How Tadej Pogačar Saved Colnago

December 2024, Colnago released the most radical bike design in the pro peloton. Bike racers loved it, traditional Colnago lovers probably hated it. But one thing is for sure, it turned heads. And sometimes that's all you gotta do to sell some bikes. But how did we get from here to here? And how are Colnago, a brand that started in a small Italian shop in 1954, still so relevant today? It started when a 13-year-old boy, Ernesto Colnago, forged his paperwork and lied about his age so he could get a job at the Gloria bike factory in Milan. This was common practice for young people in post-war Italy, eager to work and provide for their families. He got into bike racing while working there, and at the age of 19 was racing the 1951 amateur classic Milano Busetto. Ernesto was involved in a major crash during the final sprint. He hit a moped at high speed after the finish line and broke his leg. The injury forced him to rest at home for months, with his leg stuck in a cast. But during his recovery, he started subcontracting for Gloria and started building wheels. He worked out that he could make more money doing this than going back to work for the factory, which led him to start his own business. He opened his own shop in Cambiago in 1954, where he started building his own frames. And Colnago was born. Now, it wasn't even a year later when professional bike racer Fiorenzo Magni came into his workshop complaining of leg pain while riding. I mean, isn't that what cycling does? Okay, not that kind of leg pain. The fixable kind. And that's exactly what Ernesto helped him with. A crank adjustment later and Magni was riding pain-free. So happy with the service, he hired Ernesto to work as a mechanic at the Giro d'Italia, the biggest bike race in Italy, a three-week grand tour. This was a big deal. Magni eventually wore the pink jersey, the Maglia Rosa, the jersey awarded to the leader of the race. So Ernesto was certainly in good company. This endeavor helped him raise his profile and sell some bikes. And this brings us on to the first bike ever made by Colnago, the Freccia. Now, there is speculation over how involved Ernesto Colnago was when it came to actually making the frames. Official word from Colnago is that he made a lot of them. But perhaps the truth is that he did some brazing, definitely some assembly, but probably had a lot of help. What he did excellently, however, was being an entrepreneur. And whoever made these, the Freccia was a gorgeous bike. Parts of these bikes were hand-filed like these arrow-shaped lugs. The geometry was different and modern at the time, allegedly better handling for bike racers than what was available. And it took about three days of work time to produce a single frame. Now, let's fast forward a few years. By the mid-70s, they'd made bikes for Eddie Merckx, most famously his sub-6kg hour record winning bike. They supported local teams like SCIC and racked up loads of race wins sponsoring the Molteni cycling team, who Merckx eventually joined. In fact, Molteni holds the record for the most wins by a single sponsored professional team with an impressive 663 race victories while it was around from 1958 to 1976. Eddie Merckx is responsible for 246 of those victories. And they even collaborated with the Soviet Union, who won a number of gold medals on Colnago. Nice arrow hats there. Needless to say, Colnago got very, very popular. Popular enough that Enzo Ferrari took notice. Ferrari and Colnago met. Look at these guys. They look like a bunch of guys you wouldn't want to upset. Ferrari proposed they work together, but told Ernesto, I only want beautiful things on par with Ferrari. Why? Because Mr. Ferrari wants it that way. What they made first was, well, I don't know if it was beautiful, the Colnago Ferrari engineering concept from 1987. And Enzo Ferrari had very specific requests. He told Ernesto, It had to have tri spokes. I mean, they kind of look cool. It seems a bit of an odd choice. It was made of carbon fiber, a very new material for bikes to be made of at the time. It had hydraulic brakes, an internal gearbox hidden away, and even a little gear stick on the down tube. Sweet! And it weighed 13 kilograms, and did not go into production like that. Thankfully, some practical changes were made for the next Ferrari bike, and they released to the public the C35. It was a couple of years later, and was also to celebrate Colnago's 35th anniversary. Happy birthday. Full monocoque carbon this time, so no lugs, five spokes, this time, an upgrade. I mean, you can tell by just looking at it for a couple of seconds, it's not just a weird concept bike. And it wasn't just a hang on the wall. Here it is being raced by Giuseppe Sironi in 1990. Got rid of the five spokes though, didn't he? Have