Quote Originally Posted by zoom-zoom View Post
Those are all interesting possibilities. How easy is it to determine any of these possibilities and diagnose? The tubes and tires would be my last suspicion. I have Kenda Nevegals, which people around here always seem to rave about.

What is so frustrating is all the glowing reviews I read of the Cannondale F5. I have a friend with the EXACT same bike (Cdale had a bunch of the petite size sitting in a warehouse and essentially liquidated them about a year ago). She rides far less than I do and on the road with our road bikes I can ride circles around her. On trails I can barely keep up with her and end up beating myself up trying to do so.

The first thing to check would be wheel trueness. "Dish" (proper spacing of the rims between the dropouts) and "lateral trueness" (no side-to-side warping of the rims) are most relevant here. Roundness of the rims (vertical trueness) wouldn't affect tracking.

The easiest way to check the rims is with a truing stand and a dishing tool, but you can improvise tools to do a quick check of trueness (http://sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html#improvised). Spoke tension can be checked with a special tool, or in a pinch, by listening to the tone when the spokes are plucked (http://www.bikexprt.com/bicycle/tension.htm). Check Sheldon Brown's web site for truing methods.

Checking the frame alignment is best done with a special tool. You could do a preliminary check of alignment by improvising (http://sheldonbrown.com/forkend-alignment.html), but your best bet is to take the bike to your local bike shop -they should be willing to check alignment for for free, or for a very minimal charge.