When someone draws up their dream road bike, more likely than not it would look something like this bike. The Colnago C64 is made of the stuff of dreams. The C64 is fully handmade in Italy, with great care – the same care that we’ve used over the last sixty-four years. The carbon frame is built with star-shaped lugs and tubes – an iconic design element that started with the Master, and is unique to Colnago’s flagship road framesets. While it makes sense to use carbon tubing all the way around, why would a company use something as seemingly antiquated as a lugged joint? According to Colnago, the C64 tubes and lugs provide greater stiffness and resistance to bending. Lugs also allow for a greater size range; instead of using an expensive carbon mold that limits most companies to a third the sizes of the C64, Colnago can offer custom sizing. Despite its beefy tubing, the Colnago C60 is designed to be comfortable to ride for long distances, with tapered chainstays and flattened seatstays. It’s similarly comfortable to a good steel road bike as well; mid-corner bumps that normally unsettle leven the best road bikes are put under control here. Stomp on the pedals, however, and the bike just moves. It is also available in the Colnago C64 Disc.
The Colnago V2-r is an evolution of the outgoing Colnago V1-r road bike, which was developed in conjunction with Ferrari as an aero road bike with a svelte 835g frame weight. It retains the powerful direct mount brakes, but moves the rear brake to the seat stays, where it is more accessible. Aero gains have been made in the incorporation of the seatpost clamp, which is now built into the top tube, as well as refined tubing profiles that add gains everywhere. The geometry of the Colnago V2-r has also been tweaked, with a 4mm reduction in head tube length relative to the V1-R. The bottom bracket is 13% stiffer torsionally, and 4% stiffer at the headtube, yet another small tweak that makes a big difference on the road. These myriad of small changes (along with a new disc brake model called the Colnago V2-r Disc) make for a bike that is much improved over its predecessor – it feels fast, light, and confidence-inspiring on descents, just as a Colnago should.
In 1986 Colnago collaborated with Colnago to create one of the earliest carbon fiber road bikes. Called the Concept, it was a test bed of technology, and lessons learned did eventually find their way into their first production carbon fiber bike, the legendary C40. The new Colnago Concept approaches with the same mindset in bringing forth the very best technologies Colnago has to offer. The monocoque carbon frame went through 41 different design iterations and extensive wind tunnel testing, allowing the bike to save 20 watts of energy over the C60 at 50 km/h, with the Colnago Concept Disc frameset achieving similar numbers. The head tube has also received an hourglass shape, as well as a seat tube that tapers along the rear wheel, for again-upgraded aerodynamics. With capability for direct-mount rim brakes as well as flat mount disc brakes, the Colnago Concept isn’t just the fastest road bike in the model line, it’s also the company’s most advanced frameset yet.
Few bikes incite as much nostalgia as the Colnago Master road bike. The Master was the superbike of the 1980’s, and in the cycling world was as popular as the movie Rambo was to the rest of the world. It wasn’t without reason; the Master was deceptively light, even in the face of competition from aluminum and carbon fiber. It was surprisingly stiff too; as pro riders complained about lack of stiffness, Colnago worked with Italian tubing company Columbus to make a stiffer tube than the competition. The result was the star-shaped crimped tube profile that now defines the Master as we know it, as well as the modern carbon Colnago C64. The Master frameset features a whopping 17 sizes, traditional Italian frame geometry (ie long reach, low stack, steeper head and seat tube angles) the option for Art Decor colorways, the Colnago Master is a living legend.
Colnago’s heritage is illustrious and worthy of praise, and their road bikes continue on that course. Each bike is a model of top-quality construction superior ride quality that can only be derived from decades of racing experience.