Geek Warning Bonus ep: Colnago is sharpening its focus, and it’s probably not thinking of you
Spin Cycle
Escape Collective
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 16 February 2024
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Colnago recently debuted its latest C68 model – the C68 Gravel – and while it seems like a pretty nice gravel bike in its own right, what’s more interesting is understanding more about what that new bike means for Colnago’s strategy in general moving forward, particularly since being bought by a UAE-based investment group in 2020. In this members-only episode, James sits down with Colnago CEO Nicola Rosin and Colnago’s head of marketing, Manolo Bertocchi, to get the scoop on how things have been going there (shockingly well), where Colnago wants to be (“the most desirable”), and who the brand sees as its customer base in the years ahead (hint: probably not you).
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone and welcome to another special episode of Geek Warning brought to you by the Escape Collective |
| 0:14.4 | I'm James Huang and my guest for today's show are Nicola Rossine and Manolo Bertoki, CEO and head of marketing |
| 0:19.5 | respectively for Kolnago. You may have noticed that Colnago recently debuted its new C68 gravel, |
| 0:25.0 | and if you're here for all the technical details on that thing, well, you're going to want to head over to the site for the full written article. |
| 0:30.0 | The bike's interesting at all, but I didn't bring those two on the show today to go over stuff like carbon layup schedules and frame geometry and stuff like that. |
| 0:37.0 | Instead, what I wanted to know is more about Cole Niagara as a brand and for a couple of reasons. |
| 0:41.0 | One, Cole Niagara has been pretty quiet for much of the time that its main competitor |
| 0:45.0 | Pinarello was experiencing a meteoric rise in tandem with the successes of Team Sky. |
| 0:50.0 | And two, Kolnigo was purchased just a few years ago by an investment firm based in the United Arab Emirates. |
| 0:55.6 | And since then, we haven't heard a whole lot about what's happened since, |
| 0:58.6 | how the company has or hasn't changed, how the brand has been doing since then, |
| 1:02.0 | where it's going and so on. |
| 1:03.0 | Because when all is said and done, Kalnago isn't just some other cycling brand. |
| 1:07.0 | It's one of the most iconic in the industry and certainly one of the biggest flying the Italian flag still. |
| 1:11.0 | And I hope you'll agree with me that it's a topic well worth |
| 1:14.0 | digging into. So one quick note this is not a sponsored episode in any way. |
| 1:19.0 | Colnago hasn't bought any ads or anything and well I should remind you that we don't have any |
| 1:23.2 | ads on a skate collective anyway. We also haven't rehearsed this in any way |
| 1:26.6 | beforehand and the company didn't push for any restrictions in what we could |
| 1:29.3 | talk about. I should also point out that unlike our regular Geek One episode that is free to everyone, |
| 1:34.7 | these special episodes are only available in full to our escape collective members, so if you want to hear the whole thing, |
| 1:39.2 | well, you got to sign up. Anyway, without further ado, let's hear what Nicola and Manolo had to say. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Escape Collective, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Escape Collective and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.