Colnago has unveiled the all-new Y1RS that UAE Team Emirates will ride next season in their bid to clinch a fourth Tour de France for Tadej Pogačar. It’s the bike everyone has been talking about since photos were leaked last week – and Colnago decided to release all the information earlier than originally planned since Pogačar and his team will ride it in plain sight at their training camp in La Nucia, Spain, starting today December 9.
With little else to go on, the radical aesthetic has been the main talking point and, just like the bike's seat tube, opinion has been split especially since Colnago launched the classic-looking retro-futuristic Steelnovo only three weeks earlier to celebrate its 70th anniversary. Colnago’s head of R&D Davide Fumagalli told Rouleur: “The reason why we are bringing forward the official launch is because we didn’t want the leakage of pictures from the training camp. There is so much about this project that it’s not just about the look of the bike. So we wanted to say why we made it like this. It’s not for aesthetics – it’s a lot more.”
The headline Colnago prefers to focus on is of course the number of watts saved compared with the V4RS, the UAE team’s current all-rounder, and also against the competitor bikes it tested, and it’s a big one. Colnago says the Y1RS is 20 watts faster than the V4RS at 50kph. “That sounds crazy but it’s the average speed the riders are pulling at the front of the bunch,” says Fumagalli. “So basically this bike might be ridden by Mikkel Bjerg for 100 kilometres in front and he will pull at 50.” This equates to 395 watts against 415 to pedal the V4RS at the same speed and a claimed one watt faster than the best competitor aero bike, which Colnago doesn’t name for reasons Fumagalli explains later.
The split seat tube with the very slack seatpost angle of 65 degrees is the focal point, but Colnago says that’s designed mostly for comfort – it’s at the front where the speed happens. With a new gullwing CC.Y1 handlebar and narrow, lowered, hinged head tube Colnago says the Y1RS’s frontal area is 19% smaller than that of the V4RS. Via partnerships with Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi and Politecnico di Milano in Italy it carried out “massive CFD simulations and experimental wind tunnel testing to define the overall shape of the Y1RS and its subassemblies with a particular focus on the frontal area.” Pressure sensors were placed at 70 different points on the frame to collect a “huge amount” of data in order to fine-tune the CFD model, which Colnago says is twice more accurate than the standard method used in aerodynamic studies.
Since it’s a bike designed for ultimate speed, stiffness is the other priority and Colnago used its Real Riding Stiffness methodology – as used in the development of the V4RS. This is a proprietary test that measures frame deformation at different points under different loads to simulate what happens in real riding conditions. According to Colnago’s test data, the Y1RS is 3.5% stiffer than the V4RS in the sprint position and “aligned” for seated climbing.
The frame weight is a claimed 965g, which is on a par with the Canyon Aeroad but, Colnago’s head of R&D Davide Fumagalli told us that the deep fork adds weight and that it’s unlikely the complete bike will get down to the 6.8kg UCI minimum weight limit. He told us that the bikes the team will be riding, built with Shimano Dura-Ace and deep-section wheels, weigh around 7.45kg.
But does Tadej Pogačar really need a faster bike? Why did Colnago develop the Y1RS and, perhaps most of all, why the unexpected departure from the traditional diamond frame? “For eight years we never had an aero bike,” says Fumagalli, who has worked for Colnago for 15 years. “Our last aero bike was released in 2015 – the Colnago Concept. It had a double-triangle shape, deeper profile tubes… it was a good-performing aero bike but it never really satisfied us completely because there were so many drawbacks with that kind of shape and that kind of tube profile. We were not receiving all the benefits that an aero bike was supposed to supply, so we decided to go for the V2 and V3 and V4 – one bike for both climbing and flat stages, an all rounder. In the background we were always working on something more aero but everything changed in 2021 when the UCI changed the rules for 2022. Basically two rules were what we needed to make a better aero bike. The first rule is already famous because many others already jumped on board: they relaxed the 3:1 aspect ratio rule. Before that, frame tubes had to fit into the 8cm box with a minimum thickness of 2.5cm and an aspect ratio of 3:1. With the new rules, the minimum thickness is down to 1cm for all the bike and components, and the box is still 8cm so you can do an 8:1 aspect ratio.”
