Cannondale SystemSix

Launched in September 2018 after 3.5 years of development, the SystemSix was Cannondale's first dedicated aero road bike and was marketed as 'the world's fastest UCI-legal road bike'. Designed under chief aero engineer Nathan Barry using CFD and wind tunnel testing, it pioneered a holistic 'six-part system' approach — frame, fork, seatpost, bar, stem and wheels all engineered together using truncated airfoil profiles tuned via what Cannondale called 'Yaw Weighted Drag'. The disc-brake-only design allowed deep aero integration that wouldn't have been possible with rim brakes. Ridden in WorldTour by EF Education-EasyPost (then Drapac) through 2019-2022. The bike was about 1kg heavier than the all-rounder SuperSix EVO, which became a problem as competitors (Specialized Tarmac SL7, Trek Madone Gen 7) merged aero and lightweight into a single platform. When Cannondale launched the fourth-generation SuperSix EVO in 2023 — which absorbed both aero and climbing duties in one frame — the SystemSix was quietly retired. By model year 2024 it was effectively run-out stock only.