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 c50 2007
colnago eps | colnago cx-1 | ernesto colnago interview 2008 | | colnago clx centaur |
colnago ace | colnago clx 2.0 | colnago super | colnago c59

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riding within your budget - colnago arte

laphroaig reception centre

i've promised myself, and therefore all those reading as well, that i would not compare this colnago with the more expensive offerings from cambiago. i hope that you'll agree that my reasoning for doing so is on solid ground; it's unlikely that owners of the c50 range of colnagos will be considering a colnago arte, and conversely unlikely that prospective purchasers of this model will have much, if any, experience of the top range carbon. so, we'll live with this as is, as delivered, as purchased.

and as purchased, the colnago arte presents a very bank manager friendly price tag - £1499. so what is it that fills out the sales figure? the main triangle is constructed from 6000 series aluminium alloy, with a very hefty gusset where the downtube joins the headtube. thankfully any welding that may be involved in affixing the gusset has been smoothly integrated into the profiled tube itself, leaving as svelte a joint as it is possible to have. all the artes, of whichever frame size, have a sloping top tube, probably described as a compact, but thankfully not so compact as to make bottle removal a problem. the top tube also features some profiling not a million miles away from the biconic steel tubing employed on the master frames. not exactly the same, but enough to remind you it's a colnago.

laphroaig

the carbon street fork has an inverted relief, ace of clubs logo at the top of each fork leg, which is rather a nice touch. i am still overjoyed at colnago's resistance to the integrated headset, so the arte features a regular colnago aheadset with the stem plug fitting into an alloy steerer via one of the ubiquitous star-fangled nuts. unfortunately the street fork is for sissies: it has those pesky lawyer's lips on each dropout, a feature that turns a quick release into a trial and tribulation we could all do without. you would hope that the prospective purchaser of any colnago would have enough savvy to know how to close a quick release properly, but it seems that colnago's legal department may not share my view. if it was mine, those would feel the wrath of a file very soon after purchase.

the rear triangle is a very stylish carbon affair with swooping, swervy almost hourglass seatstays joined to those fetching leaf style chainstays. in common with its carbon big brother, the clx, the seatstays describe a convex curve on their way to the dropouts - a very pleasing aesthetic while apparently improving the ride quality. have long had misgivings over the joining of differing materials in a bicycle frame, particularly this notion of sticking carbon to aluminium alloy. however, this is based on nothing more than what is probably a silly notion - since colnago is not noted for being rash in the area of frame design or manufacture, and the world of adhesives has come a long way since cow gum at art college, my misgivings are probably unfounded. to be honest, if it wasn't for the fact that the paint stops at the end of the aluminium top tube, leaving plain carbon, you probably couldn't see the join. in common with all the frames in the colnago range (as well as pretty much every other on the market) the right rear dropout is replaceable.

the seatpost is nothing if not substantial; the carbon wrapped aluminium alloy dials in at a rather considerable 31.6mm. length is more than adequate. atop the seatpost is a colour co-ordinated prologo saddle, the one with the replaceable top. not that i had any spare tops to replace, but doing so would surely destroy the colour co-ordinated look.

fsa chainset

the bulk of the groupset - brakes, levers, gear mechs and cassette - are all from shimano's ultegra group, in this case anodised in a fetching smokey grey. usually this would find disfavour on the cranks due to soft shoe scuffling, but the arte is saved such ignominy by arriving with an fsa carbon compact chainset. rings are 50 outer tooth matched to 34 inner. maintaining a colnago tradition similar to the retention of an external headset, the front gear mech is a braze-on, with a resin bracket bolted to the seat tube. i doubt there's much difference in operation, but art lies in the details. this gives rise to an almost hidden feature; in order to accommodate the arc of the front gearmech, the seat tube bears a slight indentation behind and below the braze on - attention to detail.

bars and stem are also from fsa; the stem is an aluminium alloy 120mm with a slight upward angle, while the bars are also aluminium with that rather comfortable flat top that is grand for cycling uphill, and with rather deep anatomic drops. bar tape is comfortable white colnago embossed.

