First Look At Colnago’s New C68 Gravel Bike

Colnago, the iconic Italian bike maker, is renowned for their design and performance and they have added a new bike to their collection, the C68 GRAVEL edition! This is an exclusive first look at the NEW Colnago C68 gravel bike. Is this the best, and classiest gravel bike to date?

In association with @colnagoTV 👉 https://gcn.eu/colnagogravel

00:00 Intro
01:33 What is the bike concept?
02:30 History of Colnago bikes
04:47 C68 Colnago gravel bike construction and components
07:48 Why is this gravel bike the best?
08:38 Cyclocross Colnago riders
09:40 Extra bike features
10:35 Gravel bike weight
11:01 Gravel bike paint finish
11:27 What is the bike like to ride?
13:03 Is this the best gravel bike?

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What do you think of the new Colnago gravel bike? 🚴🏻‍♂️

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Watch more on GCN…
📹 João Almeida’s Colnago V4RS 👉 https://youtu.be/AN2Sz46xsXw
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📸 Photos – © Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images & © Sprint Cycling Agency

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When legendary bike brand kago announces its first made in Italy gravel bike cycling afficionados need to sit up and take note they have long been at the Forefront of performance and desirability so what have they brought to the gravel Party this is the c68 gravel the goal of this bike kago was not for it to be the fastest or the lightest or the most grally but simply for it to be the best now that is a fairly lofty ambition so let’s See I’ve said it before and I will no doubt say it again gravel means many things to many people it might be bike packing across the Andes or racing flat out wearing AO socks it might be just chilling topless looking for an IPA for most of us though it’s probably elements

Of all three but the fact is you can buy a gravel bike that’s designed for these specific niches so it’s a huge category and so what does best even mean I had a long conversation with the head of R&D at colago David Fu mgal before making this video and I asked him

The same question and his first response was actually to chuckle and say that’s exactly what the kago marketing department have been asking too which frankly is music to my ears CU it’s really good to know when a product has been designed to be more than just something to please the marketing

Department he then went on to say that this is is a bike that’s been designed for Riders who enjoy the process more than the goal principally this is a bike that’s been designed to be great to ride and not specifically the fastest or the gnarliest although that said he feels

That a bike should feel fast in order to be great to ride and so that also comes towards the top of the list as well so how then have they done it firstly let’s go back a step kago for those of you that don’t know is one of

The oldest and most prestigious brands in cycling Ernesto kago the founder was a rider turned mechanic turned frame Builder turned Visionary he built bikes for Eddie MKS the greatest of all time and then as the years went by and Technology evolved he managed to keep kago at the Forefront of it what’s

Particularly relevant to us here in this video though is the C series of bikes which have a long Heritage of being handmade in colo’s Factory in cambiago in Italy the first was the c35 right back in 1989 and that had been designed in collaboration with Ferrari then came

The C40 that was the first production carbon kago and actually it was also one of the first carbon bikes to enter the pro pelet and enter it did to this day it still one of the most recognizable and frankly desirable bikes ever raced by legendary teams like Lampe rabber bank and Maap the following model the C50 continued with great success but then laterally the 59 the 60 and the 64 gradually began to move away from their racing pedigree the reality was kago had developed lighter and faster bikes to propel Tad pagat and the like and so

With the C Series they say they were then able to pursue you pure riding pleasure like I said process not goal you might get to the Finish Line faster on a V4 RS but you’ll enjoy the ride more on a [Applause] c68 the c68 road was launched in 2022

But it never meant to stand alone so conag say they already had well formed plans for the Allroad and the gravel models but such was the demand for the c68 road that the factory in cambiago simply didn’t have the capacity to keep up so the reality is this c68 gravel has

Been in development now for 4 years like the c68 road and all Road models this shares the same modular construction so that’s where the frame is actually made of six distinct parts that are then bonded together now the reason for this kago say is that it gives them greater control over the

Production process by making smaller parts they can be made with greater consistency and also giving a higher quality part and then they also say that it allows them to better Define the ride characteristics unfortunately this technique is also more costly because whereas on the earlier c-s series bikes

I was learning that they could share the same tubes and lugs across the different sizes here each size of bike requires individual molds for each of the six components that go up to making one frame so it is more time consuming and it is more costly given that this bike

Shares the same modular construction as its stable mates I did ask whether any of these sections could also be found on the c68 road or all road but no apparently every single part of this Frame is made made specific to be the c68 gravel taking the down tube as an

Example this one is much bigger on the gravel bik compared to the others and it also given the demands of riding off-road has thicker walls to the tube so it can increase the resilience against Rock strikes and the like but kago say that those increased walls didn’t give the ride characteristics

