb bar code sticker reads R100047
frame sticker says Alcoa ALCALYTE (baseball bat material)

 

[black lightning 1987]

See above. I edited my post.

 

[rickpaulos]

Thanks.
Is the F5 considered a Caffiene model?

 

[black lightning 1987]

I have a bunch of NOS FSA Alpha Drive cranks that would be good cheap replacements. Some are square taper, some ISIS, some the smaller diameter FSA spline. Most are 22/32/44, arm lengths are 170-175, silver or black. I've used them on several budget builds with good results. Some of the FSA splined cranks have BBs. Grabbed the first one I saw for the photo, which happens to be a black 170 ISIS.

 

[black lightning 1987]

Thanks.
Is the F5 considered a Caffiene model?

I don't know what the differences were but the F4 and F5 were Furio-X frames and the Caffeines were evidently somewhat different.

 

[rickpaulos]

I striped the bike down today.

I can see bits of broken gears inside the Metropolis crank. We'll see if I can find parts but I have to dismantle it for a better look. And it has 165mm arms.

The frameset is not all that light.
Promax disc calipers? I see those on walmart bikes. This must have been Cannondale's lowest priced mountain bike. ($579 in 2007)

Kickstand left a couple of small chips. Who does that? If you need a kickstand, this isn't the right bike for you.
A fair bit of chain suck scrapes.
A scrape by the rear dropout.
The bright red paint does look pretty good.
The bit of velcro on the top tube was a bugger to pull off. I see the same bit of velcro on the 20" kids Cannondale. Wonder what that is about. Maybe a top tube phone holder bag. Got the remaining glue off and the paint and F5 decal are fine.

I'll be putting the frameset up on ebay. frame, fork, headset, stem, seat post, seat post clamp. It is just not economical to me to rebuild. An XL is too big for me anyhow. Let someone else have the fun on this one.

Thank you for identifying the the model & year. There are so many models and many years of catalogs to browse, a bit of expertise really helps us.

 

[black lightning 1987]

I know people who demand kickstands on their bikes but I don't get it. Unless parked indoors on concrete it's always safer to lay the bike down or lean it against something.

I'd bet that the original crank was 175 mm.

 

[rickpaulos]

I took the Metropolis crank off and apart. No wonder it was jammed. There were bits of about 3 stray thin gears in there broken up and jammed into the teeth of the other gears. Looking at Arron's Bicycle Repair photos and some youtube vids, my conclusion is they don't belong. Unless there was an undocumented version 2. There was no place for those broken gears ie, no pins or mounts. The rest of the gears are okay. The pawls were quite sticky. The grease was very dirty and gooey. A sign the seals don't work well or they could have used a longer lasting grease. It is easy to work on. A cir-clip pliers are quite helpful to remove the main cir-clip and the rest just pulls apart. I cleaned it up and reassembled and it works in my hands. There was no indication it's been apart before, no excess scratches or gouges from novice wrenching. I removed the right side bb with my fingers so there who ever installed the crank on wasn't an expert. Loose bb cups is a sure way to ruin the threads in any frame. 165mm cranks in a XL frame? The crank was intended for hybrids and has seen use in recumbents. With the skinny tires, I guess someone was trying to rebuild this bike as a hybrid.I'll try this crank out on another bike, maybe my Brompton folder with it's 3 speed hub with funky 2 cog drive. Make it a 12 speed. Or that Trek R200 that is on my rebuild list. Meanwhile I removed most of the odd parts and put the F5 frameset on ebay.

 

[Brian]

That sucks. If you decide to fix it, possible a machine shop can CNC one. But the cost would be very high. I would just use another crank, and go 1x9 or 1x10. I run a 1x10 and have no issues. I love it.

 

[rickpaulos]

After taking the broken bits out, the crank seems to be okay. I just think the broken bits didn't belong. I've asked FSA about it but they don't know. I sent them the photos and they are asking around.

The 4 planet gears have 24 teeth each. I counted about 70ish broken gear teeth. The way this crank is designed, more broken teeth couldn't fall out, unless they fell out before the crank was installed on the bike. So 3 or 4 extra gears with no where to be mounted. Just odd.

 

[rickpaulos]

After staring at the photos some more, I think 3 of the 4 plantetary gears flaked off the top 3mm of material.

You can see 2 of the planet gears and the one on the left has a rough top surface were it broke off. My guess is the gears were sintered or cast.

 

[rickpaulos]

I found this today.

The designers website admits the sintered gears delaminate, but hey, buy more of the same from us. Thumbs down for FSA.

 

[black lightning 1987]

That's what I thought when I saw your first pic of the gears: junk. I don't understand the concept anyway. Triple cranks work fine.