the wheels are the common appendage in this price bracket - mavic aksium which are very mavic ksyrium lookalike from a distance, with flat blade spokes: radial at the front and non-drive rear, but two cross drive side rear. new for 2008, all colnago's bikes are shod with 23mm colour co-ordinated vittoria rubino pro tyres, a great improvement over the maxxis fitted to last year's clx carbon. strangely the inner tubes had unnecessarily long valves - in practice, no big deal, but always leaving themselves open to being bent more than usual if inflating with other than a track pump.

ultegra mech

so that's what you get for your pennies - but is it worth the expenditure?

i'll not beat about the bush; if this was my very first colnago, i would be a happy chappy. in fact, even if it was my fifth colnago (which it sort of is) i would still be a happy chappy. my regular colnago is a 54cm, but the arte bears a sloping top tube, so in order to make all the numbers add up, colnago supplied a 50cm, and it fitted just fine thanks. i have long arms, which are comforted on my c40 by a 130mm flat stem, so riding the arte with only a 120mm upward sloping model left me just a tad cramped in the cockpit, but by riding on the very top parts of the ultegra levers, i was comfortable. pretty much any cycle shop worth its condiments would let you change contact points before taking delivery, but in the quest for authenticity, the test was conducted on the bike as it came out of the bike bag.

i'm generally not a fan of shimano - nothing more than prejudice - but i am beginning to get the hang of those colossal (in comparison to a pair of campags) sti levers, and shifting at the rear is difficult to fault. however, if i live to be 230, i will never understand why on earth shimano found it necessary to index the front changer. throughout the test period this gave me the biggest cause for concern; shifting from inner to outer can be accomplished in about two clicks, but the reverse takes place with only one drastic shift - and if you're not in one of the larger sprockets, chain rubbing will occur. and it's ruddy annoying. still, it's a shimano feature, not a bug, and not really anything to do with colnago.

eddie morris

the difference in chainring sizes could be seen as somewhat of a mismatch. my regular bicycle has a standard 53/39 chainset, giving a difference of 14 teeth, but the 50/34 fsa fitted to the arte leaps a couple of numbers to provide a sixteen tooth gap. in this case i often found switching up to the big ring meant knocking it up a cog or two at the back. there didn't seem to be a happy place that would allow seamless changing. unfortunately, there wasn't the opportunity to try a 36 tooth on the fsa carbon set, but i'm willing to bet that it would cure what could be perceived as a minor irritation. (fsa also offer a 52/38 in the same bolt circle diameter).

that said, i must admit that on my first four hour ride of the year, climbing a 12% into a cold headwind, the 34 teeth were very welcome indeed. and it is here that the arte excels where you sort of wouldn't expect it to. for a bicycle weighing just over 9kg it's no slouch when the road goes up. climbing the odd hill in company with someone on a c40, i didn't get left behind, and didn't need medical assistance when reaching the top. nor do you have to chuck it around to gain elevation. popping down the other side is where you discover, to your eternal joy, that it really is a colnago. downhill at around 60kph it runs as if on rails - even gravelly corners failed to separate the tyres from tarmac, and it feeds more and more confidence the more often you try. stopping at the bottom gives more credence to campagnolo's assertion that the rear brake need not be a dual pivot. locking up the back wheel is something i have only managed in those holy sh*t moments, but the rear ultegra caliper seemed to think that's what it was designed for, which was a bit unnerving until i got used to it. and even then it would quite often surprise, just for effect. your mileage may vary, but being able to stop in a hurry with the sti levers and ultegra calipers is not something you should be overly concerned about. just watch your back (wheel).

bottom bracket

the bottom bracket area is pleasantly chunky, with a box section joint behind the seat-tube that looks both tidy and functional. there's a hole in the middle of this allowing the front gear cable to reach its destination, something that might prove rather fun when it comes time for replacement. after almost sorting out the rubbing problem with the front mech, any serious power transmitted when climbing or sprinting failed to force any lateral movement around the bottom bracket. no wet noodles were used in this frame.

