Colnago

Timeline

1954

–The entrepreneurial story of Colnago is born in the small shop in Via Garibaldi 10 in Cambiago. To start the business money was needed, so it was necessary to make do. His father therefore cuts a mulberry owned to make the workbench.

1955

– During a ride he meets Fiorenzo Magni, who complains about a pain in his leg. Ernesto points out that the cranks are mounted badly, and fixing them solves the problem. In the same year he left for his first Giro d’Italia as a mechanical assistant in the team of the champion, who then won the pink jersey.

1956

– At Colnago came the idea of cold bending the fork tubes, to keep them more elastic, managing to achieve the desired results by leverage two pieces of wood fixed on the work table.

COLNAGO VISION

The founder

Ernesto Colnago

At the age of 13 Ernesto Colnago, in order to work at the Gloria bicycle factory in Milan as a welder, changed the date of birth on the documents: he didn't have the legal age for working.

His extraordinary skills were discovered almost by chance by Fiorenzo Magni, who made him his official mechanic at the Giro d'Italia.

From there on, it is a continuous ascent driven by great intuitions and amazing creations.

From

From Athletes

to Visionaries

Colnago has always been close to the riders, listening to their problems, caring about their needs, and - finally - bringing the most breakthrough innovations to the peloton 

For Eddy Merckx's hour record, we crafted a steel bike that weighed only 5,750 kg.

In 1983 we introduced the Colnago Master. It was a true innovation. The tubes had a star-shaped section. This shape was never seen before: the effect was a more rigid frame and an extraordinary beauty of the product. 

In 1987 Colnago collaborated with Ferrari. Many ideas came from that partnership. One intuition, in particular, was there to stay: to use carbon instead of steel to produce bicycles frames.

In 1995 a Colnago carbon bike won the Paris Roubaix. From then on, all the bikes in the peloton adopted this material.

In 2012, we launched a racing bike with disc brakes on the market. No one had ever done that. Today they are widely common.