This article was produced in collaboration with Colnago and was first published in Rouleur Issue 143
“Cambiago is a mystical place for cycling fans. The quiet Lombardy town, now all but swallowed up by the expanding urban sprawl of Milan, is synonymous with Colnago. Just like Maranello, it is a town which, outside of its immediate vicinity, is only known for its famous factory. Just as Maranello is motorsport-ese for Ferrari, a cycling journalist can substitute Cambiago for Colnago and be instantly understood.”
I wrote these words in 2012 when I visited Colnago for the first time. What has changed in the 14 years since then? Everything and nothing.
We’re pulling into the same car park with the same massive bronze sculpture towering over us – a globe upon which a Colnago C42 TT bike stands imperiously – but since I was last here ownership has shifted, Colnago has won four of the last six Tours de France, turnover has quadrupled and now the company that once revolved almost entirely around Ernesto Colnago operates on a totally different scale.
What hasn’t changed is that the iconic C series is still made by hand in Cambiago, still represents the pinnacle of carbon technology and Italian craftsmanship, and it continues to be where Colnago pursues its idea of bicycle perfection. It needs no introduction, but the number after ‘C’ denotes the number of years since the company was founded in 1954. The brand is about to unveil the C72 and that’s why we’re here.
The C40 of 1994 was the first carbon fibre bike to win Paris-Roubaix, but now that the C series is no longer the pro team bike, no longer chasing watt savings and increased stiffness with every iteration, it can focus wholly on that pursuit of bicycle perfection. This, as Colnago’s head of R&D, Davide Fumagalli explains, is something quite different – and harder to achieve – from simply being the fastest, the stiffest or the lightest.
Fumagalli has worked at Colnago for 17 years and he’s seen the C series go from race platform to halo model. He himself has been part of its journey since the C59, which he co-designed. Then came the C60, C64, C68 and now the C72.
We’re led upstairs to a room within a room – a ceiling-high pod made from wood and glass like a 3D picture frame. Inside it’s brightly lit, with the famous photo of Tadej Pogačar winning the 2025 Strade Bianche in the medieval Piazza del Campo enlarged across the end wall as a backdrop. Displayed in the centre of the pod is the new Colnago C72.
It is slender, elegant, classic, timeless-looking and slim, with high seatstays that flow into the top tube – almost mirroring the Colnago Steelnovo, which stands beside it. Fumagalli acknowledges the comparison. “The two are very closely related. I like to call the Steelnovo part of the C family.” The Steelnovo was launched in 2024 to mark Colnago’s 70th anniversary, a celebration of Colnago’s steel heritage updated for the 21st century with bespoke 3D-printed elements. “They were born more or less at the same time,” Fumagalli says. “We wanted the same family feeling, even though one bike is carbon and the other is steel. They are very close, brother and sister I would say.”
They might share the design language, but in technical terms that’s where the similarity ends. The C72 is made with the same lugged carbon multi-piece construction as the C68 with one obvious difference: whereas the C68 had a step at the head tube where the lug of the top tube met the lug of the down tube, now there’s just a thin line.
“It’s called a panel gap,” explains Fumagalli. “It’s a way to separate parts but keep the same surface, as with a car.” It updates the look without resorting to a monocoque construction – the C series’ lugs are its hallmark, after all. “It’s the same technology we always used and want to keep using because it gives us freedom to design and realise the bikes in parts. It’s a classic-looking, real Colnago bike. Even if nowadays it’s hard to say what a Colnago bike is – we launched the Steelnovo, then the Y1, two worlds apart. But this one maybe unites them as far as possible.” He continues: “It’s probably the end of the spectrum of carbon fibre – we cannot go more classic-looking than this. But it’s still a modern bike.”
Where does the C72 fit in Colnago’s range? “Back when I started with the C59, the C series was our racing platform. It was the same for the C60 and even the C64 we used for some WorldTour races. With the C68 we completely switched because we now have the V series and the Y1Rs. So working on the C72, it was clearer in our minds what we needed to do. We wanted to make a bike for the pure joy of riding. It’s not the lightest and it’s not the fastest – it’s still light enough and fast enough, but that wasn’t the goal.”
He is keen to avoid the C72 being labelled as an endurance bike, however: “As much as I love my Y1 as my favourite bike for racing, for going fast, it’s more demanding… let’s say it’s not so relaxing. So geometry of the C72 is different, the stiffness level is different. It’s a bike that’s fast but not extreme.”
The geometry is slightly more relaxed: the stack is slightly higher compared to the other racing platforms and the reach slightly shorter. The C68’s geometry mirrored that of the V4Rs, but the C72 adds 5mm of stack in the size 510, equivalent to 56, and its reach is just 1mm shorter.
