Colnago’s legend
There is a village in Brianza, Cambiago, which is very famous amongst cycling lovers. A small village of just 7000 people where Ernesto Colnago was born and where developed the “legend” of the bikes that have his name, synonymous of perfection worldwide and that are linked with Umberto and Andrea and to all the athletes of Team Novo Nordisk. Ernesto Colnago is what we call “a self-made businessman”. He was born in a farming family and at the age of 13, he started to work for bike factory “Gloria”, in Milan. Of that 25 November, 75 years ago, Ernesto can remember even the detail. He falsified his ID card of just 1 year, to be able to begin working as a welder. He wore a military coat, an “inheritance” of the Russian War from his uncle Ambrogio, which his mom had shortened. He remembers ”I couldn’t put my hands in the pockets, because they were too low”. The next day, he learned a life lesson whilst arguing with a guy of his age, Ernesto Formenti who later became an Olympic boxing champion. Colnago walked away from his job to chase him and when he later returned to his workplace his piecework colleague burned his hand with a blowtorch, telling him “when you work you don’t have to get distracted”, a phrase that Ernesto remembered all his life. Eight years later in 1954, the entrepreneurial history of Colnago was born, inside the small store in Garibaldi street, 10 in Cambiago. But to start the business, money is needed and so he had to make do. For this reason, his father, cut a mulberry to make a workbench and Ernesto began to think that his bikes should have been the best in the world. The opportunity came the next year when, during a bike ride, he met Fiorenzo Magni, who complained of a pain in his leg. Ernesto pointed out to him that the cranks are wrongly set up and by fixing them, he could solve the problem. In the same year he left for his first Giro d’Italia as vice engineer in the team of the champion, who then won the pink jersey. But Ernesto wanted more flexible and modern bikes and so in 1956 he got the idea to cold bend the forks’ pipes in order to keep them more flexible, managing to achieve the desired results by relying on two wood pieces fixed on the work bench.
31