That they were after so they changed the actual types of carbon fibers used until it did and what are those characteristics then well strength clearly as we’ve already heard but then also I’d say it’s probably more one of balance so they wanted it to be stiff without being too stiff light but

Without it then compromising other aspects of the bike and then they also wanted it to be smooth and compliant but again that not being the focus they said that with gravel tires they didn’t need to build in excessive Flex into the frame And what of those tires cuz you can tell a lot about a bike from its Tire clearance remember well here it’s 45 mil which is wide but not super wide now I did ask kago why they’d arrived at this particular width and they said that they

Felt in order to design a bike that would accept 50 mil tires and above they would need to make sacrifices to the handling and performance of the bike for more appropriate and typical gravel bike tire widths so like the ones I got on here 40 mil

Wide when I asked kago what they thought made this bike the best top of their list they said was actually the geometry of the bike so the handling how it feels to ride but it’s quite hard to pinpoint what that is when you simply look at a

Chart so you could see that the wheel base is slightly longer that’s as a result in part due to this longer front center and also a slightly slacker head angle but then it also this longer front center allows you to run a slightly shorter stem as well and that keeps the

Agility and the responsiveness of the bike none of those figures are extreme far from it in fact instead I think you could say they’re simply refined they tailored those classic colago characteristics for the demands of gravel you might be wondering what colago know about riding off-roads a lot

Of you might assume they’re a road brand and that’s fair given their pedigree and Heritage but the fact is they know a lot about off-road some of the most successful cyc cross Racers of all time have raced their bikes van Art Van deool that’s both matcha and his dad adrey

Sven Neils Albert boom gronadal even Roger devlaming so between them there are countless world championship titles and World Cup victories so was the idea of getting a colago covered in mud and dirt might seem a Boren the reality is it is right in their Wheelhouse in fact

The most famous kagos of all time are still covered in dirt in the colag Museum nearly 30 years after being raced to victory in paru Bay by Taffy borini and Museo that is bloody cool there are of course a stack of other really nice touches as well the cockpits is a brand

New gravel specific one piece now the width remains consistent at 40 cm on the tops and 46 CM on the drops but you can spec the stem length irrespective of the size of bikes kaga say they’re all built to order anyway however what’s also a really nice touch is the fact that it’s

Compatible with basically any other brand of bar and stems so should you wish to fit an Envy or a deader one to get exactly what you want you can do there is a threaded t47 bottom bracket something that kago actually embraced a number of years ago and the bike can be

Run with any electronic group set in a 2 by setup or any electronic or mechanical group set in a one by setup like I’ve got here weight as I said earlier was not a priority with this bike but this one still comes in at just 8.3

Kilos give or take a couple of grams here or there fal’s own bike actually he said was just 7.9 kilos interestingly he himself is no stranger to gravel having won a medal at the first ever gravel World Championships in the Masters category which I thought was pretty cool

And then finally it’s not something I often talk about in a first look video but I feel like I have to here the paint like the finish on this bike is mAh particularly this colago logo here which is kind of cut into this thick pearlescent paint it’s

Underated and classy hit the like button if you agree with me there is also a Black Version as well which is equally classy I think so what’s it actually like to ride there I mean we don’t do reviews here on gcn but given that this bike is all

About feel it seems wrong to not at least try and articulate what it’s like to Pedal it and so I’ve obviously not had long on it so these are First Impressions only but given that there’s nothing on the geometry chart that’s extreme the bike just feels right

Everything is where it should be so when you get out the saddle it feels right when you’re putting the power down it feels feels right on the road it feels right and then those little adjustments to the front center and the head angle mean that when things are a little bit

More technical or faster or looser you can ride the bike more aggressively and then actually my perhaps biggest takeaway from this is the bike feels very quiet to ride which is perhaps an odd thing to say but a lot of carbon bikes are quite noisy they rattle or they knock whereas

This it’s like buttery it’s it’s like a ghost and I think that’s a good thing 100% make of it what you will But it’s bloody [Applause] Smooth So it’s crunch time is this the best I mean firstly you got to say that the entry point to this range is still 7,250 that’s for a grx 822 equipped bike and so I think for some of you that would automatically discount it from being the best it’s a luxury item and so

Sadly could only ever be a dream but if we leave that to one side I’m still not sure I can answer that question I mean firstly best is incredibly subjective the best gravel bike for one Rider might not be the best gravel bike for another Plus kago have

Supported us in making this video they brought us out to pristine Spanish gravel taken us away from the bogs of England and so actually some of you would probably automatically discount my opinion anyway added into that I’ve only been able to ride the bike for a couple

Of hours so far and I think to really truly find out if something’s the best you need to live with it with a good chunk of time but I will say this I unfortunately have to hand this bike back in a couple of hours but I’m going

To be late because I don’t want this ride to End