Colnago Flight build

This page was written in 2022 and originally lived on its own custom domain @ www.colnagodreambuild.com before retiring here.

It all started in 2012

..standing in the snow, looking in the window of Wheels on Bloor, in Toronto’s west end. I saw it first and it took my breath away. Despite being unbuilt, apart from EC 90’s and a set of TT bars; that fluoro-tangerine/matt black combo… I didn’t even really know what a Colnago was.

I have mostly been a loyal Cannondale rider, apart from a couple of years on the saddle of a Specialized. Surely this can only be the result of watching Super Mario in Le Tour aboard his CAAD4 complete with Spinergy’s; before they were banned. That classic red with yellow font of Saeco Cannondale. The geometry of Cannondale in the 90’s and into early 00’s which today seems so timeless, but then, was ahead of its time. The rear triangle on the 2.8 series (named as it weighs 2.8 lbs), the Lefty, Headshok, Silk Road. These guys were outside the box. I love that. I could fill a garage with 20 of them. Maybe I will. And then a friend of mine who rides a C64 said I should build up a Colnago.

During lockdown I had spent time stripping and restoring/upgrading a couple of 90’s Dale’s. An M800 rigid frame MTB which I bought when I was 15 and an R800 with that arse that I couldn’t get out of my head. LFGSS provided endless examples of beautiful builds and input from helpful folks. If you read some of the forum’s there you’ll get the sense that there is an obsessiveness and pursuit of perfection which verges on the unhealthy. No different for me; these retro builds are dangerous territory. 

I set up an eBay alert for “Colnago Flight” just to keep an eye on the market. There were a couple of Flight seatposts, including one in that colour, but no bikes. I trawled time trialling forums, read old articles and looked at old catalogues. Like the rising tide, so too was my desire. I had to find one. 

From my research I knew the frame came in three sizes and from the size chart, I knew I needed to find a Medium. In February, a complete bike came up, with one major problem; its price tag. 1950 Pounds. I messaged the seller and asked if they were prepared to sell the frameset alone. They were, for 1350 Pounds. I had seen framesets trade for 600-800 Pounds, which I shared with the seller and the seller ignored. I was not a happy camper. 

If you are here, like me, from what you have seen on YouTube, Colnago dream build’s are dreamy, money no object, have accompanying gentle evocative music and are done by professionals with all the right tools, taking roughly 20 minutes. I on the other hand live in an apartment one room of which has morphed into a WFH office / bike shrine shed and have basic tools, no music and the build has already taken about 7 months and counting. Maybe I don’t want it to end.  

Why do you need another bike actually? A colleague gave me great advice. How many bikes is enough he mused? n+1 …. I might decal that on the frame somewhere discrete.  

When you buy new bike parts, everything sits on the shelf, you just click and checkout. For me, like most folks I think, spending 15 grand is completely out of the question, plus in truth building a bike that way is easy and like with virtually everything in our lives from sex to dinner; on demand and instant. Really. Constraints are powerful and yield a better outcome.  

Low and behold, in late April a Medium Flight frameset appears on eBay from the same seller as the whole bike. Now listed for 1000 Pounds, my time had come. We agreed 825 quid plus a little more for shipping and I was the proud owner of my first Colnago.

Unboxing the frame, it was even more beautiful than I had remembered. Almost 10 years after I first saw it, it is as beautiful now and it was then. The frameset was basically NOS condition; I couldn’t believe it. I marveled at the quality of the paint finish. I really didn’t know just how special Colnago were, but it was starting to become apparent.

Here are some more pics of the frame to show some of the details.

It’s been a while..

..since I have updated you (is there anybody there?), however, the amassing of parts has slowly been continuing.

Based in Cambiago, east of Milan, Colnago was founded by Ernesto Colnago in 1952 (wiki). A brief list of notable riders include Merckx, Rominger, Rasmussen and most recently Pogacar. When one thinks of Italian frames perhaps Pinarello or Bianchi also come to mind (the latter perhaps with il Pirate onboard) but Colango has been omnipotent too. It could, perhaps, be argued that commercially they didnt push their product as hard as other manufacturers, remaining family owned until 2020. In recent years one does get the sense that the commercial drive is now firmly on the big ring however.  

