Colnago C59 - 5 Years Later

[majklnajt]

Calnago, bike looks great!

I just wonder how the proportions would be if you bought one size smaller?
Longer stem/1 cm spacer under it?
Seatpost 1 cm more visible
Sadlle tilted more to the back?

[Vagabond]

Looking good Cal! I went full metal on my flight deck as well for awhile but now I'm back to carbon for the bars. I ride gloveless and I love the way that the carbon bars dampen road buzz. Plus, it is weight weenies after all. Like you I also found my way to the Romin. Most comfortable saddle I've ever ridden.

[tids0009]

What's that big gap between the bottom of the head tube and the crown for? Suspension?

Tell me about it. My C60 frame has a massive gap, I tried to find a lower stack crown race to bring the forks closer to the frame but couldn't find one. Now I am thinking of getting the existing one machined to reduce the gap.

Something not right.

Here's my suspension! Everything IS done up and seated correctly, it's just how it is but I don't like it.

[tids0009]

Another shot

[Calnago]

It's about 1mm, right. That's how they are. Colnago uses alloy cups pressed into the carbon headtube. They are perfectly flat on the outer face. There has to be a space otherwise binding is possible. The C60's are like that. The C59's were like that. The EPS before that was like that. And if you look at a C50 with an outboard Chris King headset, a similar gap will be present there as well. The bearing fits perfectly on the crown race right, and that fits perfectly into the cups in the headtube, right? Colnago's alloy cups are designed to prevent damage to the headtube in the event of a crash, within reason of course. Thus saving the frame at least even when the fork might get trashed.
I can't think off the top of my head which other carbon frames use such inserts. The bearings usually just drop right into the molded shell of the frame on other brands. You damage that, and your frame is toast. I know a guy who got a carbon Chinarello. The headtube actually rubbed on the fork crown so much he had to file some of it away. But no gap .

Bottom line, it's fine and how it is supposed to be.

[Calnago]

@Eurperg: Nice job on your Deda Stem... for now I'm actually liking the graphics of the Deda but good to know they come off fairly easily. Hated the stripe on my original 3T (red, before the "stealth" version), so I removed it without much effort at all...

Before and after...



In the end I prefer the Deda's -8 degree angle and slightly deeper profile compared to 3T's more round profile and -6 degree angle, especially on the traditional frame. Not sure if the stem itself is stiffer or not, but the current overall setup definitely is.

And agree on the finishing tape on the bars... I could have done better. Yours is perfect. I did it that way once. Guess I'm getting sloppy. I'll fix it. When I did do it I did it like yours... with a slight overlap covering the edge of the tape, but not much more. I think that looks better than what some guys will do and just leave the edge of the tape exposed.

As for the cabling... Yes, the cables cross inside the downtube. Does two things 1) provides a smoother cable run, and 2) prevents any rubbing of cable housing on the headtube itself. Used to do it more often than not this way in the old days... when tubes were skinny and the cable stops were often below the lowest point of the downtube. Then tubes got thicker and cable stops were more just below center of the downtube, but not below the lowest point, making it impossible to cross underneath. In these cases, you always had to cross the cables in front of the headtube so as to "frame" the headtube badge. A nice look, but not quite as functionally smooth as what you can often do now. Tubes these days are pretty huge, cables have lots of room internally, and so long as they aren't rubbing or banging on the sides of the downtube and have a smooth exit out the BB area, I'm doing most of the cabling this way now where I can.

[Calnago]

Calnago, bike looks great!

I just wonder how the proportions would be if you bought one size smaller?
Longer stem/1 cm spacer under it?
Seatpost 1 cm more visible
Sadlle tilted more to the back?

Well... I'm already running a 130mm stem. While I could certainly get my contact points the same on a couple sizes smaller or larger, I really think I'm nicely balanced on this frame and it feels really good. Having said that, I am doing a build on a 59 Traditional soon so I will get to check things out for real. It's basically a 9mm shorter top tube, so I am anxious to see how differently that feels on the road.

[SLCBrandon]

To the bars and hoods:

-I just built up a Time RXRS and after feeling like my EP's Deda Presa's were a bit flimsy, I went with alloy 100's and really like them.

-I put the new style hoods......on non-15 levers, also on the RXRS. Sue me, they feel much better IMO.

[Calnago]

Ok... moving down to the Bottom Bracket and cranks... I'm running the new SRM 4 arm Campy crank and I do believe this is the sweetest powermeter for any groupset, bar none. In fact, I think it looks better than the standard 4arm carbon crank... just a little more symmetrical to my eyes...


53/39 rings on 175mm crank arms. Also got a set of 36/52 rings that I was trying out all summer. Very nice that you can change out the rings to whatever combination you want, especially on a crank like this.

SRM crank weighs 785g for everything (including rings, both crank arms and bearings etc).
Weight for SR crankset on initial build: 596g. So, add another 189grams to the running total of weight gain since the first build.

Front derailleur, Rear derailleur is all Super Record, with a slight modification to the rear derailleur...


The mod is the swapping of the pulley cage from the all carbon/alloy SR to the all alloy Chorus model. I did keep the CULT pulleys however, just for added bling.


And before I leave the BB area, here's a little mod I make to the BB guide as well as adding a little protection from the elements and providing a silky smooth path for the cables to follow...






