Joe Montgomery, Cannondale Founder Who Popularized Aluminum Bike Frames, Dies at 86

Joe Montgomery, a founder of Cannondale who helped transform high-end bicycles by mass-producing frames from large-diameter aluminum tubes, died of complications of a heart-related illness on Jan. 2 at his home in Vero Beach, Fla., his daughter, Lauren Edinger, said. He was 86. Mr.

Montgomery founded Cannondale in 1971 with three partners and pushed the company to change the build, weight and feel of upscale bikes. The firm was among the first in the United States to mass-produce frames from oversized aluminum tubing and became known for innovations such as a single-legged fork, a carbon-fiber shell integrated with an aluminum spine, and a safety system called SmartSense.

Cannondale began with accessories, a trailer called the Bugger and a loft office above a pickle factory in Wilton, Conn., and produced its first bicycle, the ST-500 touring model, in 1983. By 1993 the company was generating $100 million a year and had about 800 employees worldwide; Cannondale bikes later won medals at world championships and the Olympics and were ridden to stage wins at the 1999 Tour de France.

The company later expanded into motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles and filed for bankruptcy in 2003; it is now owned by Pon Holdings. Mr. Montgomery later founded a software company for billing and medical records.

Key Topics

Business, Joe Montgomery, Cannondale, Aluminum Frames, Pon Holdings, Wilton Connecticut