Was just reading the Ernesto Colnago interview. This is what he had to say in Tales from the classic peloton, January 8, 2004:
CN: I've noticed the difference between the design of bicycles made before WW2, like Bartali's Legnano and the post-war bikes, such as Coppi's. Can you discuss the evolution of modern bicycle design at that time?
EC: Certainly, I remember when I did my first Giro d'Italia as a race mechanic in 1955, I saw many riders with a very big frame and a very low saddle, which was the old style, from before the war. They looked bad on the bike and weren't very comfortable. So I said to some riders on the (Nivea-Fuchs) team 'I'll make you a smaller frame that will be more rigid and lighter, with the saddle out a bit more'. The bicycle frame is made of two triangles, in front and in back. What is the basic concept of a triangle's shape? Strength... so if I reduced the size of the frame triangles, they would gain rigidity and transmit more power. For example, back in the early fifties, if a rider had a 58cm frame and the saddle was out of the frame 8cm, I realized it would be better to have them ride a 58cm with the saddle out 10cm. You understand? So that's how I created a frame that became the moda. It was nicer to look at, a slimmer, better-looking design.
CN: So your approach to bicycle design in the mid-fifties was a smaller, more rigid yet lighter frame?
EC: Yes, I started to build smaller more rigid frames. Not so low like the sloping designs today that comes from mountain bikes, but we re-scaled the frame designs so riders could us a smaller frame with more of the saddle out. That was my first real theory that I applied to bicycle design and it was appreciated and then adopted widely.
John Betmanis
Woodstock, Ontario
Canada