The Teflon "tubing" I use is not your standard Teflon sheathing. This stuff is essentially plumbing pipes for chemical drips etc and made to pretty exacting standards. You can't squeeze it shut it is so thick and it's inner diameter is just big enough to allow a derailleur cable to glide through. A brake cable is too big. Also, the outer diameter is so thick that it would not fit in the cable guide as it was, or if it eventually squeezed itself into the channels it could compress it enough to cause some friction. So, I dremelled out the channels of the cable guide until the tubing fits perfectly and made the lengths just long enough to adequately clear the internal edges of the bottom bracket lugs in the down tube when installed. I did this mod because there are two places that the front derailleur cable will hit/rub the frame on it's way to the front derailleur. One is the bottom bracket shell itself and the other is the edge of the bridge between the chainstays where the cable passes on it's way up to the front derailleur. And it slid so smoothly for the front derailleur that I just threw a piece on for the rear derailleur cable as well since I thought gliding through this stuff may actually be less friction than rubbing on the cable guide, but in any case it certainly wasn't adding any.

Looks a bit rough but it just has to provide a place holder for the Teflon tubing.

[Tam]

It's about 1mm, right. That's how they are. Colnago uses alloy cups pressed into the carbon headtube. They are perfectly flat on the outer face. There has to be a space otherwise binding is possible. The C60's are like that. The C59's were like that. The EPS before that was like that. And if you look at a C50 with an outboard Chris King headset, a similar gap will be present there as well. The bearing fits perfectly on the crown race right, and that fits perfectly into the cups in the headtube, right? Colnago's alloy cups are designed to prevent damage to the headtube in the event of a crash, within reason of course. Thus saving the frame at least even when the fork might get trashed.
I can't think off the top of my head which other carbon frames use such inserts. The bearings usually just drop right into the molded shell of the frame on other brands. You damage that, and your frame is toast. I know a guy who got a carbon Chinarello. The headtube actually rubbed on the fork crown so much he had to file some of it away. But no gap .

Bottom line, it's fine and how it is supposed to be.

Calnago, this is superb.
You're right, my c50 (with CK headset) and c59 have 'the gap'.

[Calnago]

The Wheels, oh yes... the wheels! I've had Campy Boras on this bike since I got it. They are absolutely hands down my favorite wheelset. Initially, I installed Conti Comps 22mm, and then have run exclusively Veloflex in the following sizes: 22mm (old Carbons), 23mm (Current Carbons), 24mm (old Roubaix)and 25mm (Current Roubaix and Arrenberg). When the new Boras were released, I wanted to try them for a couple of reasons: 1) because a 25mm Veloflex on the standard width Boras got squished up a bit like a pushup bra just enough that the clearance on the C59 was so minimal that there tended to be a lot of chatter from road debris getting thrown between the tire and fork crown. I thought maybe the slightly wider rim bed would allow the 25mm tubulars to sit a bit lower and more relaxed. So I ordered the new Bora 35's to test this out. And sure enough, it gave me the extra millimeter or so I was seeking and any clearance issues were solved! No chatter, just silently smooth running. So, I was sold on that basis alone. But wait, there's more... 2) another thing I wanted to see was if the wheel was inherently more stable, not because of how it handles crosswinds (different matter altogether) but in just how it resisted twisting etc. from just general riding with a 200lb rider on board. And in this regard as well, the wheel was more stable. Double win. Plus, gluing them up without the spoke holes in the rim bed makes life quite easy. The 24.2mm width is really nice. There's no way I can see running bigger than 25mm tubulars and this width of rim is perfect for that. The CULT bearings and hubs are a treat to maintain and ride and seem to last forever... with the occasional blowout and a couple drops of synthetic light oil to keep everything running perfectly.









I was running the Garmin Speed Cadence sensor and like to glue small rare earth magnets to my wheels in a way that makes them fully compatible with all my bikes by installing both the magnets and sensors in the same place. I use AquaSeal for this and seems to work real well. The magnet is much smaller and lighter than the generally 3 times as big screw on type round spoke magnets.

[Calnago]

Let's see, what else is there before I wrap this all up with a build list and final photo...
Well, oh yes, there's the water bottle cages. Went from Arundel Mandibles to Arundel Dave-O's. I found the thin arms on the mandibles just too "crushing" for the Camelbak bottles that I like to use. The Dave-O's have the same holding power but that grip is spread out over wider arms, kind of spreading the love a little more gently and hence does not crush the bottles. It's also easier to slide them in and out. But, you guessed it... another weight penalty... 72grams (with bolts) for the Dave-O's and 62 grams for the mandibles. 10gram hit. Oh, the hurt, the hurt. I can hear the sigh of die hard Weight Weenies...


Oh, forgot about the K-Edge chain catcher till now... should have been in the BB and SRM crank description. This little doodad is quite nice as it does away with the need to install the under BB magnet for the powermeter and provides a chain catcher at the same time, although a chain catcher may be almost unnecessary given the way the new Campy front derailleur operates. Still, it's good insurance and I like where it places the magnet... but shame of shame... the weight... another 20 grams added to the original build.


And one last gratuitous pic for this post... just cuz I think it's so sexy in the right light...
a little sticker of bicycle history...

[Calnago]

And for now, a full profile pic and build list... finally!




Current Build List as Shown:



So, with all the changes, there is about 450-500 grams of extra heft, all changes that I was happy to make.

[kgt]

Looks perfect

[Look565w]

Calnago, can I just say that this is one of the best thread that I've read in my short time on WW!

Your attention to detail in your build is top class & the quality of images also enhances my enjoyment too.

Thanks again for sharing

Cheers