It’s generally accepted that the Colnago C40 was the bike that started the carbon revolution. The potential of carbon fibre had been recognised in the previous two decades, but it wasn’t until 1994, when Franco Ballerini won Paris-Roubaix on the Colnago C40, that it fully arrived. Not only were carbon bikes lighter and stiffer than their steel and aluminium counterparts, but Colnago proved with the C40 that they were also as tough, able to withstand the battering of the Trouée d’Arenberg and still win. So why, 30 years later, after celebrating every significant anniversary with a carbon ‘C’ model that showcased Colnago’s expertise with the material, has the Italian brand gone back to steel? Where is the Colnago C70, the now-hypothetical ultimate carbon bike?
Instead, Colnago launched the Steelnovo, a limited-edition model with only 70 pieces available, that it said “represents the perfect fusion of heritage and innovation”. Colnago continued: “Made of steel, the material that made Colnago famous worldwide with its iconic Master and Arabesque models, this bike combines Colnago's frame-making tradition with the latest aesthetic, geometric, and technological canons of the bicycle world. Entirely developed in Italy, the Steelnovo is equipped with Columbus tubing and Campagnolo components, Colnago's historic partners, and boasts an elegant, refined and modern design that guarantees high levels of performance, offering cyclists the unmistakable riding pleasure typical of the brand.”
Colnago collaborated with Italian motorsport specialists Additiva to produce a complete set of 3D-printed lugs and joints that would seamlessly join the proprietary tubes and facilitate full integration. “The perfect fusion of heritage and innovation” is how Colnago summed it up.
Significantly, Colnago was at pains to emphasise just how Italian the Steelnovo is. In one of the slides in its press release headed “Steelnovo: proudly Italian”, there’s a map of northern Italy with POIs bearing Colnago’s Ace of Clubs logo indicating where all the parts that make up the new bike are produced, with the final assembly in Cambiago.
Standert issue
Colnago might have come full circle with steel over 30 years, but a brand that’s only 10 years old and has exclusively made metal bikes in that time is Standert. The Berliners have a loyal, engaged and growing following, striking a chord with younger, style-conscious riders looking for something different and who don’t want to follow the carbon herd. Standert’s Maxe Faschina says: “We’re at a point where there is a market again because we’ve got people who never had a metal bike. Their entry into cycling was via the Canyon or Rose website, and they bought an entry-level carbon bike. Now they’re considering metal bikes – they’ve had no exposure to what it means to own a metal bike, and they don’t know about the history.”
Photo: Alessandra Bucci
Metal is, of course, already easily recycled, but in order to create a more sustainable production model that cuts out shipping from Asia, Standert is reshoring production of its steel bikes to Europe – the Czech Republic in the case of its latest Pfadfinder model – where it says that although there is demand again, there is no infrastructure due to carbon’s dominance over the last three decades. “After metal bikes went out of fashion around 2000, we had this niche culture where bespoke and custom steel bikes could be built no problem, but there was a shortage of framebuilders for small-scale production, and so prices went up. At first, you went to Italy because someone knew this old guy who used to weld frames, and he would do it for you, and it was like, wow, I’ve got this amazing craft frame. But there were so few frame makers in Europe that they charged whatever they liked as they were completely booked out for years. So why would they work for companies when they had their own business?”
Standert found a factory in the Czech Republic that had made steel racing bikes in the 1990s before carbon took over. Before the German brand arrived, it had been welding cargo bike frames but had just undergone a restructuring. Faschina says: “We came with our ideas, and it was like waking up the Sleeping Beauty. This company used to have a race team, but they were building cargo and utility bikes, which is cool but doesn’t have the passion. I feel like we all helped rediscover the passion, and they’re on a new trajectory now.” Standert wanted to include technical upgrades in the new Pfadfinder, such as integrated cable routing, a new T47 threaded bottom bracket shell, the UDH universal derailleur hanger system and 3D-printed dropouts with inlays for Di2 wiring – in other words, a completely modern bike but from steel instead of carbon, and made in Europe.
