Colnago Y1Rs, Campagnolo Super Record 13, and a Great Deal of Titanium

A Y1Rs wearing Campagnolo is an uncommon sight, and this one sits about as far from the catalogue configuration as the frame will allow while remaining, in every line that matters, unmistakably a Y1Rs. It is an XL, finished in the near-black Colnago has chosen to call DARK, and it carries Super Record 13 wireless with 55/39 rings and an 11-36 cassette, a spread that tells you more about the rider than any fit sheet could: the intention is to go fast on the flat and then climb whatever Marin puts in the way, without conceding anything at either end. Jesse built it, and when it was finished we asked him what he had found.

How it rides

The first thing he mentions is compliance, which he describes as the quality most often missing from a high-end race bike and, on this one, plainly present. On a climb, every input at the pedal seems to arrive at the rear wheel as forward motion, and what struck him most, riding an XL, was how composed the frame remains at that size, because flex ordinarily grows with the frame and here it simply does not. The seated, pedaling comfort is such that he could imagine a hundred miles on it without feeling worked over at the end, and he puts the conclusion more bluntly than we would: for the great majority of the people who walk through our door, himself included, it feels fantastic.

This bike doesn’t beat you up; it handles as well as it rides.

Jesse

The weigh-in

I asked for everything on this build to be weighed, and there was a reason. We have recently begun working with Sixweel, a maker of CNC-machined titanium hardware, and before putting their parts on a client's bicycle we wanted to know two things: whether the product is as good as it looks, and how much weight it removes without giving anything up elsewhere. The build became, in part, a test of both.

The results were more decisive than we expected. The Sixweel thru-axles brought each axle from 60 g to 32 g, very nearly half, and the steerer preload bolt, a part peculiar to the Y1Rs and one Colnago sells its own titanium version of as an upgrade kit, saved a further 60-odd grams in Sixweel's form, so that the axles and front-end hardware together account for over 100 g before anything else is counted. Beyond those, titanium went into the rotor lockrings, the caliper bolts and caliper mounting bolts, the derailleur hanger and the computer mount, with our own titanium hardware on the bottle cages, the seatpost clamp and the flat mounts. The complete bicycle, without pedals, weighs 16.4 lb, which for an XL aero frame with a 36-tooth sprocket on the back is a number we had to read twice.

Tolerances

Jesse's observations on the frame itself are a mechanic's, and they begin before the frame is out of the box: everything arrived packaged with evident care, and he says the unboxing was very nearly as enjoyable as the build that followed. More to the point, the components fit together with tolerances he calls incredibly accurate, everything tight and everything integrating into the frame as it was designed to, and, this being the part he is proudest of, every upgrade went on without heavy modification, without uncertainty, and without altering the way the bike rides. His favorite part of the job was the routing and the front end, where Colnago's engineering of the Y1 is, in his word, enthralling, and where the Sixweel bolts and ancillaries worked with what Colnago had intended rather than around it.

What a knowledgeable rider will notice

The symmetry of the bar tape. The cleanliness of the cockpit, and the way the front end flows when you look through it from the saddle. The polished titanium set against the chrome detail on the frame. The wheels are Tune, 45 mm at the front and 50 mm at the rear, shod with a Continental Aero 111 up front and a GP5000 S TR behind, and Jesse points to the small features on the wheels themselves that keep the spokes in order as exactly the kind of thing nobody is meant to notice and everyone benefits from.

You can disguise a lot of effort, or a mechanic’s touch, in the small parts.

Jesse

This is the part of the work he most wants people to sense, if not quite to see. What makes it possible, he says, is the time we allow: each bike is made personal to its rider, and the build is permitted to go as deep as it needs to, so that nothing is cut short and the bicycle can be handed over with all of that knowledge intact.

Asked for three words, he gave us precise, futuristic, and vanguard.

Build Spec