The Colnago V3Rs is the brand's latest road bike that balances between being a lightweight climber and aero race while also allowing 30mm tyres. Read Peter Stuart's review of this latest Italian all-rounder below.
Albert Einstein once said the measure of intelligence is the ability to change. Well, Italian brand Colnago seems to have taken note. In fact, despite the reverence it receives for its classic bikes, Colnago always has been an innovator, often trying new concepts ahead of the market.
It mastered carbon fibre earlier than most, and was an early adopter of disc brakes on road bikes. With that in mind, the V3Rs, the most distinctly modern bike in the Colnago stable, is an exciting prospect.
Fabricated, built and painted in the Far East, the V3Rs may lack the romance of the Italian-crafted C-Series, but that has its advantages. For one thing, the V3Rs frame is cheaper than the C64, but it is also substantially lighter, weighing only 790g for a size 50s (equivalent to a standard 54cm). That’s highly respectable for a disc-equipped race frame.
The V3Rs has also inherited some of the best features from across Colnago’s portfolio, notably the C64’s headset design. This uses an elastomer polymer to offer a small but detectable degree of compression and shock damping at the front.
A less exciting update is to the seatclamp, which does away with the fixed wedges used in the V2R and the C64, and instead uses a larger removeable wedge that increases the surface area of the clamp junction while reducing weight.
On the weight front, Colnago says the frame uses a higher grade of carbon that offers increased stiffness at a lower weight. As a result, the company claims, the frame is 12% stiffer at the rear and 6% stiffer at the head tube, all while increasing vertical compliance.
In fairness, that has become something of a cliché. Every new bike boasts ‘decreased lateral flex and increased vertical compliance’, but some of the updates on the V3Rs are genuinely noteworthy.
Image 2 of 11
Buy now from Sigma Sports for £9,499
This includes the complete integration of the front cabling into the stem and handlebar – something that may be common on modern aero bikes but is less so on weight-conscious endurance road bikes, the S-Works Tarmac included.
For me, the most exciting change is around tyre clearance. The V3Rs can officially fit 30mm tyres, which means in practical terms that a 32mm tyre is probably possible, depending on the make of tyre. It’s the sort of versatility we wouldn’t have dreamed of with a bike this racy a few years ago.
Rather than simply expanding the tyre clearance without further consideration to the ride quality, Colnago has also adapted the geometry to suit 28mm tyres as a baseline. That includes a longer fork, which has a remodelled crown to accept wide tyres, alongside a lower bottom bracket.
At 72mm for a size 54s, the bottom bracket drop is not only lower than the likes of the Specialized Tarmac, but lower than the multi-road Open UP or GT Grade. A greater BB drop lowers your centre of gravity and so should make for a more stable ride but could slightly undermine pedal clearance – although I never noticed any evidence of this.
All too often the shape of a frame is based on long-established norms that few ever challenge, so it’s encouraging to see Colnago isn’t stuck in its ways. With such promising stats on stiffness and weight, and some curious digits on the geometry page, I was eager to let the V3Rs loose on the tarmac, and perhaps even a little gravel.
Image 3 of 11
Version three
The V3Rs sets out its stall immediately on the road. The bike is fast. What’s more it feels fast. There’s something uniquely skilled about Italian bike builders in the way they create an exciting, animated and smooth ride quality that just makes a bike feel rapid. The same could be said of many Pinarellos or Wiliers, but the V3Rs really stands out.
On one of my first rides I was cruising along a long, flat stretch of road with the mildest of tailwinds. I found myself clicking down further and further through the cassette and watching the speed settle into the mid-40s, seemingly effortlessly. It was the sort of pure speed I haven’t experienced for some time.
The V3Rs hummed gently over the road, but with a high pitch that seemed to announce an impressive speed. It also contributed to the bike’s enigmatic attraction to other riders; I was asked a few times by passers-by about the bike, and many seemed awed by the V3Rs’s looks, despite what to me seemed like its relatively generic silhouette.
Given the deep-section wheels and general stiffness of the build, the scales surprised me when I weighed the V3Rs – 7.3kg is very trim for a disc brake bike with aero touches, and helped explain why the bike climbed so well.
Image 4 of 11
In the early winter I found myself setting some of my best times on local climbs, with neither the weather nor my fitness suited to the task. Similarly, even in frosty conditions the V3Rs encouraged me to lean into corners on descents, and delivered sharp, accurate handling.
The V3Rs isn’t just about speed, though, and it feels a little more refined than the V2-r. Perhaps that’s down to the minute tweak of the headset that introduces a small degree of flex, or the minor changes to the geometry, but the frame mixes comfort with speed remarkably well.
