PRODUCT LAUNCH
Tadej Pogačar’s new Tour bike revealed
Colnago has launched the V4RS, the successor to the double Tour de France-winning Colnago V3RS
The new Colnago V4RS was tested by Tadej Pogačar and the UAE Emirates team through 2022 in five different carbon layup configurations and was provisionally named ‘Prototipo’. Now the Italian brand has settled on a final version that’s ready for the team’s 2023 campaign and for the market.
As the name confirms and as was clear from the Prototipo, it’s an evolution rather than a redesign. You have to look closely to discern the differences – it has the same sharp, angular aesthetic with no surprise new design flourishes.
In Colnago’s words, “It’s hard to improve what is already great.” Since the V3RS was the first Colnago-branded bike to win the Tour de France it’s hardly surprising that it’s somewhat venerated.
However, the Italian brand set about improving the “five parts of the equation behind a winning bicycle” which it identifies as: aerodynamics, stiffness, lightness, comfort and robustness.
Norwegian designer Torgny Fjeldskaar, who has led design teams at Cannondale and BMC and has the SystemSix and the Teammachine in his portfolio, was drafted in. Fjeldskaar’s followers identified some of his signature features, such as the new hourglass-shaped head tube, and indeed the front of the bike is confirmed as having been “optimised”.
The upper headset bearing is bigger than that of the V3RS, but Colnago says there’s no drag penalty, it improves handling stability and it also allows enough space for the cables to run internally without using the D-shaped steerer that the old bike used.
Watt shaving
There’s also a new, lighter fork, which is designed to allow an effective tyre clearance up to 32mm and the bike comes with the new CC.01 cockpit, also used by the Colnago C68. Colnago says the CC.01 bar presents 16% less frontal area to the wind than the V3RS’s cockpit.
Colnago offers a 3D-printed computer mount that currently is only for the Wahoo Elemnt Bolt V2 (more to come) and this looks like a really slick design that is claimed to save 0.75 watts.
As for the overall watt savings, Colnago has supplied three different sets of data for different set-ups.
The best savings the optimised V4RS can post over the V3RS equates to 19.2 watts or 16% (weighted average drag) for the bicycle at 50kph and 6% or 27.7 watts with a pedalling rider, which sounds like a lot, but Colnago is clear that it’s not comparing like with like.
As for the weight, the unpainted V4RS frame size 485 is actually 3g heavier than the equivalent V3RS (798g compared to 795g) but Colnago has presented the ‘frame kit’ weight, which includes frame, fork, headset and cockpit for both bikes, and in this scenario the new V4RS is a claimed 47g lighter
