Service Course On Test: The Colnago C60

This is a bike we’ve been wanting to ride for a long time. Sure, it’s not the newest frame in the peloton. It was launched back in 2014 but for one reason or another never crossed the Peloton Service Course threshold in those two years – the Colnago C60. Still, we waited patiently, and finally that day came. We unboxed a Colnago C60 with Shimano Dura Ace 9000 last week.

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During those two years we heard essentially the same thing from everyone that rode one, “It’s not the lightest or stiffest bike in the world, but the ride quality…” This is when their eyes roll back in their head like remembering their first love.

The C60, like the C59 before it and the C50 before that, is a carbon bike made a bit like a steel bike. It is not monocoque molded in large frame sections, it is carbon tubes bonded into carbon lugs. This may be why it’s not the stiffest bike or lightest bike in the world. It’s tough to compete with monocoque construction when those are the metrics, but for Colnago those metrics have always been less important than ride quality.

Let’s be clear, the bike is not heavy. Our 58cm test bike with Dura-Ace and C24 wheels weighed 15.7lbs and on race day could easily hit the UCI limit. We imagine stiffness is more than adequate, the bike is raced at the highest level after all, and the tube shapes don’t lie. Colnago went big for the same reasons monocoque bikes do. Large diameter tubes can have thinner tubes while being stiffer and lighter. The lugs they interface with are obviously of equal girth. Tube may be the wrong word for them since they have Colnago’s signature fluting. While Colnago claims it’s about ride quality, we see it as more of a brand identity thing. And speaking of brand identity, the bike is made in Italy. Actually made there. Not just painted or designed there, but honest-to-god manufactured in the homeland.

The C60 is a race bike, but with that Italian twist that knows road races can be long and road surfaces can be nasty. It provides an aggressive position and geometry, but with a few millimeters added to the rear. Colnago, thanks to making the bike with tubes and lugs, offers it in nine sizes with sloping geometry and five sizes in more traditional, horizontal top tube geometry. There is an ‘H’ fit available as well, which utilizes a taller head tube for a more endurance style position. You can even get a semi-custom C60, although that entails a bit of an up charge.

Our 58cm sloping geometry test bike has a full Shimano Dura-Ace 9000 mechanical group and C24 carbon-alloy rims. The bits and pieces are all branded Colnago – bar, stem, post and even a Colnago logo’d Selle Italia SLR saddle. The C60 is not cheap, the frame alone is $5900, so Colnago couldn’t send you home with a creaking, press-fit bottom bracket. To utilize a huge, stiff bottom bracket, they created the ThreadFit 82.5, an oversize threaded bottom bracket that is compatible with Campy, Shimano, SRAM and almost every crank under the sun.

The Peloton Service Course will be bringing you a detailed look at the bike in the pages of Peloton magazine very soon. Until then, for more info check out colnago.com.