Colnago has released its 2014 models. This year, there is no CF (Colnago-Ferrari) but the 2014 model bicycles of the famous Italian frame builder are good to look at.

Colnago 2014 Road Racing series

Colnago C59 Disc 2014

Colnago 2014 Road Racing series: Colnago C59 Disc 2014
Colnago 2014 Road Racing series: Colnago C59 Disc 2014

Colnago C59 Disc is the admiral ship of the Colnago 2014 road bike series. Colnago pioneered the disc brake on road bikes. Why disk brakes on road bikes? Colnago explains:

  1. Safety first:
    • No rim dam­age (spe­cially car­bon clincher beat or glue on tubular)
    • No pres­sure changes inside the tire (blow off the car­bon clincher)
  2. Same brak­ing per­for­mance in any condition
  3. Less rotat­ing iner­tia (rim weight sav­ing, moved the mass toward the rotat­ing axis)
  4. No weight penalty
  5. Aerodynamic and clean look­ing on the front side
  6. Can run even on a non-straight rim (i.e. spoke failure)

With twin 140mm diam­e­ter discs the frame and fork have also been redesigned in the key areas where the brakes are mounted. The fork is com­pletely new, whilst at the rear of the main frame, the chain­stays and the seat­stays are also new, to cope with the increased load­ing that the disc brakes gen­er­ate at their mount­ing points. The C59 Disc is com­pat­i­ble with both elec­tronic and mechan­i­cal groupsets.

Colnago C59 Italia 2014

Colnago 2014 Road Racing series: Colnago C59 Italia 2014
Colnago 2014 Road Racing series: Colnago C59 Italia 2014

C59 Italia has the same frame as the C59 Disc. Two ver­sions are avail­able: One for elec­tronic shift­ing sys­tems such as Shimano Di2/Campagnolo EPS, and one for tra­di­tional mechan­i­cal shift­ing sys­tems.

Colnago M10 S 2014

Colnago 2014 Road Racing series: Colnago M10 S 2014
Colnago 2014 Road Racing series: Colnago M10 S 2014

Mono­coque version of the C59 frame (C59 is lugged). Increased bot­tom bracket size and increased ver­ti­cal absorp­tion pro­vides more com­fort and yet deliver greater per­for­mance. With the C-HS1 tapered head­tube and a new fork, the M10 S is designed to be pre­cise on descents and smoother through cor­ners. The same frame is com­pat­i­ble for both Di2/EPS elec­tronic groupsets and tra­di­tional mechan­i­cal groupsets.

Colnago 2014 Road Performance series

Colnago CX Zero Disc 2014

Colnago 2014 Road Performance series: Colnago CX Zero Disc 2014
Colnago 2014 Road Performance series: Colnago CX Zero Disc 2014

The entry-level bike of Colnago introduces disk brakes. With Ultegra drivetrain, still a high-performance racing bike. It is also an endurance bike, this means it’s
good for bad road surfaces, cobbled roads, etc. Designed for the cobbled classics like Paris-Roubaix.

Colnago CX Zero 2014

Colnago 2014 Road Performance series: Colnago CX Zero 2014
Colnago 2014 Road Performance series: Colnago CX Zero 2014

The same frame with Colnago CX Zero Disc without disc brakes. The frame and fork clear­ances allow for larger 25c tires.

Colnago CLX 3.0 2014

Colnago 2014 Road Performance series: Colnago CLX 3.0 2014
Colnago 2014 Road Performance series: Colnago CLX 3.0 2014

Colnago CLD 2014 (Ladies bike)

Colnago 2014 Road Performance series: Colnago CLD 2014
Colnago 2014 Road Performance series: Colnago CLD 2014

CLD is a brand new bike. With a shorter top tube, CLD’s a car­bon fiber frame designed specif­i­cally for women. The frame has a semi-integrated 1”1/8 to 1”1/4 steer­ing col­umn to give rigid­ity and pre­ci­sion bike han­dling. The com­po­nents have also been care­fully cho­sen to bet­ter suit women: the han­dle­bar stem is shorter and the han­dle­bars are nar­rower com­pared to our usual com­po­nent selec­tion. The bike is fit­ted with a Selle Italia Lady saddle.

Colnago 2014 Road Sport series

Colnago AC-R 2014

Colnago 2014 Road Sport series: Colnago AC-R 2014
Colnago 2014 Road Sport series: Colnago AC-R 2014

Brand new for 2014 is the Colnago AC-R. Born from the now-famous M10 mono­coque frame.

Colnago Strada SL 2014

Colnago 2014 Road Sport series: Colnago Strada SL 2014
Colnago 2014 Road Sport series: Colnago Strada SL 2014

The only aluminum frame of the Colnago 2014 series. The Strada SL frame weighs less than 1,200 grams. A full car­bon fork is added to frame­set the option to limit the weight.

Colnago Master 2014

Colnago 2014 Road Sport series: Colnago Master 2014
Colnago 2014 Road Sport series: Colnago Master 2014

This is the 31st year of the legendary Colnago Master steel frame. It is the fruit of Colnago’s exten­sive expe­ri­ence in steel tub­ing, weld­ing, and lugged frame con­struc­tion tech­niques. It’s entirely designed, made and chromium plated in Italy with DT15V steel. The Master offers supreme com­fort thanks to the ride qual­ity offered by the cus­tom drawn steel tub­ing. The star-shaped tubes and chromed lugs com­bined with a 1-inch chrome-plated steel Precisa fork. Available in 16 sizes and three color variations. For classic lovers.

Colnago 2014 Time Trial

Colnago K.Zero 2014

Colnago K.Zero 2014
Colnago K.Zero 2014

As with any bicy­cle where aero­dy­namic drag is one of the main design con­cerns, it is a mat­ter of mak­ing small reduc­tions in drag over many areas. When all of the small reduc­tions are added together, only then can large ben­e­fits be found. This is one of the main aspects of the K.Zero – the small details all add up to big benefits.

  • Fully integrated brakes into the fork and the frame.
  • The han­dle­bar and stem assem­bly is one bespoke unit.
  • Aero tube pro­files
  • K.Zero will be avail­able for every top of the range groupset, being Campagnolo, Shimano or Sram. The same frame will be fully com­pat­i­ble with both elec­tronic and mechan­i­cal versions.
  • Fully UCI com­pli­ant for com­pe­ti­tion use.

Colnago’s approach to frame weight

According to Colnago, some bicycle manufacturers are push­ing unsafe prod­ucts into the mar­ket­place. Colnago sees 1000 grams as the lower limit. From Colnago’s website:

“The often unre­li­able and incon­sis­tent tra­di­tional man­u­fac­tur­ing process with car­bon can pro­duce end-products with often sus­pect yield and fatigue strength. Circumstances can lead infe­rior frames to not only crack but can result in cat­a­strophic fail­ure with­out warn­ing. Many processes used to lighten frame weight are sim­ply not proven to be reli­able. With tech­no­log­i­cal appli­ca­tion, it is pos­si­ble to see frames in the mar­ket­place with weights between 700g and 800g. These frames can be tempt­ing to the con­sumer look­ing for the light­weight advan­tage. Colnago believes in a limit of 1000g. It is sim­ply not worth sac­ri­fic­ing han­dling, safety, and reli­a­bil­ity for the neg­li­gi­ble advan­tage of a few grams of sta­tic frame weight.”

For all the models and colors check out Colnago’s official website.

Ernesto Colnago working
Aged 81, Ernesto Colnago still works on the frames by himself.
M. Özgür Nevres

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