And the way the carbon fibre itself is laminated deliberately tunes the ride towards calmness, he adds. “We are looking for a bike that’s stiff enough. I know it sounds a bit negative, but stiff enough to be able to go fast, but not stiff enough to create a harsh ride. It’s easy to use better fibre, increase stiffness and improve aerodynamics. But it’s not so easy when you go the opposite way, when you’re looking for ride quality, something smoother. If you want to keep responsiveness and avoid sponginess, that's way more complex.”
Added to the complexity is the fact that the C72’s tube diameters are smaller, making up proportions and a frame ‘volume’ similar to that of the Steelnovo. “We have the type of fibre, high modulus or high strength, and we have a blend. We shrank the dimension of the tubes, especially the chainstays, which are very thin for extra tyre clearance, so we use more high modulus in the rear triangle compared to the C68, and we use more high strength in the front of the chainstay because it's smaller with less volume. Most of the frame is T1100, but we also use T800, and some M40 in key areas including the chainstays.”
The extra tyre clearance Fumagalli mentions is a move to 35mm and, he says, it’s not just nominal. “When I joined Colnago we designed around 23mm. Then 25, then 28. Now professional riders mostly ride 30. Everything changes: bottom bracket height, chainstay length, angles, reach, stack, stiffness. Even chainstay angle relative to the ground changes.
“When we say the bike can use 35mm tyres, it means you can enjoy the bike with 35, not just physically fit them. Designing clearance is easy; designing a bike that still rides and looks right with big tyres is more difficult.”
Next comes something we definitely weren’t expecting: with a twist of the tab at the bottom, the bottle cage lifts off to reveal a storage compartment. Integrated down tube storage has become common across road bikes as well as gravel bikes, but for those of us still clinging to preconceived notions about what a C series Colnago should be… Fumagalli anticipates my reaction and jokes: “I can't see Pogačar stopping and taking out his spare tubes, but our decision to include the down tube storage is because of the way the bike is going to be ridden. Whether you’re out with friends or alone, you need to carry spare tubes, a tool, a CO2 cartridge. So we worked to integrate this in the cleanest possible way. It's not a cage attached to a cover, but it's the cage itself. It’s nicely done.”
The C series is famously made in Italy, and this is still the case with the C72. After we finish talking to Fumagalli, we’re going to head downstairs and take a look at where the frames are made at a rate of one per day. The carbon tubes themselves are manufactured by the supplier in northern Italy that Colnago has used since 2010, with the frames built on jigs and finished by hand in Cambiago. Is it becoming more challenging to manufacture in Italy?
“No, it’s mostly the same. The way the parts are produced is very close to C68 and C64. It’s a small evolution. We’ve been able to keep mostly the same production scheme as before. We changed mostly the shapes, not the technology behind it.
“Yes, it’s expensive to produce in Italy – but it would also be expensive to produce this bike elsewhere because of the complexity. You would need very specialised factories. Even the bottle cage is carbon fibre infusion, quite complex. Mostly carbon fibre, very stiff, fully integrated. No visible lever. The bottle cage stops it from opening by itself. Small details, but I like them.”
And to iterate with prototypes in order to find the perfect ride? “I don’t think we have the perfect ride,” answers Fumagalli. “It’s a never-ending story. We have many riders here, testers, amateur riders, and sometimes professional riders in the off-season. It’s mostly about feedback.
“Aerodynamics is easy – you measure numbers. Weight is easy – you measure. Ride quality is more complex. I myself can only test one size, so you rely on other riders’ feedback. Translating feelings across sizes is probably the hardest part. It’s subjective, and that’s also the beauty of it. We constantly adjust our stiffness targets based on feedback. For example, with the G4X gravel bike we thought we were right, but market feedback said it was too stiff. So we were off.” He concludes: “It’s constant feedback and revision. On road bikes we have more experience now, but we are still learning. It’s an endless quest.”
And finally, what element of the C72 is Fumagalli most proud of? “The panel gap,” he says without hesitation. “It keeps expressing Colnago’s tube-and-lug history in a modern way. Different parts bonded together but with a modern feel.” But there’s something else: “And the bottle cage storage compartment lid – I really like how it blends into the frame and becomes part of it.” Then he turns and picks up a postage-stamp sized piece of carbon fibre with a Colnago logo on it and a hole in the centre. “And this is a small thing – it’s the stem top cap and it’s made entirely out of scrap carbon fibre from handlebar production. Instead of throwing it away, we re-use it.”
It’s a small message, he says, but a start. “We are working hard on this. Hopefully next year we will release something more aligned with this direction. The bottle cage also uses chopped recycled fibre – 30 per cent carbon fibre and 70 per cent nylon resin – very stiff and durable. My dream is to have a future C series with 100 per cent recycled fibre. We could accept 20 or 50 grams more weight. Who cares? That’s the goal.”
The launch of the C72 is a proud moment not just for Fumagalli but also for Colnago. It is not the bike Tadej Pogačar will ride to win his next Tour de France – it goes far beyond that. It’s the precise coming together of Colnago’s past, present and future in a single design, as every C series bike has been and will continue to be.
