That’s not to say it’s perfect: a bit of extra room to prevent the build-up of gunk between the brakes and the tyres when running 25c wouldn’t go amiss, and being a few quid cheaper wouldn’t hurt either.īut it’s a Colnago, handmade and hand-painted in Italy and with that most prestigious of logos, so really, what did you expect?īuy the Colnago C60 frameset from Merlin Cycles If there’s any criticism to level at the C60, I’ve yet to find it. The initial out-the-saddle stomp doesn’t elicit quite the same reaction as on a lighter bike (the Focus Izalco Max springs to mind), but once the first few pedal strokes are done with the C60 settles easily into a comfortable, perfectly timed rhythm. No, strike that, particularly during climbs. On the contrary, its handling characteristics are as if it’s asking you, ‘Do you want to go ahead with this?’, only with the caveat of ‘because we definitely can’.Īt a claimed 1,050g for the frame in size 50s (and 7.1kg for this built up size 56cm), its competitors might consider the C60 portly, but I was hard pushed to notice, even during climbs. Yet this doesn’t mean the C60 is one of those machines that goads you into things you might not normally do. Ultimately a bike is only as fast as its rider, but when that bike relays as much detailed feedback through the pedals, bars and saddle as the C60 does, and punches out the power this efficiently through the bottom bracket, that rider can ride incredibly fast indeed. The frame and fork function as if one entity, something particularly welcome through fast, tight corners. Undoubtedly the 25c Continental tyres helped mellow the ride a little, even if there’s barely room for a Rizla between the tyre and the rear stays.īut regardless, the C60 has a tarmac-hugging, lively spring to it that I’ve rarely found in anything but the best steel racers, but without being in any way flexy.Īs a result, handling is borderline sublime. Yet in the C60 that’s exactly what Colnago has achieved.įor a top-level race rig the C60 is incredibly comfortable yet also very stiff. These days it’s hard to find a bad bike, especially in this price bracket, which means it’s actually incredibly hard for manufacturers to make bikes that genuinely outstrip the opposition. Which, when the C60 frameset is a penny shy of £3.5k, makes it worthwhile. By making its cups internal but threaded – in other words, replaceable – Colnago has achieved the BB shell width necessary to support the C60’s tubes while proofing the frame against longer-term failure. Replaceable cups are preferable, but up until now have meant external threaded items, which can’t provide structural support to tubes. This leads to the objection that we don’t need yet another BB standard (currently there are eight), but Colnago insists it’s justified.Īs the company sees it, the problem with current press-fit BB options is that their tolerance fit makes them susceptible to wear that can lead to anything from annoying creaks to outright frame-binning. 'So we ended up inventing a new BB “standard”, our ThreadFit82.5.’
‘Making it bigger was essential to being able to use wider tubes, but that meant we’d have to sacrifice our beloved and problem-free threaded BB. ‘The bottom bracket is probably the heart of this project,’ explains Fumagalli. Where the C59 was packing a down tube that peaked at around 44mm in width, the C60 pushes those limits to 66mm at the point where it joins the bottom bracket lug, and 51.5mm at the end of the seat tube compared to 34.9mm for the C59. But unlike its C-series carbon predecessors, the ‘stellar ribs’ of the Master tubes extend the length of the top tube and down tube and part way up the seat tube (which must end in a round profile to accommodate the seatpost), meaning the lugs also get the crimped shape.Ĭolnago claims this adds stiffness beyond that of the C59 and, while it’s hard to contest this claim without saws and a degree in composite materials, I’m not going to argue with a man who has built bikes for Eddy Merckx.Īnd if stiffness-obsessed armchair engineers need more convincing, they need only examine the tube diameters. Except for forays into aluminium with bikes such as the Dream, and ‘monocoque’ bikes such as the C35, Colnago has built its flagship frames in the tube-lug mode, and there’s no let up with the C60.Īs with its forebears, the C60 incorporates the company’s iconic crimped Master tubing.