Faschina compares Standert to British brand Mason Cycles, which is also 10 years old and has also never made a carbon bike – and pledges it never will. Is co-founder Dom Mason witnessing a turning of the tide and a rejection of Asia-made carbon bikes for European-made metal ones, too?
“It’s like with skateboarding,” Mason says. “People say, ‘Oh, skateboarding is really coming back’. And it’s like, it never went away. It’s just that you didn’t notice it. All the people into it have still been doing it, but fashion and media interest in it just fluctuates. There’s a parallel with metal bikes. We’d be saying well, we’ve always been doing it. But when the big boys like Colnago do it, people start thinking about it again. It’s not a bad thing – it just shines a spotlight on it.”
Is Mason seeing a new generation or a new type of rider choosing metal bikes, as Standert is? “There’s definitely a newer generation of people who are riding a lot. They’re looking at things that are made of carbon and thinking, where does this go? You can’t melt it down, you can’t recycle it. You can grind it into dust, but where does the dust go?”
Difference in 3D
He continues: “Carbon is a brilliant material. If you want to make a machine for a person to ride who has limited power, make it out of carbon because it’s efficient, light, you can tune it, it can be stiff… brilliant. But with modern technology and 3D printed parts [like Standert, Mason is using 3D-printed dropouts], metal is just starting to really interest people again.”
Mason says the provenance of a frame is becoming more important to customers in an increasingly unstable world. “I wonder if there’s this thing called the Amazon Effect,” he says. “Being able to get something the next day is very handy, but as the world gets more uneasy, I feel as though people really want to know where things come from. It’s unnerving with these huge corporations churning stuff out so quickly. It doesn’t give you any sense of belonging to anything. I do think there’s a bit of a switch, and cyclists are always in touch with this a little bit more. They want to feel like they’re part of something, they don’t want this anonymity.”
As a smaller producer of metal bikes (the titanium Mason Aspect Integrale pictured above), Mason’s model is different from Standert’s. “Standert are bigger than us and they need more production. I go with the small Italian makers, and I have to put up with the hardship of it. With Italy, we design all our own tubes and dropouts. We work with two painters, five makers, and different tube makers, two in the UK and Columbus and Dedacciai in Italy. So it’s super labour-intensive. There’s a guy filing every brake bridge to make it fit exactly in the seatstays and making all the eyelets on an adventure frame.”
Mason says that he has started to give his customers more information about the Italian makers who produce his frames. “Two of our latest frames are made by Cicli Barco, a family business who have been around for 65 years. I’ve been telling people because it’s so important. I think it’s comforting for people to know where it comes from, and when they do, they want it to last a long time.”
As a result, says Mason, metal bike owners are freed from ‘frame fashion’. “Next model year, the seatstays are going to be further down the seat tube, and my frame from last year is going to look embarrassing. That’s the ugly part of fashion-driven marketing. One month you’re on top of the world with your new bike, next month, why do I feel a bit uneasy? Oh yes, it’s because my head tube isn’t the right shape, and my seatstays are joined at the top of the seat tube. I’d better get a new frame. What happens to the old one? It gets chucked on top of a big pile of carbon frames that no one knows what to do with. Metal moves the focus onto the whole design of the frame, the features and the detailing, and it gives it a timeless look like Colnago has done with the Steelnovo, which will never be embarrassing.”
To conclude, it’s difficult to measure whether metal bikes are universally coming back, especially since the whole bike industry is still struggling to come back from the post-Covid slump. But, as Mason says, metal bikes have always been there – it’s just people don’t always notice them until a brand like Colnago produces a spectacular new one that shows what can be done. What's for certain is that there's an increasing number of progressive brands making technologically advanced, high-quality, Europe-made metal bikes that are sustainable and long-lasting.
