Colnago C60

Colnago has released its new model, C60. It is lighter, stiffer, and still respects the Italian brand’s history: the Colnago C60 retain the company’s famous Master star-shaped tubes, a shape that has become synonymous with the Colnago.

The new C60 also coming with a few unique design elements, including a “ThreadFit” bottom bracket shell that features a closely-machined steel insert. And various cross sections of tubes have increased volume, thinner walls and drastic tube profiles.

There will be three different Colnago C60 models: The C60 Italia, The C60 Race and The C60 Classic.

The C60 (60 means 2014 is the 60th anniversary of Colnago frames) will be built in Colnago’s Cambiago, Italy^[1], facility — across the street from the home of Ernesto Colnago himself. Much of Colnago’s production has moved to Asia, but the company’s premier frames, including the steel Master series and the C-series, are still “made in Italy”.

It’s 140 grams lighter than the previous C59 (though it’s still not light, at 1045 grams^[2]), but stiffer.

Read more: colnago.com

Notes

[1] Ernesto Colnago got his start with a small bike shop in his hometown of Cambiago, just east of Milan, and quickly moved into building bikes for the likes of Eddy Merckx. Today, the C60 is assembled in the basement underneath his house, which is quite literally just across the street from Colnago’s main headquarters. Some of his employees have been with him for more than 30 years.

[2] 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.“