Colnago’s legend

There is a village in Brianza, Cambiago, which is very famous amongst cycling lovers.

A small village of just 7000 people where Ernesto Colnago was born and where developed the “legend” of the bikes that have his name, synonymous of perfection worldwide and that are linked with Umberto and Andrea and to all the athletes of Team Novo Nordisk.

Ernesto Colnago is what we call “a self-made businessman”. He was born in a farming family and at the age of 13, he started to work for bike factory “Gloria”, in Milan. Of that 25 November, 75 years ago, Ernesto can remember even the detail. He falsified his ID card of just 1 year, to be able to begin working as a welder. He wore a military coat, an “inheritance” of the Russian War from his uncle Ambrogio, which his mom had shortened. He remembers ”I couldn’t put my hands in the pockets, because they were too low”. The next day, he learned a life lesson whilst arguing with a guy of his age, Ernesto Formenti who later became an Olympic boxing champion. Colnago walked away from his job to chase him and when he later returned to his workplace his piecework colleague burned his hand with a blowtorch, telling him “when you work you don’t have to get distracted”, a phrase that Ernesto remembered all his life.

Eight years later in 1954, the entrepreneurial history of Colnago was born, inside the small store in Garibaldi street, 10 in Cambiago. But to start the business, money is needed and so he had to make do. For this reason, his father, cut a mulberry to make a workbench and Ernesto began to think that his bikes should have been the best in the world.

The opportunity came the next year when, during a bike ride, he met Fiorenzo Magni, who complained of a pain in his leg. Ernesto pointed out to him that the cranks are wrongly set up and by fixing them, he could solve the problem. In the same year he left for his first Giro d’Italia as vice engineer in the team of the champion, who then won the pink jersey.

But Ernesto wanted more flexible and modern bikes and so in 1956 he got the idea to cold bend the forks’ pipes in order to keep them more flexible, managing to achieve the desired results by relying on two wood pieces fixed on the work bench.

By now, Ernesto was on the team cars. He followed the race as an engineer and he discovered a very talented guy, the sixteen years old Gianni Motta. Ernesto understood that Gianni would become a champion of Italian cycling, and so he decided to provide Gianni with a bike and some assistance. Motta, among his many successes with the help of Colnago, won the Tour of Lombardy in 1964. He finished third in the Tour de France in ’65 and won the Giro d’Italia in ’66.

Colnago is someone who really understands bikes and so In 1966 Eddy Merckx (who later would become the “cannibal” but at that time was just at the beginning of his career among the pros) asked him for some reliable and custom built wheels to use in the Milan-Sanremo race that he wanted to win. The work was perfect and so Merckx won his first Milan-Sanremo.

Thus began a professional combination that during the years developed and became stronger. So, in 1972, Ernesto was no longer just an engineer. By this time he was a builder, and building bikes for Merckx, even 20 in just one year, became his final consecration. The real masterpiece was the bike with which the Belgian champion set the hourly record. Now one could understand that Ernesto’s dream to create the best bikes in the world had become reality.

During the ’80s, Ernesto tried to develop the technology of his bikes. Colnago had not only been a technological innovator, but also a great businessman. The technical and commercial collaboration with the Soviet Union was a big advertisement for him, in addition to important successes, like the Olympic win in the team time trial. In 1982 Ernesto Colnago joined the project of the Del Tongo family, to build a worldwide team, and in the same year Saronni won the World Cup in Goodwood. “Keep developing” had become his mantra and he wanted to always invest in the future, in innovation and in quality. He never stopped believing. Ferrari and Colnago have much in common, and not by chance they became friends and this friendship led to many revolutionary projects. The Drake, asking Colnago to collaborate in 1976, immediately clarifies: “I just want beautiful things, up to the Ferrari”.

In 1995, the night before the debut of his carbon bike, the C40, during the hard Paris-Roubaix, Colnago got a call from Giorgio Squinzi, patron of the Mapei “strong team”: “… Ernesto, are you sure that our cyclists tomorrow will have no trouble? The frame will not break? And that straight pipe…”. The C40 won that edition and 4 of the next 5 editions. It represents the triumph of technology.

In 2013, he connected his brand Colnago with the Team Novo Nordisk for the first time and since 2016 this connection has become stable and will continue in the future.

Enzo and Ernesto Colnago

“I believe in true cycling values and I see in this team the authentic love for cycling. Those guys instill so much joy and desire to commit, I really wish them a future full of satisfaction and success. “

Ernesto Colnago

BREAKAWAY

Two wheels, the road, diabetes