[PET PEEVE RANT="ON"]

Too bad Colnago's website doesn't reflect the same quality that LoneFrontRanger waxes elegant over about their bicycles. Inspired by her posts and the love so many of you display for your 'Nags, plus the fact that I'm starting to shop for a high-zoot bike, I dropped by colnago.com to see what I could find about their bikes. What a Flash-laden, slow-loading, amateur-designed unusable waste of pixels.

If anyone from the manufacturer actually reads this forum - hey, it looks like you turned a self-indulgent, underskilled graphic designer loose on your website. A vast percentage of buyers of high-dollar merchandise do research on the web to narrow their choices, usually before visiting a store. I look at serotta.com, sevencycles.com, litespeed.com, trek.com - all fast-loading and generally pretty responsive. Yours is slow, hard to use and even worse than eddymerckx.be (theirs is slow, but at least well organized). I left before I started reading about the bikes.

[/PET PEEVE RANT]

[PET PEEVE RANT="ON"]

Too bad Colnago's website doesn't reflect the same quality that LoneFrontRanger waxes elegant over about their bicycles. Inspired by her posts and the love so many of you display for your 'Nags, plus the fact that I'm starting to shop for a high-zoot bike, I dropped by colnago.com to see what I could find about their bikes. What a Flash-laden, slow-loading, amateur-designed unusable waste of pixels.

If anyone from the manufacturer actually reads this forum - hey, it looks like you turned a self-indulgent, underskilled graphic designer loose on your website. A vast percentage of buyers of high-dollar merchandise do research on the web to narrow their choices, usually before visiting a store. I look at serotta.com, sevencycles.com, litespeed.com, trek.com - all fast-loading and generally pretty responsive. Yours is slow, hard to use and even worse than eddymerckx.be (theirs is slow, but at least well organized). I left before I started reading about the bikes.

[/PET PEEVE RANT]


And this is their "new and improved" website. You should have seen what their "old" website looked like. I guess this version is still under development. On the other hand, I love my Colnago. Maybe Colnago spends all of their money on their bikes and not on their website. :D

purchased a Nag you'll post a thread about their paint job and occasional sloppy finish/workmenship as well. Nags, superficially, are not impeccable in detail, say, like a Look, partly because they are hand painted with masks and stencels the old fashioned way. The most of modern frames use mechanically produced labels and laminates under clear coats. If you were to look at a Nag with a magnifying glass you won't be a happy camper which mirrors how their web site is and the difficulty of obtaining one of their catalog etc.

In my opinion their web site or fine detail of their frame finish is not where 'what a Nag is all about' is at.

Although still not the greatest, Trialtir's site is hugely better than Colnago's ( theirs just got fancier but still not any more informative.)

Competitivecyclist.com They have the most up to date info and great product descriptions going for the 'nag brand.

Once you're done there, shop with Mike at Maestro-uk.com for unbeatable pricing and customer service. On top of being a generally cool dude to work with with affordable shipping and sterling customer service, Maestro recently started offering a 6-year warranty on all Colnago frames, which you will not find anywhere else.

Do NOT under any circumstances go anywhere near dealing with Trialtir. Not only do they price gouge the U.S. market, but I worked for a shop that sold Colnagos and had to deal with them in person, many times. They are by far the worst flaky product distributor in an industry riddled with flaky product distributors.

Aside from bad attitudes, rotten delivery times and frequent complaints, I vividly recall watching one of their "certified" Trialtir sales reps attempt to tap the BB shell of a brand new C-40... wait for it... BACKWARDS. The shop owner and I both leaped at the same time to pull the tool out of his hand, saying "Stop, stop" "Wait! I think we can manage that!!"

