The company was founded in 1971 by Joe Montgomery and Murdock MacGregor to manufacture precast concrete housing.

Later Ron Davis came to Cannondale from CBS Laboratories where he was vice-president in charge of the development of microfilm reproduction.

Davis, with MacGregor as his assistant, managed to duplicate and exceed results obtained by Allison Engine, then a division of General Motors.

By now MacGregor and Davis had recruited two more CBS Laboratory alumni: John Wistrand, an industrial designer, and Jim Catrambone, in management.

Then Joe Montgomery, after a camping bike trip with his son, conceived "the Bugger" bicycle trailer.

Montgomery, in an effort repeated in numerous products, sourced the cloth components and oversaw their manufacture.

At the New York Bicycle Show the team received requests from bike dealers who wanted to buy the bags.

[citation needed] In less than six months Cannondale became the world's largest manufacturer of lightweight bicycle bags.

They then used the infrastructure developed to produce the bags to enter the camping goods market with backpacks and tents.

Regarding the Bugger trailer, although Cannondale's marketing department claimed to be unaware of the connotations of that name in British English,[citation needed] some were, nevertheless, exported to the UK.

Many bicycle frame manufacturers use many materials such as steel or titanium whereas Cannondale specializes in aluminum and carbon fiber, a technology in which they were pioneers.

[3] Another story as told in their 1983 catalog is that employee Pete Meyers was sent to order telephone service installation in 1970.

[5] In the late 1990s Cannondale moved into the motorsports business, producing a line of off-road motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles.

According to an interview with Cannondale Communications Director, Tom Armstrong, the company was unable to reduce the cost of their vehicles fast enough.

[9] In February 2008, Dorel Industries, a Canada-based diversified consumer products company, announced the purchase of Cannondale from Pegasus Capital for approximately $200 million.

The Bedford plant, which at one point produced Cannondale's midrange to high-end aluminum and aluminum/carbon fiber bikes, still handled some assembly, testing, quality control, and customer and technical services.

This arrangement is contrary to the usual industry practice of using carbon stay inserts and aluminum front triangle tubes.

[16] Cannondale developed a proprietary bottom bracket and crankset technology called Hollowgram which has been featured in its high-end bikes since 2001.

Cannondale was the first to produce a crankset that uses externally mounted bottom bracket bearings, though they later discontinued this design.

SE models were sold with rigid Cannondale Pepperoni aluminum forks and Girvin Flexstem stems.

The telescope of the Delta V fork had a square cross-section and instead of bushings, needle bearings were used to minimize stiction.

The two-tube top tube design remained in use for the smallest frame size and reappeared in the Gemini and 'Prophet models.

Missy Giove won the 1994 downhill world championship on a Super V. In 1995, the welded aluminum banana swingarm was replaced by a carbon-fiber version.

Cannondale's president at the time, Joe Montgomery, said he would eat his hat if the V 4000 wouldn't be in the shops in the next season.

Alison Sydor won 3 cross-country world-championships (1994–1996), and a silver medal at the 1996 Olympic Games on this bike.

In 2008, Cannondale introduced an all-carbon Scalpel, and moved the rear shock to enable 100 mm travel.

The team notably won the Giro d'Italia five times, in 1997 with Ivan Gotti, in 2003 with Gilberto Simoni in 2004 with Damiano Cunego.

[22] In 2007, Cannondale became the bicycle sponsor to Liquigas, replacing Bianchi, and counted fourth and fifth Giro wins as Danilo Di Luca in 2007 and Ivan Basso in 2010 rode to victory.

In 2020, Cannondale became the bike sponsor of the Tibco–Silicon Valley Bank UCI Women's World Tour team.

Cross-country riders: Alison Sydor (1994–1999), Tinker Juarez (1994–2002), Sara Ellis (1994–1996), Marc Gullickson (1994–1995), Cyrille Bonnand (1996–1997), Annabella Stropparo (1996–2000), Cadel Evans (1998–2001), Christoph Sauser (1999–2002) Downhill riders: Franck Roman (1994–1996), Missy Giove (1994–1998), Myles Rockwell (1994–1998), Kenichi Nabeshima (1995–1997), Kim Sonier (1996–1998), Oscar Saiz (1997–1998), Brigitta Kasper (1998), David Vasquez-Lopez (1998), Anne-Caroline Chausson (1999–2002), Cédric Gracia (1999–2002), Brian Lopes (1999–2000) Trial athletes: Libor Karas (1994–?