Colnago C64 - Inside and Out

[billspreston]

Wonderful post, I really appreciate seeing and reading about all the fine details you've described.

[4ibanez]

I'm a copywriter by trade. But when it comes time to down tools and go online, I don't obsess about how my writing sounds. Kudos - this thread is a glorious combination: Well thought out, evocative discussion, and a nice bit of indulgent stream-of-consciousness meandering. Also, which professional photographer did you hire? My photos always turn out awful!

[Calnago]

Kudos - this thread is a glorious combination: Well thought out, evocative discussion, and a nice bit of indulgent stream-of-consciousness meandering. Also, which professional photographer did you hire? My photos always turn out awful!

Well thank you very much, especially coming from a professional copywriter. For what it's worth, my whole life is kind of a "stream of consciousness". Ha. I've described it as a Forest Gump kind of affair... never really had any "Five Year Plan" or any of that nonsense. Kind of in the right place at the right time workwise... a few lucky breaks here and there, and lots of hours and hard work (damn, you thought it could be done without that last part... lol).

And no professional photographer... all me. While I'm digging through past photos to go with my stream of consciousness meanderings, all the photos of the actual C64 frame (the red one), were taken by me with a little original Sony RX100 (few years old, and I think they're on version 5 now). It fits into my jersey pocket and in the palm of my hand. I just took it with me in my coat pocket when I went to have a look at this frame thinking I'd post a few pics, and then... this happened. I'm having fun with it and still have a lot of thoughts swirling around in my head that just spill out between sitdowns at the computer. So, still got a ways to go... glad you're enjoying it.

[Calnago]

I agree that in general classic seatstay positioning should give a smoother cable routing from the top tube to the rear brake, but I think one reason that the example pictures of your bikes are so smooth has to do with the frame size. I have a size 52 slight sloping frame with classical seatstay attachment, and it is impossible to use traditional cable-outer without it either being too short, or pushing the cable stop at the top-tube upwards out of its socket. Linked housing thankfully solves this quite elegantly...

You are correct @Lightweenie... size often matters. My bikes, given their size, are pretty easy to get a nice rear brake cable run set up, but you'd still be surprised how many bikes that have the potential to be perfect, aren't. Small bikes can certainly present some challenges so I hear what you're saying. It's the designers responsibility to ensure that once components are installed it all works as intended. That shouldn't be an afterthought, although it sure seems to be a lot of time. Without even knowing what frame you have... I suspect the cable port that exits your downtube is fairly close to the seat cluster, just a guess. This positioning does indeed make it even harder to get a nice smooth run because it has to make a sharp bend almost immediately followed by a very short distance to the caliper. And as you note, it's easy to make it actually too short, not just from a visual perspective, but from a functional perspective as well. Tell me, what if, and not saying yours isn't, the rear cable port were a bit farther forward on the top tube... do you think that would make attaining a smoother liner easier? You'd still be challenged, but not quite as much.
For instance, look how far forward the rear exit port is on the C59...

Now... I know mine is a larger frame, so I've found a pic of size 46s C59 to point out a couple things. I've copied this pic from someone elses post and cropped the photo to protect the innocent, but it provides a good example of a small bike's rear cable routing... or what it could be...

Point I want to make on the above pic is that the rear cable I believe could easily be a nice smooth line to the brake. And I doubt that this particular cable is too short. It's just that with the C59... the rear brake housing runs full length through a guide in the top tube. There are no stops. It's fine, but what always happens is that the cable kind of settles naturally a little more forward than what is the most visually appealing line. I think that's what's going on here but you can't see it from this side. The point is, I think the small bike above has a nice smooth line to the brake from the top tube, but in this particular photo it's buried in the top tube due to the design of the C59 cable routing which has no stops in the top tube. Remember the pic I showed of my C59, nice cable run, right? Ok, here's the same bike showing how the cable would settle in after some riding...

Notice how that nice line I had in the previous pic is gone... it's been "sucked in" to the top tube. Still perfectly functional, and most people wouldn't even notice. But I do. Looks like a hooker on Sunday morning whose thighhighs have loosened up... still perfectly functional but not as fresh as it could be. If she could, I mean, if that cable housing was pulled out of the top tube about 15mm or so, then it would be back to the perfect line shown a couple pics above. Like the beginning of Friday night all over again.
Now a small bike with dropped seatstays and a rim brake on those stays... there's the nightmare scenario as far as getting a nice brake line happening.

I just flew over to my Cento 10.. and while the EE brakes add a bit of an odd kink into the cables, it would look very very similar to your C60's had I used the Duraace calipers. Since I'm too lazy to snap a pic (nor have I even started a new thread), I'll just have to improvise and "borrow" another one off the net..and also because its lasagna night...


