The Midas Touch: Real gold Colnago C68 to celebrate the Giro

The Colnago C68 is already a bling bike. It's one of those machines that sits as 'dream bike' in the minds of many, thanks to an impressive brand heritage and, in top-spec builds, an even more impressive price tag. Today though the Cambiago-based brand has released a monumentally bling limited edition version of the C68 in tribute to the Giro d'Italia, which is just around the corner. 

Real gold, special edition parts, and a 3D-printed tribute to the famous spiral trophy can be found on the Colnago Gioello. There's no mention of the price tag, but as they say... If you have to ask, you can't afford it. 

Real gold in lieu of paint

Weight weenies consider this your trigger warning. Instead of paint, much of the front end of the Gioello has been coated with real, 24-carat gold leaf. This creates a textured finish that is unique to each of the 50 bikes that have been produced. Yes, it's probably heavier than paint would be, but at the same time, it is substantially more ostentatious. 

Unlike traditional paint, you cant spray gold leaf on, so a gold base coat is applied at Colnago's paint shop near Pisa before squares of gold are applied by hand. This unstructured process creates something akin to a fingerprint for each frame. 

Money can't buy build kit

We see a lot of special edition bikes here at Cyclingnews. The majority are versions of the best road bikes, usually with custom paint and then some very high-end parts. So far, this checks all those boxes, but where it deviates is that not only is it using high-end parts for the build, but it's often bedecked with special editions of those high-end parts.

The Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 drivetrain is stock, but beyond that more or less every other part of the build is non-standard. It takes a pretty special build for Dura-Ace to be something of an afterthought, that's for sure. 

The wheels, Enve SES 3.4, have gold spokes and are badged up with the Colnago and Giro d'Italia logos. They're also shod with Pirelli P Zero Race TLR tyres that have gold logos rather than the usual white. Gold CeramicSpeed oversized pully wheels fill the derailleur cage, in gold (of course), and the disc rotors have been swapped out for lighter, semi-carbon versions from Carbon Ti.

Even the touchpoints have been given the deluxe treatment. A special edition bar tape and a saddle from Selle Italia have been monogrammed with the same detailing as seen inside the lining of the new trophy cabinet for the Giro trophy, now sponsored by Colnago.

Finally, the bottle cage, a spiral number to mirror the Giro trophy, has been 3D printed in titanium in a factory only a few miles from Cambiago, keeping things as Italian as possible. Naturally, it's also been covered in gold leaf too, as have the bar end plugs and the end caps for the thru-axles: No stone left unturned.

More to come

What you can see here is how numbers 2-50 of the limited run will land. Clearly, someone in the Colnago marketing department is a tease as, on the 8th of May, the brand will showcase number 1 of 50, which will apparently be even more bling. How they'll achieve this we're not sure, but you'll have to stay tuned to find out.