you noticed something weird about these two Ferrari concept bikes? Well, they both have straight forks, which Colnago claim to have invented in 1987. Well, they didn't invent them. It's a bit naughty that they have this on their website, because there were lots of straight forks on other bikes, track bikes, mountain bikes, all sorts. But I suppose you could claim they were the first to put them on a road bike. Colnago and Ferrari engineers allegedly found that curved forks, which is what was used on almost all other road bikes at the time, didn't absorb road vibrations as well as straight ones. So they made this, the Precisa fork, which then got copied by every other brand. And technically, they're not even straight, because all forks are slightly offset, and we could start talking about fork rake and trail, and then this would be a very long video about geometry. Like in 1995, when carbon bikes were in full swing, not just weird collaborations with Ferrari, the C40 was out. They call it a carbon version of their master model. Lighter and stiffer than steel. Professional racing at this time would have seen a mix of frame materials, steel, aluminium, and carbon in the peloton all at once. And I think it's pretty safe to say the riders who got given these early carbon Colnagos would have been very happy with the performance, and potentially big advantage over riders on other frame materials. I haven't ridden one of these exactly, but I have ridden a very old, very early carbon bike. Marco Pantani's very early Wilier. And I was expecting it to be ----, because it's so old, but it turns out it wasn't. It was really smooth and really stiff. The only mad bit was a tiny little cassette and huge chain rings. Basically no gear range. It's wild that they climbed mountains with that setup. Anyway, carbon became the favorite choice for bike racers, and Colnago made some bangers. At one point, they were the bike supplier for the three top-ranked UCI teams simultaneously. Mapai, Rabobank, and Casino AG2R. Mapai's bikes in particular are massively sought after, still to this day, because they were cool as cool can be. There's some old race footage from 1996 where Mapai, and I'm not saying this is because of the bikes, probably other reasons, get a one, two, three at Paris-Roubaix, which is a ridiculous result. Also contributing to the acceptance that carbon is very good as a frame material, even on rough terrain like the Paris-Roubaix cobblestones, which people were skeptical of. They were riding C40s, which was one of the first iterations of Colnago's C line of bikes, which is still made today. Lugged, carbon fiber, frames. Unlike the original monocoque C35. What are we up to now? Oh, the C68. Sadly, it doesn't get raced by the pro teams because it's not as fast as the new super light and aero-tubed models. But look at it. There was a reason why they were so popular. Now I've been around these bikes for years, but I've never asked the question, why the club? Well, I tried to find out and found a lot of speculation. Some say it's a tribute to playing cards because Ernesto loved playing cards. Some say it's just an easy logo to make because it's three circles and one triangle. But Colnago himself confirms it's inspired by Michele Dancelli's Milan-Sanremo win in 1970. A journalist described Dancelli as having one on a bicycle that was in bloom. Ernesto liked that idea and said, Sanremo is the city of flowers and I was hoping in my heart that I would become an ace in the bike world. As soon as I got home, I created the logo, the ace of clubs. Today, that logo is recognized all over the world and it's three circles and a triangle. Now, despite all the lovely history, Colnago was not immune to one of the darkest periods of pro cycling. Effectively kicked off by the Festina affair in 1998, a massive doping scandal where a Tour de France team helper was caught with a car packed full of performance-enhancing drugs. It exposed a fully organized team-wide doping system which triggered police raids and ultimately revealed how widespread and systematic doping had become in pro cycling and forcing the sport into a new era of anti-doping reform. Loads of sponsors jumped ship but Colnago stuck to their guns and continued to support pro cycling. Despite their efforts, the brand's legacy started to fade after the year 2000 and it wasn't just the effects of this EPO era. There were new kids on the block, way more competition from big American bike brands and Chinese manufacturers. There's a huge shift in how and where bikes were being produced. They kind of just existed. You'd see them around sometimes but most people were on Specializeds or Canyons. How the hell were Colnago, still a family-owned business, gonna compete? The answer? Stop being family-owned. Fast forward to