I found myself happily bouncing over small potholes or road scarring. Of course, among all the tweaks to the frame, the option to fit 28mm or 30mm tyres has the most potential to hone comfort levels.
Expanding tyre clearances may seem like a minor design choice, but to me it says a lot. Pushing for 30mm clearance instead of the V2-r’s maximum of 28mm takes a fair bit of engineering and hassle, but the payoff is a bike that really takes advantage of the potential of disc brakes. The key takeaway for me was that Colnago has really looked at how disc brakes could improve the design, rather than slapping them on to appease marketing trends.
Image 7 of 11
The V3Rs really is a jack of all trades. Riding it uphill I felt like I was on a svelte, lightweight rim brake climber; on gravel I felt that I was aboard a versatile all-road racer; and on long flats it felt as though I was hammering along on a bulky aero beast. And all this while being emblazoned with the logo of an historic Italian bike-building master.
I really struggled to fault the V3Rs. While I could exhaust myself with comparisons to an S-Works Venge or Cannondale SuperSix, it’s easier just to say that the V3Rs is an excellent bike – every bit as good as I could ever need it to be.
Buy now from Sigma Sports for £9,499
Spec
| Frame | Colnago V3Rs |
| Groupset | Sram Force eTap AXS HRD |
| Brakes | Sram Force eTap AXS HRD |
| Chainset | Sram Force eTap AXS HRD |
| Cassette | Sram Force eTap AXS HRD |
| Bars | Colnago R41 Carbon |
| Stem | Colnago SR9 Integrated |
| Seatpost | Colnago Aero Carbon |
| Saddle | Prologo x Colnago Scratch 2 CPC PAS Tirox |
| Wheels | Vision Metron Carbon 55 SL, Hutchinson Fusion 5 Performance TLR 25mm tyres |
| Weight | 7.3kg (size 54s) |
| Contact | windwave.co.uk |
• Want more in-depth reviews of the latest bikes and must-have kit? Subscribe to Cyclist magazine today and try 3 issues for JUST £5 (saving 84% on RRP) and get a FREE Ass Saver as a welcome gift.
Colnago V3Rs first ride review
18th July 2019
Words Sam Challis
Colnago chose the rolling hills and sterrati roads of Tuscany to launch the new V3Rs - the latest iteration of its monocoque, do-everything race bike. You can find all the details on the new release in our launch article.
An 80km loop of the area provided the perfect test conditions to get an initial feel for the bike’s performance.
Over the gravelly, chalk roads Tuscany is famous for the V3Rs’s stability stood out. While it was no doubt ably supported by the bike’s capacity to run wide tyres (our test bikes were specced with 28mm tyres) our route immediately took us on to a 6km section of white gravel and I was able to navigate the unfamiliar, loose surface with confidence.
After several prolonged ascents with some fast rolling sections in between it became apparent that Colnago seems to have achieved its goal of stiffness and low weight. The bike was always quick to react no matter the terrain and I accelerated up to a given speed very well.
Aerodynamic efficiency is always far more nuanced (certainly at the average speeds most cyclists - myself included - ride at) but based on my experience of holding similar speeds in similar circumstances on other bikes, paired with Campagnolo’s excellent Bora WTO 45mm wheels I can’t say I felt in any way impaired by the V3Rs in my ability to hold good speeds on flat and rolling roads.
Image 9 of 11
There is no doubt the new Colango V3Rs is an accomplished bike across the board. However, performance of this quality should be par for the course at this price point, so there are only small areas where bikes can differentiate themselves. At this level discrepancies are minute and often subjective but for me, the V3Rs’s handling shines.
Tackling the twisting, rutted gravel roads at a decent speed left me unfazed because the bike behaved so intuitively. Likewise on Tuscany’s winding descents - they have few true hairpins, so many bends can be cornered at high speed.
I quickly learnt that I could tip the V3Rs into a flowing bend smoothly and trust it would track the line I took. It wasn’t even thrown by the frequent sections of broken tarmac mid-bend that would have prompted harsher bikes to lose traction.
Image 10 of 11
Given my limited time with the bike, I won’t begin to dissect what attributes are the result of which design features. All considered though, my initial opinion is that Colnago has achieved its objectives with the V3Rs. It does provide an ideal blend of attributes that lend it to a variety of riding environments, while also including all the mod-cons a performance bike now requires.
The V3Rs is a polished example of what can be done using a conventional monocoque construction, and proves that Colnago is a master of bike design regardless of construction method.
