Still made in Italy, still has lugs, but brand new geometry sets it apart
(Image credit: Colnago)
Colnago has two very distinct streams of bikes these days. There is the ‘Model V’, currently confined to the Colnago V4Rs, and designed to be the brands pinnacle of performance; Aero, lightweight, the works. Colnago also has a handy mood board for the Model V, filled with sensors, data, Audis, bike races, turbo trainers and a lot of black kit.
Then you have the ‘C Series’, which covers the Colnago C68, the C68 Titanium, the C68 Allroad, and now the C68 Gravel. The mood board for this stream is very different. There’s dusty roads, sunsets, convertible Ferraris, wood, rich tans, pink suits, and above all, heritage.
The brand's C Series models are still made in Italy using carbon tubes bonded into carbon (and occasionally titanium) lugs. If you want a flavour of what this looks like I spent time behind the scenes at the Colnago factory last year, so you can fill your boots. The new C68 Gravel extends the range to cover anything from pure road, to entirely off-road riding, whilst still, if the mood boards are to be believed, maintaining that intangible heritage factor that its customers so crave.
What’s new? Well, primarily that comes down to geometry.
The new C68 Gravel uses the same lugged construction as the rest of the C Series bikes (Image credit: Colnago)
The black sheep of the range
The geometrical differences between the C Series models are minimal for the most part. The C68 and C68 Titanium only differ in material terms, the latter using the occasional titanium lug. The C68 Allroad offers increased tyre clearances to allow you to deal with poor quality tarmac and ‘light gravel’, but keeps the angles effectively identical; it’s still a road bike at heart, even if Colnago's geometry is a little longer and slacker than the norm.
The C68 Gravel though is shorter in the reach and higher in the stack than the rest of the range, so as to offer better control and comfort off road. It is also marginally longer than the brand's current gravel offering, the G3-X, allowing a shorter stem to be fitted.
"Made by hand in Italy", also as per the rest of the C Series frames (Image credit: Colnago)
The build
All the build options are, as is becoming increasingly commonplace, 1x only. You cannot put a front derailleur on the C68 Gravel, but you can fit tyres up to 45mm. The PR material we’ve received also shows a CAD drawing of a 64mm gap in the forks and a 55mm gap at the chainstays, and the actual tyre clearance will also depend on factors like internal rim width and how knobbly you’re going.
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Up front you’ll be getting a wide, flared version of the CC01 integrated cockpit that features on other Colnago models. The width of this bar is a common 40cm at the tops and 46cm at the base, but the stem length varies from 80mm to 120mm in 10mm increments. The bar you get will depend on the size of frame you go with, and there are five of those to choose from. You can fit any bar of your choosing as an aftermarket option, according to Colnago, provided it is an internally routed system.
Customers can choose from five stem lengths, but the bar width is set at 40cm at the hoods (Image credit: Colnago)
Colour choices are limited to either a black or a green solid scheme, with the black being very reminiscent of the Colnago C35 that I photographed as part of eleven historic bikes from the Colnago archive.
The complete builds come in three flavours, those being a Shimano GRX groupset coupled with Fulcrum Rapid Red wheels (€7,250), a SRAM Red XPLR x Zipp 303S setup (€12,010), or a SRAM Force XPLR build with Fulcrum Rapid Red wheels (€8,960). All options ship with 40mm Pirelli Cinturato tyres. If you want to do your own thing then a frameset in either colour will set you back €5,935.
Global pricing is yet to be forthcoming, but we are expecting a test bike shortly for review, so be sure to check back in for that.
Blockchain registration is still in existence in this model too, by way of a tag on the down tube (Image credit: Colnago)
Will joined the Cyclingnews team as a reviews writer in 2022, having previously written for Cyclist, BikeRadar and Advntr. He’s tried his hand at most cycling disciplines, from the standard mix of road, gravel, and mountain bike, to the more unusual like bike polo and tracklocross. He’s made his own bike frames, covered tech news from the biggest races on the planet, and published countless premium galleries thanks to his excellent photographic eye. Also, given he doesn’t ever ride indoors he’s become a real expert on foul-weather riding gear. His collection of bikes is a real smorgasbord, with everything from vintage-style steel tourers through to superlight flat bar hill climb machines.