From what I can gather the Flight frameset would have been laid by hand and cured in Cambiago. Today, Colnago carbon production seems to be mainly done in Taiwan, where much of the worlds high end carbon is manufactured. The carbon fibre monocoque frame would have been produced from a single mould (in a process apparently called the ‘Beta’ carbon process). The frame has internal cable routing to reduce drag, a teardrop shaped seat tube and profiled top and down tubes plus a one-piece bottom bracket shell for stiffness.

Introduced at Eurobike, in September, 2008, originally the frameset would have cost a cool £2,500. Later this was reduced to the bargain price of £2,000; that got you two carbon seat posts to be fair (77° post for Triathlon and a 74° post for Time Trial). Three sizes were available; 45, 53, 58cm. I’ve seen quite a few paint jobs on framesets, but lets be honest, the fluoro orange/matt black is the only one worth mentioning.    

The 2011 catalogue shows the frame fitted with 10 speed SRAM Red, however when ridden in Le Tour by Team Europecar, the Flight was fitted with Record 10 speed, so that seemed like a logical target to aim for. An Italian Groupset on an Italian frame – bellissima. Maybe an Italian wheelset too ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

Full Record groupsets came up occasionally on eBay, but often the condition of some part or other was not entirely satisfactory, so I decided to go down the long path of picking up parts bit by bit. The hunt continued through all of 2021, but by spring 2022 I was nearly there. One thing that I will note about Campag parts; the supply I found generally to be a lot more limited than Shimano. The cost is also noticeably higher than the equivalent Dura Ace. The stuff is beautiful however. More on that in a future post.

Since Brexit the UK is basically off limits for purchases as those of us in the EU now get hit with VAT and also import duties above a threshold (about 150 EUR in my case). One benefit of this however, is learning the beautiful names for parts in other European languages. Plato, manillar, pedalier, pipa, leve cambio freno, guarnitura, manetas de cambio; all evoke a kind of romanticism unlike when the words crank or shifter are uttered.

Another benefit of this is also a much larger overall market. Parts landed in from Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, France and Spain. One tip: go to ebay.it .fr .be etc, as weirdly things don’t always show up in searches often on ebay.com 

The only thing lacking was handlebars. I wanted to have all the parts I need procured before I start the cleaning and dry assembly. I could feel a part of me almost wanted to prolong the build, not wanting it to end. Conscious ‘me’ is not in control. 

A couple of footnotes to the last post… 

1. Before I bought the frame I asked the seller to share pictures of the serial number. Being a carbon Colnago I wanted to be sure it was the real deal, so I asked a domestic Colnago aficionado to verify that the format looked legit and was in the right place, etc which it was. “57” was stamped into the horizontal dropout (pic below), which I am not sure of the meaning of. Answers on a postcard please!
2. The bottom bracket fitted to the frame was an Ultegra SM-BBR60 1.37 x 24. This has a 68 mm shell width. I thought that was pretty odd for an Italian frame to have BSA spec BB, but hey. Accordingly I needed a BSA Ultra Torque BB.

Thanks for reading. If you’d like to pop me a line feel free to do so at hello at colnagodreambuild dot com

The end of the road (for now)

I had little real experience with Campagnolo so was keen to see what all the fuss was about. The particular groupset I was chasing was the 10 speed Record Titanium (a mix of carbon and titanium in truth). The eagle eyed among you will note that parts procured are, in fact, not a correct groupset. Some of this was down to availability, while I took liberty in places for aesthetic reasons. For example; the brakes, because, have you ever seen such a beautiful, organic form for a calliper? In Le Tour these would have been the skeleton black edition. These slightly older set in black suited the frame with its curves I felt. 