However, says Fumagalli, “we never used the 8:1 maximum ratio on this bike but the way we used it we could reduce the tube thickness from 2.5cm. So even if we didn’t exploit it completely, the rule change was necessary for us to design the handlebar, the fork, the head tube and to reduce the frontal area, to reduce the drag. We never went 8:1 because we wanted to have some mechanical performance out of the frame. You can’t go thinner without losing stiffness so that's why the Y1RS is not at the edge of the 8:1.”
Fumagalli explains the other big UCI rule change that he and his team – led by head engineer Filippo Galli and industrial designer Torgny Fjeldskaar – exploited: “The seatpost can now be anywhere on the seatpost or top tube. If you look at this bike you can see the seatpost is not aligned with the seat tube – it’s basically touching the top tube. This is a very important change because one of the downsides of the aero bikes is that usually they’re harsh to ride or they compromise ride quality. For example, a couple of our competitors worked around the vertical compliance issue adding a suspension system or adding some frame features. It took crazy engineering and they did an amazing job, but at the end of the day the complex solution was still affecting the ride quality. So with our solution we were were able to slacken the seatpost – now it’s around 65 degrees – to create an area where we can have a lot more flex without affecting what’s happening during the pedalling phase. That was very important for us.”
According to Fumagalli, the space created by the removal of the top of the seat tube is beneficial for aerodynamics since it “doesn’t allow the airflow to develop and become more turbulent”. But, “more important is that we were able to fine-tune the vertical compliance without affecting the pedalling and of the bike itself. So those are the two rules that define the bike.”
Learning process
“We are proud of the final result, of what we achieved in the wind tunnel, but we are way more proud of the process, about what we learned during the development,” says Fumagalli. “We used a completely different approach from before. We decided to validate every single choice that we made. So we started with CFD models, we wanted to validate the CFD model and to do that we had to have proof of what we were making. Now we have enough data from this work for continuing projects. We are using it for a new time trial bike, we are using it for a track frame… data is very important. It’s something you can’t dispute."
“We did all the CFD analysis in UAE, then we built some physical samples and tested them in the Polytecnico di Milano wind tunnel, which is where we test all our products. We attached pressure sensors to the frame, handlebar and fork and we were able then to compare those numbers with what the CFD was giving us. And we were able to modify the CFD model to get closer to what was happening in reality. The further you go with refining a model, the more you can trust it. Once you trust it you can go with automatically generated designs and shapes. For example, the down tube is not a constant distance between the wheels. There’s a divide in the industry: some raise the down tube and some are dropping it. Some have a super wide fork and some have a super narrow fork. There’s no independent literature to say which is faster, so we started to define it. Once you have a more reliable model you can do 10 different simulations at the same time and that’s what we did.
He continues: “You will see in the finished bike, the different frame sizes [there are five in total] have different distances between the wheels and the down tube. Because the angle of the down tube and the distance between the wheel and the BB affects aerodynamics, we were able to optimise that distance based on frame size. The UCI rules limit some sizes because the boxes are the same for each size. So with a bigger frame, you have more limitations. These things you can only do if you can do the simulations quickly and in a simple way because if you put in too many samples, you go to the wind tunnel and test, test, test... But once you shrink it down to fewer solutions, then you can go to the wind tunnel to check that it’s actually what you’re looking for.”
If the Y1RS has a 19% reduced frontal area compared to the V4RS, is that where you found all the gains? “I would say the frontal area is 90% of the drag of the bike because after the fork the flow becomes quite unstable, so you can squeeze here and there but the biggest advantage is the front,” says Fumagalli. “The difference is quite huge. You could reduce it even more but you don’t want to lose stiffness or you can’t sprint, you can’t handle the bike well. What we did was again use a completely different headset solution from anyone else. To be able to squeeze onto the bike the smallest possible bearings you can find. So the upper bearings are the smallest 45-degree bearings you can find on the market and the bottom are the smallest 1.8in bearings on the market. Both are from CeramicSpeed, because we want a maintenance free headset. We worked a lot on the preload because the way it’s designed there’s no steerer tube now. You preload it from the side.”
Fumagalli explains how the frontal area reduction was achieved: “Especially important for reducing the frontal area is the Y shaped gullwing handlebar. We did that for a number of reasons. The first is to be able to move the two wings of the bar away from the central part. The other is that you can lower the head tube to reduce its height.”
