By Brad Culp
Feb, 1, 2007 -- Triathletes, let me be the first to introduce you to Dr. Carbon.
If you came to this sport from cycling, then you already know Dr. Carbon as Ernesto Colnago. However, for most triathletes, this road bike-building legend remains relatively unknown. You can expect that to change very shortly.
Mr. Colnago, now 75-years-old (he doesn’t look a day over 40), has been building bikes for over 50 years. He’s mastered steel, aluminum and 20-years-ago he became the first builder to introduce carbon fiber. As you may already know, carbon is no passing trend. His bikes, which bear his last name, can be seen all over the Pro Tour on teams like Rabobank and Milram.
Colnago, based just outside of Milan, Italy, has a full range of carbon road bikes to suit just about every rider. They produce powerful monocoque frames for sprinters as well as super light frames for climbing. Last week, Colnago and Veltec Sports (their American distributor) invited us out to Reno, Nev. to check out their newest line of carbon masterpieces. We gladly accepted and headed north to check out the C50 Krono, the same time trial machine that Denis Menchov of Team Robobank rocketed through the Tour this year.
As with every other bike in the Colnago line, we were impressed. The Krono is exactly what we expected from a company like Colnago. It’s stiff, aero, light and according to Mr. Colnago, it’s about to get faster. The current edition of the Krono sets up with a 76 degree seat angle. Well this is steep enough for most triathletes, Mr. Colnago realizes that some multisporters demand more from their TT machines. When their engineers finish revamping the Krono for this season, you can expect to see that seat as steep as 78 degrees. Other features of the Krono include a one-piece bottom bracket and seat tube for extra stiffness where it counts.
Couple that with a one-inch, aero head tube and tear-drop down tube and you’ve got one aerodynamic machine. The frame is finished off with Colnago’s A 1” Star Carbon Fork (developed with the help of Ferrari engineers) and their legendary B-stay and leaf shaped chain stay. The finished product weighs in at a feathery 1200 grams. Before each frame is sent away from Italy, each bike is custom painted by hand. That’s right, no decals on these works of art. Riders have almost 200 themes to choose from.
As you can see, there’s no shortage of technology on this machine. But I haven’t event mentioned the best part yet. Each Krono (available as a frame/fork only) is built to order. That means the builders on the other side of the world don’t start to lay-up the carbon until your body has been measured up for the frame. While in Reno, I got the chance to be fitted by none other than Dr. Carbon. My last bike fit took almost three hours to get dialed in. Mr. Colnago has been doing this for 50 years, so three hours wasn’t exactly necessary. All he needed was a saddle and a tape measure and he had me fit for a brand new Krono in under two minutes. In fact, he sized up a total of 10 journalists in under 20 minutes and we all can’t wait to test what Colnago rolls out.
Want to see more? Check out the complete line of Colnago bikes at www.colnago.com.