societa colnago

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societa colnago |colnago c40 | colnago c40hp | colnago c50hp | colnago dream |
colnago teams since 1968 | robert millar c40 review | colnago clx |
colnago arte 2008 | colnago eps | ernesto colnago interview 2008

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boys from the black stuff - colnago c50

bowmore distillery shop

try to suspend belief for just a moment, and pretend that thewashingmachinepost is a website concerned with the motor car (somewhat of an imagination stretch, i admit) and that ferrari have phoned up and offered to provide a formula one car for a few weeks to drive to the islay whisky festival. back in the real world, in cycling terms that's pretty much what happened, except i phoned colnago rather than the other way round.

i was favoured with a black and white c50 strada, identical to the frames supplied to milram, rabobank, tinkoff, landbouwkrediet, panaria et al. as my regular reader will be aware, i have cycled a very fine colnago c40 for the past four years, purchased just a few months before the frameset disappeared from colnago's repertoire. the replacement wasn't vastly different from it's highly qualified ancestor, and being formed in the year of ernesto's fiftieth year as a framebuilder, it was not unexpectedly named the c50. but is it a worthy successor to the bike that rouleur's rohan dubash figured did everything just right?

so what's being tested (apart from the rider)? well, frame construction of the c50 remains true to the well proven c40: atr supply colnago with the tubes and lugs which are then fitted and bonded at cambiago into the frame that you see in the pictures. ernesto is said to favour this method of construction due to the wide range of sizes it allows, and the fact that the frame can stand on its own two feet before bonding takes place, similar to the more traditional lugged steel frame of yore. (colnago still produces a limited number oflugged steel master frames with the same tube cross section as the c50/c40).

the c50 differs from the c40 in that the tubes are of larger diameter, the top tube noticeably getting fatter in the middle, tapering towards each lug. and although it took a good few photographs and quizzical studying, the model on test does have a gently sloping top tube, not a noted ernesto trademark and not a feature of the c50 range. this made the seat tube only 53cm, though the overall frame sizes and rides like a 54cm (the top tube is the same length as my c40).

laphroaig

while you would expect a frame that costs as much as the entire taiwan made clx bicycle to have 'performance enhancing features' the existence of the hp stays almost answer the questions that have been asked of them. more smoothly sculpted than those on the c40, they do appear to significantly enhance the comfort factor (over the non-hp models) while continuing to provide all the power output you could possibly want. and not being a monococque frame, road noise is noticeably less than the clx.

neither the extreme c nor the extreme power frames bear the hp stays, but express a higher degree of vertical rigidity than the c50 strada. while i am not in a position to query the stiffness of either of the former frames, it is interesting to note that rabobank's oscar freire apparently prefers his c50 to the extreme power model.

difference number two (who's counting?) is my pet hate - a 1.125 inch steerer. for ages i have been unrelenting over the need for this on a road bike. however, i do have to admit that there may be a positive effect on the bike's handling, though with an overall increase in frame stiffness, it's hard to pin down how much of a difference each improvement has contributed. while (im)patiently waiting one morning for jez to turn up (admittedly not his fault he was late) i cycled back and forward along the road at very low speed, and the stability of the bike at almost no miles an hour was very impressive. of course, nobody buys a colnago to pedal very slowly. at least ernesto has had the great good sense to stay well away from the current trend towards integrated headsets. colnago's own cartridge headset graced the head tube top and bottom, making for effortless steering throughout the test period.

bottom bracket

due to the use of a higher modulus carbon fibre than the c40, the frame lugs have been shortened and this is most impressive, in a stylish way, on the bottom bracket section. the c40 employs a large carbon 'bridge' at the point where the chainstays join the seat tube. while undoubtedly functional, you could never describe it as aesthetically pleasing, but the lug has been more organically styled for the newer bike, resulting in an improvement in stiffness and consequent improvement in looks.

the test bike arrived with colnago's top of the range star carbon fork. this is of monococque construction with alloy dropouts, and has the regulation straight legs sporting subtle fluting on the outer sides. stiff they certainly are and they track beautifully. happily they were not adorned with the lawyers' lips that afflict the forks on the clx. frame weight is reputed to be around the 1kg mark: lifting the bike in and out of thewashingmachinepost bike shed would tend to support this claim.

and confirming colnago uk's info from the clx test, the rear dropout is replaceable - infuriating for c40 owners without this luxury, it's a source of crash comfort if you own, or are a prospective owner of, a c50.

even a colnago frame needs a supporting cast of components to make it go, and aside from the carbon colnago branded seatpost (made by selcof with a twin bolt adjusting mechanism) the c50 came with a tidy range of italy's finest.

