After our visit to DeRosa, no visit to Milano would be complete without a visit to Cambiago just east of the Lombard capital, the home of Ernesto Colnago's worldwide HQ.

The wizard of Cambiago has expanded his facility this year, opening the new annex that had been under construction for the last 12 months. Just next door to his current offices and warehouse facility, Colnago's new building has a new warehouse downstairs and a huge showroom and museum upstairs.
Although he was busy with customers visiting from all over the world, Colnago took a few moments to reveal his new creations for 2007. Colnago is very proud to have two of the best sprinters in the world, Alessandro Petacchi and Erik Zabel riding his bikes this season on Team Milram and has created a special new rig for them.

"My new Extreme Power model is derived from the Extreme C climbing bike, but we have modified if for the needs of a more powerful riders like sprinters Freire, Petacchi and Zabel, who can generate over 200kg of force with every pedal stroke."
Colnago said that although the Extreme Power resembles the Extreme C on the outside with its round tubes, inside they are nothing alike. "In order to make the Extreme Power more rigid, yet still have light weight, we added two unidirectional carbon fiber internal reinforcing ribs along each tube, and two more at the ends of each tube. Our tests have shown that the reinforcements increase the rigidity of the frames main triangle by 30 percent." Colnago's Extreme Power has a larger diameter 35mm seat tube that an 31.6mm oversize seatpost and has distinctive leaf shaped rear chainstays and is available in 15 traditional and 7 sloping frame sizes.

Colnago said that the C50 and Extreme C climbing bike will continue in the Colnago range for 2007. The Extreme C was ridden by Rabobank's climber Michael Rasmussen, who has won the polka dot jersey of king of the mountains at the Tour de France for the last two years. "The Extreme C is our lightest bicycle, but we won't make it too light," said Colnago. "We could make this frame lighter, but at Colnago, we believe in safety and stability for the rider. Too many people are making very light bicycles, but they may be compromising the riders security if they are too light."

The 2007 C50 family consists of four carbon fiber models: Strada, Crono, Pista and Cross. All of these frames, plus the Extreme Power and Extreme-C are made in Italy, as is the Cristallo, which will continue for 2007. Cristallo is a monocoque front triangle bike with swoopy lines that has been very successful in its first year with plenty of race wins from Colnago's sponsored teams.
Inspired by the streamlined looks of the Cristallo, Colnago has a new mid-range carbon fiber bike for 2007 called the CLX. Designed by ColnagoLab, Signor Ernesto's in-house R&D department, the Colnago CLX is the first ever carbon fiber bicycle from Colnago built in Taiwan.

Colnago told Cyclingnews, "My new CLX is a high performance yet affordable carbon fiber bicycle. We have designed the CLX here in Cambiago in our ColnagoLab, then brought the manufacturing to Taiwan to bring the price down to a more affordable level. For years, our customers have been asking us for a more affordable carbon fiber bicycle but we didn't want to make anything cheap and unreliable. We have done a lot of testing and now we know the CLX deserves the name Colnago."

Colnago's new CLX has a monocoque front triangle with external ribs to enhance the frame's rigidity at key points, and CLX has a special aero section seat post and will be available in three colourways and seven sloping sizes as both a complete bike and frameset with aero seatpost.

Colnago's classic Master model has been revisited for 2007, with its classic Columbus steel Master front triangle, mated to a rear triangle with carbon fiber seatstays and steel chainstays and the top tube now TIG-welded at the seat cluster for more rigidity and lighter weight for this neo-classic Colnago.

Finally, Ernesto Colnago introduced us to his all-new monocoque carbon fiber mountain bike frame that is a cousin to the CLX. Colnago's off road rider is called Ibex and is available as a frameset.

2007 Colnago Primavera

2007 Colnago Romarro