The cable cradles are actually on an angle



So, I guess having a dropped seat stay or not really shouldn't affect the smoothness of how the cables are mounted and perform.. Yeah, I know that there are are a good handful of frames out there that have questionable cable entry/exit designs but hell, other than that, I can't see any real issues...
Its lasagna night and I do love my lasagna

And you are correct as well. Does it really matter? Well, it depends who you ask I suppose... That Willier you show is much better than some, but if you look close that kink the housing has to make just as it enters the caliper's stop could be much improved if only those stays joined at the seatcluster. The thing is, bike design is not just about function, and I realize that it's often as much about coming up with a cool look that people will like and love. Do you think Pinarello's wavy Onda shapes really add anything functionally? But everyone knows a Pinarello when they see it. Design can be as much about brand distinction as much, or more sometimes, as how it performs. As an aside, I know what I'm having for dinner... Hot Lasagne! Can't wait. Thanks for that.

Yes, your right, my Cento Uno with DA looks pretty smooth.
Personally, I believe that the shorter load path of dropped stays contributes to the harshness of aerobike ride. No engineering to back it up, just intuition.

Yes, I'd agree with that... Some things just don't require an engineering degree in order to figure out. On the other hand, those shorter stays mean less material and therefore... whuhoo... less weight!!

[Calnago]

While we're on the subject of frame designers thinking things all the way through... I came across a couple pics of my C50 that illustrate some examples that got me really thinking a long time ago about what a treat it is to work on a nice bike that's been well thought out, and how living with one can be even better.

Derailleur cable bosses mounted on side/frontish of headtubes... hate 'em. I had a steel bike like that. Serotta used to do a lot of that as well. It just creates something for your front brake housing to hit every now and then until it breaks the alloy barrel adjuster that you would no doubt have inserted there. Here's what I'm talking about... always had a few spare barrel adjusters on hand for when the inevitable would happen. It would also play havoc on the threads of the bosses... not good. And it really didn't matter which side of the brake housing the derailleur cable passed... it would hit from either side, just that one way hit when your turned left, and when ran on the other side it would hit when you turned right...

Not sure why they put them there... maybe to avoid cable rub on the headtube.

Colnago on the other hand always seemed to be aware of these types of things and I got to really appreciate them for that. Notice their version of where the derailleur cable bosses should be. Really nice. Still nothing touching the frame...





Oh, and here's another example... this time relating to the Diamond cutout B-Stays of that era... the right chainstay had to be kind of squashed in order to accommodate the rear derailleur cables line from the Bottom Bracket. I've actually commented on a thread on WW when someone was concerned that their recently purchased C50 might be flawed because of it. I was wondering the same thing when I first got mine... notice the difference between right and left, and you can see how the rear derailleur cable had to be accommodated by "squishing" the diamond cutout on the drive side...
Left chain stay...


Right Chainstay...

In this example, I'm not sure if squishing the chainstay was really a consideration during the design phase or if it was like... "WTF... this damn chainstay is in the way of the derailleur cable... Squish it Dano!". I have a feeling this particular scenario may have been one of those "Sheesh... that's another fine mess you've gotten us into Ollie" moments, so they just "adjusted" the stays going forward from that day on.

But for the most part, Colnago, in my experience, has been just a hallmark of really good well thought out design on the whole. Sure there have been some design choices that are questionable, which seemed to be more about chasing market trends, such as the under chainstay brake mounting on the V1-R, but for the most part... they seem to try and think things through and do what's best, for the most part. I know, I know... that egregious swimming pool on the downtube of the C64 is driving me nuts too, so I need to go back and test out some other water bottles.

Oh, and here's an example of a "fail" by me for cabling the rear brake... it's too short. Unlike my C59, there is a hard stop on the top tube for the brake housing. So there's no excuse for me not making the rear section just a bit longer to achieve that ultimate smooth cable "journey" I've been talking about...
It needs to be about 2-3cm longer at least... I'm hanging my head in shame... but ya gotta start somewhere. It's only after looking at a lot of different builds and (if you even care) thinking..."hmmm, why does his look so much better than mine", that you start to notice the subtle differences between a bike build and great bike build.

Ouch! It's hideous... look away!

Almost forgot... in taking a pic of that bike with the derailleur bosses on the headtube I noticed what I'm sure some of you will recognize as a Cinelli Ti Grammo stem... on top of a Chris King Ti headset, quite the piece of bike jewelry back then. I actually had the welds polished up on it to make them smooth. Not sure that was a good idea now from a structural standpoint, but I took it to a guy building Titanium bikes at the time to do it, so I guess it was ok. It's still there, so that's something... but combined with the bars I had on it... what a noodle...

[michel2]

the reason to braze those cable stops on the headtube is that the head tube deals better with heat than a thin walled down tube, a headtube wall thickness is anywhere up from 1 mm to 1.5 mm ( in general ) how ever down tube's such a s foco, ultra foco, life, hss, xcr can be as thin as .65 mm at the thickest sections, you can imagine that brazing something mundane like a cable stop can be become quite the stress riser on such a thin wall.

another big difference, is the fact that the older shimano groups used external gearcable routing in those day's. Ergo power cable's had a different approach angle to the cable stops and because of that were better suited for that design, i remember at least one builder building bikes with either ergo cable stops or sti cable stops.

back on the topic of the c64, i saw one in the shop last Monday. let me start by saying to this day i still own a colnago extreme power in Saronni red, i love it, i do love a c40 in general i like what colnago does, perhaps even love it. but the paint masking on the bike in the shop was so so so bad !! i have taken photos of the bike i might upload them ( wish i could just drop the directly here oppose to mucking around with 3party sites) it looked like the masking for the lugs was a couple of mm/degree of as such ( white lugs raw tubes) it looked like the lugs where painted on but then on an uneven surface...and at 6500$ a frame i say *f##k* hand made charm, for that money i want perfection, or at least someone paying attention when there masking frames !!

thanks, mick

While we're on the subject of frame designers thinking things all the way through... I came across a couple pics of my C50 that illustrate some examples that got me really thinking a long time ago about what a treat it is to work on a nice bike that's been well thought out, and how living with one can be even better.

