Ernesto Colnago presented with gold Arabesque to celebrate 87th birthday

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The founder of legendary bike brand Colnago has been presented with a gold Colnago Arabesque featuring a 50th anniversary Campagnolo groupset and A. Dugast 23mm tubular tyres.

Ernesto Colnago celebrated his 87th birthday at the Old Royal Naval College in London, which is where his company presented the Colnago 87 Oro.

Colnago presented a similar design to Pope Woytila 40 years ago and the brand says the gift is directly inspired by the 40-year-old design.

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The Colnago Arabesque frameset was a special design commissioned in 1984 to celebrate the brand's 30th anniversary with ornately designed lugs for the steel-tubed frame. In 2015, a box of the lugs was reportedly found in the basement at a Colnago premise and an additional run of the frames have been built.

Speaking exclusively to Cyclingnews in 2018, Ernesto Colnago was pushed for his favourite bike from his extensive career but struggled, describing all of his designs as his 'children'. He then selected Eddy Merckx's Hour Record bike, Giuseppe Saronni's 1982 Goodwood World Championships bike, the Italian aero-bar team time trial bikes of the 1990s and the famous C40 bikes that dominated Paris-Roubaix.

Click through the gallery above for a closer look at Ernesto Colnago's Colnago 87 Oro.