Fumagalli admits that Colnago is not the first to use the gullwing shape, referencing Cervélo and Bianchi, but, he says, “also in aerospace for aircraft, it’s been used in F1, it’s still used in many situations. Actually, Torgny was the one pushing for the shape handlebar because he was the man behind the BMC concept bike of 2011. So he already knew the advantage of a V-shaped handlebar. We just took the best of what we found and optimised it for what we needed.”
Precise racing geometry
“We were only going to do an aerodynamic bike if we could find a way to make it ride well,” states Fumagalli. “You know that Colnago has a long history with geometry. The V4RS geometry is basically still based on the C40’s geometry from 1994. With the Y1RS we started from scratch. The new frame shape depends a lot on the position of the rider. Just imagine – the seatpost is slackened to 65 degrees so if you move it up or down with this angle it will move the position backwards and forwards. So we asked our four teams – we have two female and two male teams, WorldTour and U23 – we analysed the position of each rider over the past three seasons. So we were able to plot the exact position of each rider’s saddle and each rider’s handlebar. And basically, we designed the frame just to fit those riders. We collected more information from amateur riders and we started plotting those positions, because at the end of the day we can’t just satisfy Tadej Pogačar.
“We know we’re not covering 100% of people out there but we’re covering up to 97% of the people we expect to want to ride it. We had to work around how to give the handlebar 2.5cm of height adjustment; you will have two different seatpost options with different setback. There will be a tool where you can insert your data, saddle position, handlebar position and it will tell you which is your size, your handlebar size, where to cut the seatpost… so you can insert your data from your existing bike. This will be available also through the dealer network. The point is to measure your bike correctly, so we recommend going through a Colnago dealer or bike fit studio.”
Some brands like to include a graph illustrating the results of their new bike against competitors, but there’s no such graphic included in Colnago’s press release. Why is that?
“I can only confirm that we tested all the fastest bikes out there and we are confident that our bike is better,” says Fumagalli. “We don’t disclose which the competitors are. In Italy it’s not well received if you name competitors in your comparison data. It’s more cultural. I know in the US it’s standard procedure but we don’t like that. The second reason – there is no single competitor. For example if the Cervélo S5 is the best at 10 degrees of yaw and the Trek Madone is the best at five degrees we referenced to the Cervélo at 10 and the Trek at five. The same for vertical compliance and stiffness. That way we are always measuring ourselves against the best and not against only one particular competitor. It would be much easier to say, ‘who are the team we are looking at?’ Clearly the Visma team and the Cervélo. But that’s not what we did. There are so many great bikes out there that it doesn’t make sense to focus on one.”
Will Tadej ride the Y1RS?
With a frame weight of 965g – which is quite light – will we see the Y1RS ridden in most situations? How close will UAE Emirates get to the UCI minimum weight limit of 6.8kg? “The fork is not super light to be honest,” says Fumagalli, “it’s close to 450g. So you could build it close to 7.1kg. The bike used by UAE is around 7.45kg or 7.5kg. They use deeper profile wheels, bigger tyres… but it’s not stressing us that it’s not lighter. I don’t think we will see UAE riding this bike like Visma are riding the S5. Visma riders use the S5 even on the climbs but with lower profile wheels to save weight, but I don’t think we will ever see this bike ridden on the climbs with super low profile wheels.
“We are very happy to work with Team Emirates, the team is very well structured and has a very good performance manager, who spends all the time taking numbers and data from racing and training. So now what they’re doing at the training camp is to test both bikes with all the possible configurations of wheels to understand which bike is better and when. So far I would say that this bike is always faster than the V4RS and it’s always heavier so there will probably be a split in the races.”
Finally, with perhaps a sense of relief as well as satisfaction, Fumgalli concludes: “This project has been very long for us because we decided to test everything. Why not slacker, why not higher, why not lower… we made carbon-fibre prototypes with raised top tubes or lowered top tubes and slackened seat tube angles just to be able to test them on the road because the frame is so different from others on the market. We even had to create our own testing protocol and testing jigs just to be able to measure. We had to make the moulds, destroy the moulds but we are proud of what we’ve accomplished.”
For all the details of pricing and availability go to Colnago's website.