Derailleur cable bosses mounted on side/frontish of headtubes... hate 'em. I had a steel bike like that. Serotta used to do a lot of that as well. It just creates something for your front brake housing to hit every now and then until it breaks the alloy barrel adjuster that you would no doubt have inserted there. Here's what I'm talking about... always had a few spare barrel adjusters on hand for when the inevitable would happen. It would also play havoc on the threads of the bosses... not good. And it really didn't matter which side of the brake housing the derailleur cable passed... it would hit from either side, just that one way hit when your turned left, and when ran on the other side it would hit when you turned right...

Not sure why they put them there... maybe to avoid cable rub on the headtube.

Colnago on the other hand always seemed to be aware of these types of things and I got to really appreciate them for that. Notice their version of where the derailleur cable bosses should be. Really nice. Still nothing touching the frame...

[jimaizumi]

Damn, full from that Lasagna and yes, was good on a ridiculous level. The meatballs were a bit too spicy and I have to endure another night of leftovers..

I guess one mans hand painted ugly is another's hand painted beautiful.. As expensive as the frame is, the painters are pumping out 100's of frames per day so one can't really expect perfection.. and for me, that's ok and there's plenty of value in that.. I've seen imperfections in my friends Ottanta where the paint on the lugs were slightly over sprayed on to the tubes. While some were criticizing the frame in exactly how you just did, I took it in such a way that the overspray simply reflected the "human" touch to the frame.

At least for me, so long as its not a blatant and outright scew up, its more of less within what I consider to be acceptable.

[Calnago]

@michel2... that frame I pictured with the headtube cable bosses is mid 90’s. Pretty sure none of the builders were choosing that location for structural reasons. Rather, it just seemed to be a trend some of the custom builders were following at the time. I could have gotten normal bosses on the downtube (wished I had), but I was talked into doing what all the cool kids were doing at the time. And I was so far from “cool” it was ridiculous.

Re that bad masking job you saw on the C64. Was it much different than on the pics I’ve been showing of the red one. I’d say the red one is very normal. It’s fine by me.

And @jimaizumi.... painters doing “hundreds of frames a day”? Hmmm... I think it’s more like in the teens maybe.

[Calnago]

I found a few pics while I searched for relevant pics for my talking points. These have nothing to with the C64, just some fun stuff thrown in here cuz... why not... Over the next week however I should have a couple more things to say about the C64.

10 points for reading this far into the thread... bonus point for identifying this view...


At least I don't collect these things... but I do want those goggles...



Very early on in my C59's life... I know because that saddle came off within the first 100 miles...



During a loop around the Lower Mainland of British Columbia one fine fall day. Enjoying a muffin in Fort Langley, BC...



It really would be sad if these cages won't fit on the C64. Where there's a will there's a way, just won't be all aero like they hoped... it's not an "aero" bike anyway... who cares...

[Jitensha]

How do you feel about this Super Record EPS cable routing Colnago showed off on the C64 Disc during the presentation last week? This frame is a joke.

[Calnago]

I don’t like it, but frankly I don’t like any electrical routing. Flimsy wires, junction boxes, satellite buttons cut in underneath tape, shrink wrap, zip ties... I much prefer mechanical.
I think the bikes for testing looked like they were pretty hastily put together. I saw one of the mechanical setups and the cabling was a mess. But that’s a setup issue, not a frame issue. Same thing in the above photo. The team was obviously under a time crunch to get things ready.

[billspreston]

Curious to see if any "popular" bottle cage options will fit. I'm interested in this frame, but (believe it or not) this downtube cutout gives me hesitation. I simply don't like the aesthetics of the Colnago cages. I suppose I should loosen up and hope something nicer fits through trial & error or just shim until things work. I am seeing different cages on some of the magazine test bikes so perhaps it's just about finding the right fit...

[Calnago]

Curious to see if any "popular" bottle cage options will fit. I'm interested in this frame, but (believe it or not) this downtube cutout gives me hesitation.

I can believe it... it's one of those things that can bug the hell out of you... you think... I love my bike, except for this onnnne thing... and you can't not stare at it wondering... "why?"... how could they get something so simple, so wrong. Well, look at the bright side... at least they didn't throw dropped seat stays on the thing.

[pdlpsher1]

Factor bicycles has designed their 'swimming pool' with greater water bottle cage compatibility

[billspreston]

^ It's a very nice swimming pool, but then they had to drop the stays. tsk tsk Cal is right we can't have it all!