May the 4th, 2020. May the 4th be with you. Colnago sold a majority stake in their business to Abu Dhabi-based investment firm Chimera Investments. They modernized the marketing, started focusing on the high-end market. They do not make a low-end bike now or even a mid-range bike if you look on their website and obviously it was a huge injection of money and resources at the perfect time. Three years prior to this, a young bike racer signed a contract with the UAE cycling team who just so happened to be riding Colnagos. His name? Taddei Pogacar. Nobody could have predicted the success that followed. I mean, it started off slowly. A 2019 win in the Tour of California. Stages of La Vuelta. Oh, and then he came third overall in that race. I mean, this kid must be pretty good. Okay, he won the Tour de France. Holy ****! And then he won it again in 2021. Again in 2024. 2025. And then the Giro in 2024. Ten one-day monuments and a couple of world championships. Ridiculous! All aboard Colnagos. Which meant people bought lots of Colnagos. Fun fact. Pogacar was the first person to win the Tour de France on a Colnago. But not the first person to win the Tour de France on a bike made by Colnago. That title goes to Eddie Merckx. Eddie's were Colnago made, but didn't have Colnago branding on them. So, was it a Colnago? Who knows? Anyway, Colnago's sales tripled since 2020. Turnover reached 55 million euros in 2023. The company grew significantly, even as the broader industry has faced real problems. We've seen this before with the Team Sky Effect and Pinarello. It's one thing sponsoring a pro cycling team. It's another when they start winning big. And it can change the course for sponsors drastically. An effect we're probably going to see continue for Colnago because Pogacar's contract doesn't end until 2030. Unless someone pays 200 million euros to get him out of it. There's no word currently about Colnago's contract with the team, so that's the bit that could change. But I can see them wanting to continue things, if they can afford it. With the best bike racer, and let's face it, probably the most talented athlete the world has ever seen in any sport, riding one of your bikes, you have to make sure they're happy with it. December 2024 marked the release of a drastically different design to anything Colnago had ever made before. The Y1 RS. Bayonet fork, ridiculously narrow head tube, and a really weird seat tube. It's a spaceship. Up to this point, everything Colnago made looked like a bike. They did one called the Concept, which was a dedicated aero bike, but that was nowhere near as striking as the new model. So what happened? Well, it was a triple whammy. First, Pikachu needed a faster bike. He's good, better than everyone else, but the equipment still makes a difference. Second, they have money. Serious money for development, and developing fast bikes is expensive. Third, the UCI, the governing body that makes all of the rules for professional cycling, changed the rules about bicycle tubes in late 2022. The tubes that make up pro bicycle frames can now be eight times deeper than the width, whereas before they could only be three times deeper. Deeper tube, generally faster. Narrower tube, generally faster. It's more aerodynamic, and that's why cyclists use deep wheels, and even disc wheels, and the time trial bikes have big fat tubing, and why triathlon bikes, which don't have to follow UCI rules, are so big, and fat, and very fast. Bike design is obviously a balancing act between weight and aerodynamics, and the choice gets more difficult if you're riding uphill. But frankly, the riders are so strong now, they're opting for full aero bikes, even in the mountainous races. The UCI also impose a weight limit on the bikes used in professional racing. They have to be at least 6.8 kilograms. Pikachu's Y1RS isn't far off that, so it's a no-brainer to have all of the aero gains as well. Oh, and ignoring the weight limit, Joe from China Cycling managed to put together a Y1RS, and it weighed 5.98 kilograms. What the hell? Whether you like it or not, I think we're going to start seeing more spaceship bikes as time goes on. Pro teams are looking for faster and faster solutions, and we're a long way off from peak aero, and many questions still remain. Will Pikachu keep winning? Will Colnago continue to grow? Will Ernesto ever retire? He's 93 years old. This year, he received an honorary master's degree in mechanical engineering from the Polytechnic University of Milan, recognizing his profound contributions to cycling innovation, engineering, and artistry through his iconic bicycle company, Colnago. What do you think of Colnago? Have they sold their soul? Or is this just the price you have to pay to stay relevant? Let me know what you think in the comments below.