Frankly, for a 65 year old who doesn't have a heap of power any more, they all seem to work well.

I used to think the HP stay bikes were a bit more harsh than the others (including even the EP) but I was wondering today if it's just in my mind. Most of last week was spent on pre HP C40s, Saturday on Extreme Power and today on HP C40. This includes three different generations of C40 (original, late B Stay and B Stay plus HP stays). I've owned most of the carbon Colnagos up to EPS, Master, Tecnos, Dream (al rear end, not B Stay) and Bititan (yes, even that not made in Cambiago thing). Get the geometry that works for you and adjust your ride feel with different tires and wheels. Again, it's a preference thing, but not for me.Īs for ride differences, I haven't noticed a lot that I could specifically isolate to the chainstays. I just think it looks better than some frames where they've tried to jam every possible shape known to man and done it with super thin tubes, super fat tubes, some round tubes, and some square tubes, all in the same frame. By that, I mean a consistent shape of tubes and flow etc. Extending the discussion a bit beyond just the chainstays for a minute, I'll say that I really like kind of a uniformity of design in a bicycle. Well proportioned, laterally and vertically. My favorite chainstay design of all the Colnagos are of the C59 and C60 (just edited this I had originally wrote C50 but that was a typo), and maybe the early C40's (but they had some issues with bonding of dropouts). It is tall and narrow, which intuitively would imply a harsher vertical compliance than some others, and it was marketed as being super stiff for the likes of Zabel, etc. My least favorite chainstay was on the EPS, the Bayleaf design.

The cutouts kind of ruin that flow a bit, but the smoothed out edges on the C50 are more to my liking than the harder edges on the Bstay (diamond cutout) C40. I actually prefer a single, simple flow in all the tubes, regardless of what bike it is. To be honest, it's mostly been an aesthetic difference for me. Let's see, I've owned the later B-stay C40 (with the diamond cutout and kind of squared tube profile), two C50's also with the diamond cutout but somewhat more rounded tube profile, a C59 and a C60.

Colnago c40 b stay ad14