Colnago has today launched a brand new track bike named the T1Rs. Following on from the hyper aero Y1RS road machine, which launched late last year, the T1Rs represents Colnago officially asserting itself in the track space once more.
It’s been quite some time since Colnago officially manufactured a track machine; the brand's last track model, the K-One, was in use circa 2018, notably by Filipo Ganna for a time, but the brand hasn't offered a dedicated track machine for a while, until now.
Colnago is certainly no stranger to track racing; some of the sport's greats have ridden on track bikes bearing the Colnago name in the past. Brand founder Ernesto Colnago himself created one of the most famous track bikes of all, crafting Eddy Merckx’s 1972 hour record track bike, although that bike didn’t actually bear the Colnago name.
It will be available as a frameset only, and can be configured for Endurance, Sprint and Pursuit events by changing handlebars and stems. The frameset will retail for around €6,500, and the stems and bars will cost under €300 each, making it a lot more affordable than some of the most expensive track bikes.
So, Colnago is back on the track, but what this isn't, and the brand pointed it out clearly at the launch at the Lee Valley Velodrome in London, UK, is a $50,000 hyper bike that it claims is going to chop seconds off existing world records.
The brand explained that this is a more accessible bike, still worthy of the iconic Colnago logo, but it's a starting point to build on for the future.
Colnago, in my opinion, is playing this one well. No national federation currently uses Colnago track bikes, and at under €6,500 for the frameset, in context, it's a lot more affordable than some other premium, borderline-out-of-reach track machines. Nations may easily be able to order these frames, and the Colnago name still carries a lot of weight. The new UCI price cap rules for track bikes have yet to be fully fleshed out, but could the brand be anticipating this new ruling to some extent and the opportunity it may provide to get its bikes onto the biggest stage?
A Colnago track bike is, of course, going to set tongues wagging. Cycling fans would be right to wonder if this is a bike to help lay some of the groundwork for a Tadej Pogačar-shaped assault on the World Hour Record in the future. It seems unlikely currently, and when I asked the brand, it told me that the only velodrome the world champion is focusing on currently is the Roubaix one, make of that what you will.
The T1Rs is a bike designed for use in both sprint and endurance events. It can be set up in a TT/ pursuit configuration for timed events and then changed to the endurance/sprint setup by switching from the time trial base bar to the Colnago stem and handlebars.
As you might imagine, the focus from the brand has been on aerodynamics, stiffness and speed. There’s an aero-profiled frame that clearly shares design features with the brand's road and time trial bikes.
The brand supplied a whitepaper on the bike and mentioned intensive CFD analysis, as well as a focus on the bike being faster at higher speeds. It made the interesting point of things being different in the track world. In developing the Y1RS road bike, the brand went out and purchased what it considered to be the top competitors to test. It doesn't work like that on the track, and it sounds like it's still incredibly difficult to obtain certain essentially 'national federation exclusive' track bikes to test out and compare with.
Colnago also seems to have focused on making the bike narrow rather than copying the super-wide fork and chainstay design philosophy seen on the British and Japanese track bikes now. The brand toyed with going down the super wide route, but went narrow in the end. It also explained it's either super wide or super narrow, in between isn't competitive.
The T1Rs uses a dual crown fork layout, in a similar way to the Y1RS. The brand claims this increases front-end stiffness, but this bike uses steel hardware instead of the alloy parts found on road bikes. Nearly all frame tube profiles are deep and aggressive looking, in particular the bladed seatstays. High modulus fibres have been used, and reinforcing structures feature internally in the satpost, fork crown and bottom bracket area.
As mentioned, Colnago has gone narrow; the front fork legs use a narrow 65mm spacing with 100mm at the rear. Campagnolo has provided custom hubs to match its Ghibli and Pista wheels, and Miche will also be collaborating on compatible wheels. There’s also an asymmetrical T47 bottom bracket and chainset with a narrower Q Factor, though customers will have to purchase their own crankset for the bike.
There is a max tyre clearance of 28mm, and a max chainring size of 72 teeth, though mere mortals may not have to worry about this.
Colnago has produced a base bar and time trial extensions for pursuit disciplines, although custom bars and extensions are becoming more and more common now.
The carbon base bar bolts onto the front end of the bike, and has a 38cm width. Modular aero extensions can then be fitted to suit. The drop bar setup uses the SR-TRACK alloy stem, which is compatible with all 31.8mm drop handlebars. 125, 150 and 175mm stem sizes are available, although the brand uses these longer lengths to comply with UCI rules and measure them slightly differently; in short, the 175mm, for example, isn't as wild as it sounds. A maximum of 20mm of spacers can be used under the stem.
The brand says this is now the fastest bike in the Colnago range, thanks to the use of CFD (computational fluid dynamics) wind tunnel testing, and the use of NACA tube profiles, the same as the recently released Wilier Filant SLR ID2. The frame is meant to be optimised to be fastest at speeds over 60km/h, where the Reynolds number is higher, and for low yaw angles (wind direction), since this is rarely much of a factor on the track. Colnago claims the bike has a lower drag coefficient at 70Km/h than at 50Km/h. Meaning the air is less disturbed at higher speed, not that less power is required. We only had a short time with the bike, but we will ask Colnago for more information on wind tunnel and stiffness testing.
Pricing and availability
As it stands, this bike will be available as a frameset only. The handlebar stem, TT base bar and seatpost will be available; customers will then have to source their own wheels, drivetrain, drop bars, and their own specific tri bar extensions, like you would when buying any frameset.
The bikes in the pictures have a Colnago-branded crankset. I asked about this, and it’s actually one from Raketa, as used by the all-conquering Dutch track team right now. Colnago had some branded chainsets made up, but these aren’t official production cranks. It should, however, be easy enough for customers to find compatible track cranks.
The frameset will retail for around €6,500, and the stems and bars will cost under €300 each. Several thousand euros at least will then be needed for top-end track componentry, and the front and rear dropout spacing limits users to premium wheels only at present.
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