The wheelset caused me a lot of searching. I was quite apprehensive buying a carbon wheelset off ebay in truth. I was watching Irish classified listings and in general I found that Zipp are listed at very high prices. I wonder if this is a result of the often affluent Ironman crowd? I needed to stick to my budget, kind of. I couldn’t get an agreement with multiple sellers of Roval’s or DT Swiss, so I kept looking on ebay. 

The wheels had to be clinchers, tubs in my book are just not practical. I don’t care what people say about the ride. One time stuck in the mountains on a wet day is one time too many. 

I ended up with a set of Bora One 50’s. They came with an 11 speed Shimano cassette body and Vittoria tyres with gum walls. I fitted them to the frameset as soon as they arrived to see how they paired. That rear wheel…. [Sidebar I seem to have a penchant for odd spoke patterns, evidenced by having Cannoldale 2.8 which has a Shimano WH-7700 wheelset]. They were in good shape too (exhales). 

The freehub needed changing which lead me to the 2012 Campagnolo Wheel Technical manual. A beautiful document in and of itself – snippet above. I think the pain and cost of finding the right Campy parts was somewhat offset by the fact I was exploring a new realm. Campagnolo is almost the inverse of Shimano I feel. 

I am not completely sure where the Bora One’s were made. They are an early set in the series. If they were Made in Italy, it would mean that the dream build was turning into a ‘Made in Italy’ build, which would be lovely in a way. 

On those endless work video calls in my little bike shed office, I would occasionally look up at the fluoro tangerine and matt black frameset hanging off the wall and think, God, thats beautiful. The colour streaks are like a hot lipstick and they are all I can look at. The colour follows the arcing curves of the frame, so crisply, including that unusual rear geometry, whose form is a product of early wind tunnel work. Maybe I will eventually hang it on the wall as a piece of art, but that would be such a shame in another way. Lets put a few k km on it first, what?  

I had virtually all of the parts procured but lacked the stem/bars. I did see some period correct TT bars, with Campagnolo shifters, but they were not the ‘right’ Trimax bars used on the team Europecar bike. 

On a number of occasions over the course of this project I mused to myself that this bike is actually building itself. There are forces we don’t understand swirling around. Neutrino’s and quarks of the bike build world. They had some fairy dust to share on the handlebars too.

I was stupidly determined the bars/stem had to be carbon. Given that this build had now morphed into a Made in Italy build, Cinelli’s stock was rising, however spending 400 quid on a pair of Cinelli Ram bars was just too much. The overall build cost had spiralled. These too, are susceptible to faking from some reports that I have seen. The more recent Ram bars came up quite a bit but I fancied the Ram 2 as the lines seemed more fitting with the era of the Flight, more organic than angular. I cant find an exact date when these were originally introduced but it seems, perhaps as far back as 2003. Given the aforementioned TT geometry considerations, I bought a pair with a 100mm stem (made in Italy, of course).    

By early summer I was in my garden, surrounded by the thunderous sound of bees busily pollinating, wiring the handlebars and frame. This was both exciting and terrifying in equal measure. 

The internal cable routings on the frame/handlebars caused me hours of fishing, dipping and cursing. I could have bought that specific Park Tools cable routing kit, but where is the masochism in that? It was a bit of a challenge, but methodic and slow progress got me there in the end. A little tab of plastic plus some old brake cable, was the most useful thing I found to help. Once i had the cable lead, I pulled a piece of string and put some cork bobbles on the end avoid more heartache.   

Putting the bar tape on was nearly the most fun in the whole project. Its art and craft more than science. I bought NOS cork Cinelli bar tape from the 1980’s – its beautiful – not quite white up close. Feels so much better than the polymer based bar tapes that prevail too. 

Since the start of this project the frame geometry has worried me. I raced triathlon for a while and have no interest in doing so again, therefore, having a TT bike in the quiver is out of the question. I’ve seen others build road bikes out of Flight frames, but was pretty worried that the riding position would be aggressive to say the least. Now, I could sit on the saddle, feet on the pedals and see how back breaking the riding position was. In a word; compact. But passable. Lets see after a long ride.

