Colnago K.Zero (2015)

Bicycle effi­ciency can be sep­a­rated into two key areas. How well the bicy­cle con­verts the power from the rider to power at the rear wheel to drive it for­wards - and how well the bicy­cle resists being slowed down by the air it passes through as it moves. These two things are the deci­sive fac­tors when it comes to effi­ciency. All of our bicy­cles are excep­tion­ally good at turn­ing rider power into rear wheel power, and so the main area in which Colnago could make improve­ments to effi­ciency on a new Time Trial machine was how well it resisted the drag effects of mov­ing through air. In its most sim­ple terms, aero­dy­namic drag is pro­por­tional to the square of the speed - in other words if you ride along at 20kph, and then increase your speed to 40kph you will expe­ri­ence four time as much drag. So hav­ing a bicy­cle that has a low amount of drag to begin with gives greater ben­e­fits the faster you ride. But there is a bal­ance to be had with reduc­ing drag on a bicy­cle. We could go too far and make a bicy­cle that no longer rides like a good bike should. And that is what we have been very care­ful of with the cre­ation of the K.Zero. It rides likes a Colnago bicy­cle should, offer­ing com­pro­mise per­for­mance whilst deliv­er­ing increased aero­dy­namic performance.