notenoughdaylig 

i was browsing CL and came across a "Colnago" flat bar road bike with shimano claris. I thought it was someone being cute and rebadging some cheap city bike. I was wrong. One can now obtain a new Colnago with lowly Claris stock. Et tu Brutus?

HTupolev

What does offering affordable city bikes have to do with "the mighty" "falling"? Is a C64 somehow less magnificent for sharing a decal design with lots of bikes that cost less?

I don't see what you're getting at.

mkeller234

Yeah, it kind of does.

Having affordable city bikes makes them more like Toyota. Sure, there are high end Lexus models, but that’s isn’t what is seen most often. Ferrari makes expensive cars only. I can count the amount of Ferrari’s I have seen in person on two hands. That adds to the aura of Ferrari being a ultra exclusive high end manufacturer.

I don’t personally buy into high end exclusive brands, but I don’t deny that they exist. Rolex, Hermès, etc.

Raleigh, Schwinn and others all made very high end bikes. Those manufacturers do not enjoy the same level of prestige as Colnago.

Soody

Alfa Romeo has made some pretty nice economy cars without sullying their brand.
It's only bad if the fancy italian companies budget offering is just all round worse than vanilla competitors plus the flash name.
Cinelli for example moved downmarket for the fixie crowd but actually made/makes some nice bikes for what they are.
Plus for Colnago the most important thing is that they stay at the top, not that they don't enter the bottom. They currently have a worldtour team riding their bikes but it's probably pretty tenuous compared to the big guys.
Same issue as Campagnolo. Having Centaur/veloce/mirage whatever doesn't hurt them, but if they stopped winning races at the top level they'd be dead.



Also Colnagos have always been absolutely hideous garish bikes so making hybrids suits the company.

scarlson 

Only a matter of time before an aging Jan Heine puts out a René Herse e-bike.

Darth Lefty 

You know the French had e bikes all figured out in 1938

HTupolev

Nah, it'll be an airplane.

Wildwood 

Good Popcorn thread.




I'll say = Colnago never even built the best Italian bikes.
And if that Claris equipped Colnago City Bike sells for 3X a Claris equipped Raleigh City then clearly:
The Mighty have Leveraged their Might (or snob appeal, as the case may be).

scarlson 

I'm envisioning a Velosolex with an old 6v glass-jar battery, an old induction motor, and a mercury arc thyratron tube above the front wheel in place of the usual two-stroke and fuel tank

You wouldn't need a headlight because of the tube's blue UV glow. Jan would write glowingly about this "feature".

BFisher

The more choices the better.

Good on Colnago for expanding their market reach.

If it sells, great. If not, oh well.

Let notions of grandeur, mystique, and "soul of the bike/builder" go.

They never existed.

I mean, at one time you could have spent mucho $ on a top of the line Italian bike and felt all fuzzy and romantic.

Or, you could have bought an Ironman and been just as competitive.

T-Mar

Claris may be low end but it's great value and that Claris drivetrain will perform better than any Campagnolo drivetrain on a "golden era" Colnago. Same with the Claris/Sora disc brake combination. If you really want to judge, you should be focusing on the cost concessions of the frameset. And speaking of e-bikes, Colnago offers them too.

Lemond1985

Rotten name though, it sounds like a small cheap economy car. How about renaming it "Shimano Echelon"? Or a Hispanicized name like "Shimano Camino". Who are these guys paying to name their groupsets anyway?

himespau 

And they'd be lighter than modern e-bikes too. Any weight would lower the center of gravity to keep the bike more stable while still allowing appropriate planing.

jbchybridrider 

I went through 3 of the original green Suds back in the day, still have them but rotting in a field now. Awesome cars, no one with there V8's or rotarys could stay with me in the hills. But still have an absolutely mint Sud Sprint sitting in the garage with the daily driver 33

eja_ bottecchia

My very hideous, undesirable, unwanted, unloved, low class Colnagos.

Haters will always hate.

JaccoW

Most European brands had (or still have) more practical city/commuter models in their lineup for decades. Europeans don't seem to mind as much.
If anything they might be more desirable if they managed to include some of the knowledge and skill of their high-end models into the lower end.

My girlfriend's "Champion Mondial" 90's hybrid is a pretty nice bike.

I mean Bianchi has been making some pretty nice 'English Roadster' 3-speed bikes since the 40's. 1940's Bianchi - ClassicCycleus

From the time when bikes were just bikes.

They certainly have dipped their toes into the more affordable end of the market:
Cheapest Ferrari - Autowise

I mean the Ferrari 400i, Mondial or 456 GT could be any generic other model from its time. Granted, some of those were the equivalent of $100,000 in today's money when they were introduced, but you can see lots of cars like that (similar price range) driving around in most cities.

tiger1964 

While lower-price-point, higher volume products can help keep the doors open, perhaps wisest to sell those under a new, different brand name.

Reportedly a real jewel; also reportedly they started rusting while still on the production line.

rando_couche

Yep. They were never as good as they used to be.

3speedslow

First World problem.

crank_addict

Take a look at the NEW bike line from Peukeot. And they even attempt to sell by marketing its rich racing history. Ha

VtwinVince

This issue is not exclusive to bikes. Remember when owning a BMW or Benz was a big deal? Now they are built by child labour in some forsaken third world country and bought by image conscious boobs everywhere. Where I live, I see 'Masis' riding around everywhere. Of course they have nothing to do with geniune Masis. Globalisation has not led to a renaissance of quality consumer products, quite the opposite in fact.

Salamandrine 

Yeah, I've seen the Masi BSO's rolling around. I believe you can buy a Masi for like $350 now... Cheapens the brand for sure, even of the vintage bikes. Tell a person you have a Masi now, and they are not impressed. However, I believe the ownership is actually the same, or related. The difference is that they apply the brand to cheap factory bikes now.

crank_addict

+1
Proudly having the gunsight on the hood, my fave series of MB was the W123. Beastly tanks powered by diesels or the petrol powered baddy 6.9L.

Soody

nice!
yeah they are fantastic cars, i had a sprint qv for a few years.

Soody

I think just about everyone is impressed by a sexy classic italian road bike when they see it