So voilà; here it is. The obvious thing to do was to go with black for everything, but as you can see went for white for areas where the rider is in contact with the bike. So how does it ride? The first spin down to the village and around to the coast was lovely. Its a fast bike, effortless. The compact geometry is a little disconcerting however. Maybe I haven’t built up rapport with the frame yet. The Cinelli Ram bars are just so beautiful. Organic. They almost feel malleable in my hands.   

Before we close, I’d like to address the whole Campag/Shimano gorilla in the room. There is a bit of a parallel with watches here. Most readers will know of Seiko and some may have heard of Grand Seiko, which is a quite expensive upgrade from the former. Then there is Credor. All of these watches are unremarkable looking, but not unattractive. Dura Ace feels a bit like Credor. You love its reliability, it has a quiet beauty, but it is unlikely to move you visually unless you have a deep appreciation of Engineering. Record on the other hand oozes beauty the way an F.P Journe does.      

Some closing thoughts, confessions and future work

1. I am unhappy with a few things
   1. The stiffness of the Cinelli ram bars is underwhelming and to be frank; scary. 
   2. The single pivot rear brake type is not inspiring in its ability to arrest me. I will change it for a dual pivot (as the front brake is).
   3. The bike carries a Michie 10 speed cassette /o\ It should, of course, have the proper Record 10 speed with Titanium larger rings, however they change hands for silly money on ebay (hundreds of Euro).
   4. The only work I didn’t do was fit the BB cups and Crankset. Best left to the pros, what?
   5. I would like to fully strip the rear wheel and replace the bearings, but also wanted to ride the bike this summer (to perhaps state the obvious, this is not a winter/wet weather bike), so this will have to wait. 
2. I bought a 2011 Colnago catalogue. I know. I know. There is obsession at play here; sorry. I am pursuing perfection of sorts, but I like to think in a wabi sabi kind of way. 
3. How many hours have I spent on this project thus far? Who cares. Lots. Too many. My inner buddhist is definitely casting a judging eye.
4. Will I build another bike with Campagnolo? I love the Italian approach to beauty. Stripping parts and finding a bolt with Campagnolo needlessly stamped into its head; virtually nobody will ever see this detail, but that’s not the point. So in terms of design there is no competition; Campy every time, its gorgeous. The quality of the metal parts is exceptional. I did find that the lacquer on the carbon was discolouring and flaky.    
5. As this build comes to an end 🙁 I can feel a few other potential projects emerging
   1. Inspired by the look of the Flight without parts, a track bike is one option. Such a bike would be very unlikely to ever kiss the smooth pine surface of a track. 
   2. A Cannondale Silk road gravel bike for light mountain firetrail spins would be another. That would give a nice chance to make some custom travel bags, which I could collaborate with my crafty wife on.  
   3. Or maybe a Colnago C40. Those paint jobs plus those carbon lugs. This could be dangerous territory though. Italian frames deserve Italian parts. 
   4. I do have a desire to build a hacker with Shimano Alfine. 
   5. I have this Cinelli Alter stem that needs a bike built around it. 
6. I aspire to be like the guy in this photo. 
7. If you made it this far you must be as obsessed as I am. Feel free to get in touch.

An AI generated afterthought

I used Deep AI to generate three AI images of what the model thought that this dream build would look like. The three text strings I gave the model were (from left to right):

1. Colnago flight road bike matt black and fluro orange frame with deep carbon wheelset
2. Colnago road bike matt black and fluro orange frame with deep carbon wheelset
3. Colnago road bike matt black and fluro orange

Its fascinating to see where the model understands clearly. It doesn’t recognise Colnago as a brand of bikes, but clearly understands where the bike manufacturer brand is typically written on the frame. I wonder if the training data contains a lot of bike images with curved forks – perhaps owing to the volume of pictures of older bikes – clearly however the shifters look di2-esque in size? Funny that the image on the far right has both disc and caliper brakes. Lots to ponder, but pretty cool nonetheless.