Colnago C50
The top tube is level, the paint makes it look sloped
The year is 2004.
You’re an avid bike rider and/or racer. Lance has just won his fifth straight Tour de France, you’ve just finished your first RAMROD (Ride Around Mount Rainier in One Day), and you’re in the market for a new road bike.
A top-end racing bike is spendy but not too ridiculous in 2004. Electronic shifting and hydraulic brakes have yet to nudge the most expensive options above $10,000 so you’re prepared to buy the best. What will it be?
For a lot of the bike enthusiasts in this situation there was only one answer: The Colnago C50.
C50 front end
Colnago “B” Stay
C50 head tube
The C50 was the flagship model that marked Ernesto Colnago’s 50th year in the bike business.
Everybody’s previous dream bike, the Colnago C40, was a decade old and in need of a makeover. The C40 ride quality was already nearly perfect, so Ernesto just tweaked some design elements. First the front end was updated to the new 1 1/8″ fork diameter standard. Next up was a revision to the rear end, with the neat looking “HP Stays” promising to add some stiffness AND greater shock absorption (they probably didn’t change the ride at all, but they looked fantastic). Lastly the tubing diameters were increased and the overall quality of the carbon fiber was improved (less epoxy filler, tighter lay-ups).
Colnago HP stay
Sram red
Red Etap derailleur
While it’s fun to poke holes in engineering changes and marketing hype that were probably much ado about very little, Colnago really put out the best bike available and it was the first (only?) bike company to get the ISO 9001 European quality standards certification.
C50 in black and silver
Super Record 11
Super Record crankset
The white C50 shown here is owned by Peter Parker (no relation to Spider-Man), and it was just updated from the original Sram Red groupset to the new electronic Sram Etap parts (the 56cm bike weighs in
at 14.4 pounds). The black and silver C50 is the lone Colnago amongst Kim Bottles’ collection of Merckx road bikes, and it is set up with the Campagnolo Super Record component group from 2014.