News of the fifth-generation Cannondale SuperSix EVO has dominated headlines this week, with every outlet having their say on this latest generation of the brand’s popular all-rounder race bike.
Being the first Cannondale road bike I’ve ridden since testing the now-retired SystemSix Hi-Mod, it got me thinking about that bike again – and how much it impressed me back in 2021 (I gave it a rare five-star review).
Why did Cannondale retire what is almost certainly still its fastest road bike in many scenarios?
And why, in an era when aero road bikes are experiencing a resurgence, did it decide to modestly upgrade its all-rounder race bike, rather than reviving a legendary platform?
Although Cannondale has been coy with its responses when pressed, I have a good idea why – and I think the answer has much more to do with the current state of the bike industry, rather than simple questions of performance.
Why the SystemSix was retired
Although it was only lightly commented on at the time, Cannondale says it officially retired the SystemSix when it launched the fourth-generation SuperSix EVO back in 2023.
Having been in use at the top level of the sport since 2018 – we first spotted it at the Abu Dhabi Tour in February of that year – it’s fair to say it had a good run.
Rather than simply aging out and being superseded by faster bikes, though, the rise of the lightweight-aero all-rounder was what signed the death warrant for the SystemSix.
Only a year after the SystemSix launched, the third-generation SuperSix EVO was unveiled and had undergone an aerodynamic overhaul that closed the gap between climbing and aero bikes.
Fast forward another year and Specialized had killed off the Venge in favour of the aero-optimised Tarmac SL7, and soon most prominent road bike brands were following suit.
Speeds in the pro peloton were rising rapidly, thanks to a growing acceptance that the limitations posed by aerodynamic drag are generally far more important to cyclists than those posed by gravity (at least outside of hill climbs and the high mountains). Yet old weight-weenie habits die hard, and lightweight-aero all-rounders were en vogue.
It mattered not that Cannondale had produced an in-depth white paper detailing why the SystemSix was the fastest road bike everywhere except gradients steeper than 6 per cent. Not enough believed it – or cared, it seems.
Given this, I suspect riders, pro or punter, simply chose the SuperSix over the SystemSix far more often than not when offered a choice.
Even as a self-confessed aero-weenie, it’s a choice I can understand.
Aero bikes are fantastic fun in the right conditions, but if you’re only going to have one road bike, an all-rounder is generally the more sensible choice for most riders.
In any case, it’s fair to say a bike that doesn’t get raced or, more importantly, doesn’t sell in the shops, won’t survive for very long, no matter how fast it is.
Aero bikes are back
With Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard winning recent editions of the Tour de France using aero bikes such as the Colnago Y1Rs and Cervélo S5, aero bikes are back in a big way for 2026.
And with Cannondale having breakaway star Ben Healy on its pro team roster, you could be forgiven for thinking that instead of so modestly updating the SuperSix EVO, Cannondale might have built a new SystemSix for him.
Could it be that, like the Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL8 and the Venge, the latest SuperSix EVO is so close to the SystemSix in performance terms that creating another race bike simply doesn’t make sense?
Speaking to Cyclist's Jack Evans, Cannondale’s engineering manager Steve Smith said the new SuperSix EVO gets “very close to it [the SystemSix] in certain builds”, in terms of “how fast you can be for a road bike”.
However, when you consider the SystemSix was launched eight years ago, it’s both impressive how competitive it still is and, dare I say it, slightly unimpressive that the SuperSix EVO hasn’t yet managed to surpass it – at least in terms of aerodynamics.
With close to a decade’s worth of technological progress, the more relaxed bike design rules brought in by the UCI in 2023, and the hyper-aero bikes that have since spawned (such as the Colnago Y1Rs, the Factor One and the Ridley Noah Fast), it’s not difficult to imagine Cannondale could build an even faster SystemSix if it really wanted to.
Why the SystemSix isn’t coming back (for now)
If I had to guess why Cannondale hasn’t revived the SystemSix, I’d put my money on it being more to do with mundane, but sensible business decisions.
It’s no secret that the bike industry has had a turbulent few years following the COVID boom and bust cycle, and Cannondale isn’t the first brand to consolidate its road bike range to fewer, better-selling models.
For example, while Trek’s director of road bikes and Project One, Jordan Roessingh, told BikeRadar it retired its Émonda platform in 2024 because merging it with the Madone offered the “biggest benefit to riders”, the brand’s president, John Burke, was quoted by Bicycle Retailer as saying it wanted to reduce SKUs by 40 per cent, by 2026, in the months prior.
With that in mind, we can hardly blame Cannondale or its parent company, Pon.Bike, for taking a cautious approach and not committing to the huge amounts of research and development, manufacturing, distribution and marketing that another road bike platform would entail.
That's especially valid if it might not have broad apparel or could eat into sales of existing models.
Perhaps, then, we’ll have to wait for another age of abundance to get a new SystemSix.