and harping back to the inclusion of lawyer's lips on the front forks, there seems a contradiction in the appreciation of a prospective purchaser's abilities. both gear cables emanating from the sti levers feature inline cable adjusters for those clicky moments on the road. but it's my confident assertion that anyone who can't close a qr lever properly, is unlikely to have the wherewithal to adjust the gear cables while in full flight. am i right, or am i right?

ride quality leans towards the rigid side - in other words the arte rattles rather than rolls over cattle grids. this may partly be down to the lack of resilience offered by the aksium wheels; since i didn't swap the wheels to their big brothers (a pair of r-sys) we will probably never know, but i'm inclined to think that if your budget is restricted to such as the arte, you're not going to be too keen to fly another £800 on a flashier pair of mavics. it's also quite likely due to the substantial alumnimium downtube, but the softness arrives from the carbon forks and carbon rear stays, all of which make a grand job of dissolving road chatter before any proximity to third policeman syndrome rears its ugly head. it's a comfortable way to spend your cycling hours.

prologo saddle

i have read elsewhere rather disparaging reports concerning the prologo saddles that are now de rigeur on colnago bicycles, but i think this may have become one of those never get a second chance to make a first impression situations. the first iteration of the prologo saddles, which allow the removal of the top section for customisation in the colour and comfort departments, had one of the poppers in just the wrong spot. the red and white saddle atop the fsa seatpost is one of the second generation with more padding, and which i found perfectly acceptable for even multi-hour rides. the only criticism i could level at it was how quickly the red lettering on the top section smudged after only one ride (don't wear white shorts), but that's hardly a hanging offense.

the majority of rides during the first couple of weeks of ownership were fraught with gale force winds and incessant rain which, although hardly conducive to testing a bicycle's finer points of operation, did provide endless experience of one of the arte's finest traits: stability. due to islay's shape, a cyclist is almost always going to be hit with crosswinds at some point of a journey; on the flat, uphill, and downhill this bicycle's core stability was undoubtedly one of its greatest assets. riding the arte if you've covered around 50-60km into an incessant wind (we're talking 60-70kph), tiredness can often turn a road bike's twitchiness into an evil adversary. despite such winds on unsheltered, open roads, i didn't have to stop, i didn't get blown off, and both wheels remained in contact with the tarmac. similarly along the abattoirenberg forest road (it's the worst road i can find, and kept for special occasions, such as bike tests) the arte remained soundly pointed in the direction of travel, inspiring confidence when travelling along dishevelled tarmac at speed.

and this is where i think this bike becomes greater than the sum of its parts. much like a joni mitchell album bears repeated listening and improves the more it's heard, the arte hides its light under a subtle bushel. the more confident and skilled you are as a cyclist, and the harder you ride, the more this bike opens up. in my experience, not every bicycle behaves in this way. if it becomes your very first quality road bike, it will grow with you; if it's your fifth, there's enough action buried in the frame to match everything you've learned from the previous four.

laphroaig still room

not every colnago dealer stocks the complete bikes - some only keep the high end carbon, but you can ask your nearest colnago dealer to order one for you which, i presume, they will be happy so to do. the arte is available in sizes from 42cm to 58cm (roughly 2cm smaller than actual size - i ride a 54cm c40 which translates to a 50cm sloping) and can be had in three colourways: grey and white, blue and white, and red and white (tested). if you've not yet graduated to a colnago, in the words of captian picard 'make it so'.

thanks to laphroaig single islay malt for lending me their distillery for photographs, and sincerely to colnago uk for their co-operation while arranging this test/review. and especially for the fact that they flew this bicycle in from italy specifically for this test.
that's service.

photo gallery

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 c50 2007
colnago eps | colnago cx-1 | ernesto colnago interview 2008 | colnago clx centaur |
colnago ace | colnago clx 2.0 | colnago super | colnago c59

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