Agree with the others that not only the Colnago site, but the brand itself are very "Italian" The Italian builders regard their bikes as racing tools, not hothouse flowers. The build itself is the important part, and cosmetic details like paint quality are essentially an afterthought. I actually asked one of the Colnago product managers at Interbike about this, and their take is that the bike is intended to be raced and ridden long, hard miles in all weathers, not to hang on a wall in a living room only to be taken out on fine Sundays. Therefore the process of dings, scratches, paint chips, etc is considered an inevitable process that occurs over time and tells a story of the bike's wars, so to speak. It's one of those goofy Italian romantic notions, yes. If you buy it, great. Just keep in mind that surface is not so important, it's what's at the heart of the beast that matters.

An old Italian bike nut told me an analogy some years back that I dismissed as crass humor at the time, but for some reason it stuck (if you find this offensive, consider that I myself am female). It goes thusly: Bikes are like women. That pretty young thing ain't gonna look so great at 50 with 25 extra lbs on her bum and her boobs hung down to her navel, but so long as she still rides sweet and puts up with your shenanigans, who cares?

I find one of the percs of Colnago's highly complex paintjobs is that from a meter away, it's difficult to distinguish "weathering marks", as the product rep called them.

My Dream has acquired a number of "weathering marks" in the past 12 months, though most are invisible when the bike is viewed "face up" as they say in the diamond industry.

If it really bugs me after a couple years, I'll strip the bits off and send it down to Spectrum for a powdercoat re-creation of the existing Landbouwkrediet scheme. We'll see what those rocks think about that.

Competitivecyclist.com They have the most up to date info and great product descriptions going for the 'nag brand.

Once you're done there, shop with Mike at Maestro-uk.com for unbeatable pricing and customer service. On top of being a generally cool dude to work with with affordable shipping and sterling customer service, Maestro recently started offering a 6-year warranty on all Colnago frames, which you will not find anywhere else.

Do NOT under any circumstances go anywhere near dealing with Trialtir. Not only do they price gouge the U.S. market, but I worked for a shop that sold Colnagos and had to deal with them in person, many times. They are by far the worst flaky product distributor in an industry riddled with flaky product distributors.

Aside from bad attitudes, rotten delivery times and frequent complaints, I vividly recall watching one of their "certified" Trialtir sales reps attempt to tap the BB shell of a brand new C-40... wait for it... BACKWARDS. The shop owner and I both leaped at the same time to pull the tool out of his hand, saying "Stop, stop" "Wait! I think we can manage that!!"

Agree with the others that not only the Colnago site, but the brand itself are very "Italian" The Italian builders regard their bikes as racing tools, not hothouse flowers. The build itself is the important part, and cosmetic details like paint quality are essentially an afterthought. I actually asked one of the Colnago product managers at Interbike about this, and their take is that the bike is intended to be raced and ridden long, hard miles in all weathers, not to hang on a wall in a living room only to be taken out on fine Sundays. Therefore the process of dings, scratches, paint chips, etc is considered an inevitable process that occurs over time and tells a story of the bike's wars, so to speak. It's one of those goofy Italian romantic notions, yes. If you buy it, great. Just keep in mind that surface is not so important, it's what's at the heart of the beast that matters.

An old Italian bike nut told me an analogy some years back that I dismissed as crass humor at the time, but for some reason it stuck (if you find this offensive, consider that I myself am female). It goes thusly: Bikes are like women. That pretty young thing ain't gonna look so great at 50 with 25 extra lbs on her bum and her boobs hung down to her navel, but so long as she still rides sweet and puts up with your shenanigans, who cares?

I find one of the percs of Colnago's highly complex paintjobs is that from a meter away, it's difficult to distinguish "weathering marks", as the product rep called them.

My Dream has acquired a number of "weathering marks" in the past 12 months, though most are invisible when the bike is viewed "face up" as they say in the diamond industry.

If it really bugs me after a couple years, I'll strip the bits off and send it down to Spectrum for a powdercoat re-creation of the existing Landbouwkrediet scheme. We'll see what those rocks think about that.

I'll second the advise "shop with Mike at Maestro-uk.com for unbeatable pricing and customer service" "The MAESTRO" will save you some $$$ and give great advise with all the questions you could think of pertaining to a Colnago. That's where I bought my C50!