forks

featured groupset was a 2007 campagnolo chorus carbon set, including one of the nice new, shiny torq carbon chainsets. for those of you who have not espied one of these, the novelty factor (which hasn't worn off, sadly) is the fact that you can see through the middle. much like everyone else these days the bearings have been moved outboard, although campag's torq set differs from most of the others by attaching the bearings to the cranks. the bottom bracket axle joins in the middle by means of a toothed coupling and a 10mm allen bolt. it's difficult to tell whether it's this that increases the bb stiffness or the frame. personally i have had no cause for complaint from the 'old style' square taper, though alessandro pettachi i am definitely not. (i have my suspicions over some of the marketing employed in the cycle industry at the moment:-)

the big difference is in the camapgnolo gear changing. chorus rear mechidentical to campag's top range record groupset, the levers are made from carbon, with a flip lever behind the brake lever to change gear in one direction, and a thumbshift on the inside lever body to push in the opposite direction. the surprise was how much lighter this shift has become. campagnolo gear changing has always been 'heavier' than the comparable shimano setup, but first time out on this bike, i shifted three gears instead of the intended one due to the unexpected lightness of being.

with a shimano freehub fitted to the rear wheel i'd had to fit a shimano compatible campag cassette and changing suffered not one whit throughout the test. front changing also seemed easier both on the standard chainrings used for the first half of the test, and the fibre-lyte carbon rings fitted latterly.

chorus calipers

braking has also improved, with the introduction of the skeleton calipers, ostensibly to remove uneccessary weight, but modulation has improved considerably, and braking has become a more effortless affair all round. not once did i lock up the wheels or fail to stop dead when needed, and that's on carbon rims.

in a repeat of the clx test, the cockpit was an fsa benefit, with carbon pro bars employing the very comfortable flat top section, and a carbon wrapped alloy stem. this is the one area that gave me cause for dissatisfaction, but purely from a personal point of view - no reflection on the quality of the components. the bars have that anatomic flat section on the drops which i really don't get on with (my own itm bars are standard curve, shallow drop). this manifests itself most when descending, riding the brakes (about two miles of the jura road is a downhill singletrack road with blind corners, tourists in cars, sheep and loose gravel) and sitting on the drops grasping the levers quickly gave me sore thumbs. this happened throughout the test, but it is a purely personal thing, since if the bike were mine (oh, i wish) i would simply have fitted my choice of bars. stem length was fine, if a bit shorter than my own, but the angle made the front too high: i'd really prefer a flat stem but again, purley personal preference.

fsa stem

the bike arrived for its holiday on islay fitted with a pair of fulcrum racing one wheels (on which i may have time to conduct a brief test before they go back), but since, by sheer coincidence, a pair of lightweight ventoux carbon wheels had arrived two days previously, which pair to use for the test was never really in doubt. with the fibre-lyte carbon chainrings in place and a pair of vista pedals, the all up weight of the bike was a shade over 6.5kg which is screamingly light, and did take a bit of getting used to in crosswinds.

chorus chainset

like i said at the start of this review, this really is the cycling equivalent of being provided with a formula one ferrari, and it sometimes felt like it too. despite being an old bloke with a courier bag on back (there's no way you can walk around a distillery wearing cleats, so the normal shoes had to go somewhere), twenty minutes to pedal ten miles even with a tail wind is not something i manage every day - and i wasn't even trying very hard.

i have heard it said recently that one of the other very light carbon bikes in the peloton felt incredibly stiff - no surprise there, because that's what professionals want (allegedly), but the colnago was comfort with a capital c. i'm not clever enough to know how this is achieved: stamp on the pedals and the bike shoots forward, wasting none of your energy. yet after a 70km round trip to jura, which included some of the steepest and crappest roads on both islands, i can't say i ever felt shaken not stirred.

and i know you'll not believe that i'm happy islay benefited from some severe crosswinds during last week, but i am. with a front wheel that weighs about as much as a kleenex,jura distillery i really wanted to know how practical it is for the rest of us to ride a bike in the real world with a very, very light front end. granted it takes time getting used to, though the lightweight ventoux shrug off the crosswinds that used to frighten the willies out of me when riding with the lightweight standards last year.

thewashingmachinepost is nothing if not fiercely prejudiced towards colnago bicycles - it's not exactly a secret, but there has to be something there to be fanatical about. i have ridden four different colnagos in the past few years and every one of them felt as if ernesto had been sent my measurements and built a frame just for me. i've never had to be overly concerned with the bike, just the cycling, and since my current l2p training regime involves doing an awful lot of the latter, this colnago was an absolute dream (well, c50 actually).

if i never ride another bike, i shall die a happy man.

colnago .........................................................................................................................................................................................................

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societa colnago |colnago c40 | colnago c40hp | colnago c50hp | colnago dream |
colnago teams since 1968 | robert millar c40 review | colnago clx |
colnago arte 2008 | colnago eps | ernesto colnago interview 2008

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