Italy’s Eva Lechner will use the new Colnago C29 car­bon fibre moun­tain bike when she goes for gold in the women’s cross coun­try moun­tain bike event at the London Olympics on Saturday August 11.

The Colnago C29 is an inno­v­a­tive 29” frame that uses Colnago Master Type II shaped and rein­forced tubes and a car­bon lug sys­tem to max­imise rigid­ity, while weigh­ing just 1,150g. The frame uses eight dif­fer­ent grades of car­bon fibre and has a tapered head­set to give bet­ter bike han­dling on dif­fi­cult ter­rain. All cables are routed inside the frame to avoid any prob­lems with mud and crashes.

Lechner has helped develop the 29” bike, test rid­ing pre­vi­ous mod­els and giv­ing her pre­cious pro race feed­back to the Colnago engi­neers.  She used the Colnago C29 to win the Italian national cross coun­try title and will be Italy’s sole rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the women’s cross coun­try race Hadleigh Farm course, east of London.

The Colnago C29 will be offi­cially unveiled at the Eurobike show in August.

Colnago CSF Inox rider Sacha Modolo has warned that the only way to stop Mark Cavendish from win­ning the gold medal at the London Olympics will have to ride aggres­sively and dis­tance the British rider on the key climb of Box Hill.

Modolo fin­ished sec­ond behind Cavendish in last year’s test event in London and knows the British rider has made the Olympic road race the biggest goal of his 2012 season.

“There’s only one way to beat Cavendish and that’s to make sure the race doesn’t end with a bunch sprint,” Modolo said.

“People have been pre­dict­ing that the race will def­i­nitely end in a sprint but in the Italian team, we’ll be rid­ing aggres­sively to make sure it doesn’t hap­pen. It’s going to be a very unique race. There are only five rid­ers per team and then climb­ing Box Hill nine times will play a huge fac­tor in the race. It’s not a hard climb but it is very nar­row and so the pelo­ton will be strung out.”

“If we can get rid of Cavendish dur­ing the final laps and then the front group rides together all the way to the fin­ish, then we’ve got a chance of fight­ing for victory.”

Modolo will swap his usual white and blue Colnago C59 Italia bike for a black Colnago C59 for the Olympic road race. Under International Olympic Committee rules, bikes can only carry one logo and so Colnago has pro­duced a spe­cial bike for Modolo sim­i­lar to the Colnago Team Edition bikes used by Thomas Voeckler and Team Europcar at the Tour de France.

Modolo won a stage at the recent Tour of Austria and pol­ished his fit­ness for London by also rid­ing the Tour of Poland.  He will be part of the five-rider Italian team that also includes Marco Pinotti, Elia Viviani, Luca Paolini and Vincenzo Nibali. 2004 Athens Olympic road race win­ner Paolo Bettini is the national coach for Italy.

“I’m ready to race and I’m will­ing to fol­low what ever tac­ti­cal plan Bettini decides to fol­low. We know we’ll have to beat rid­ers of the cal­iber of Tom Boonen and Philippe Gilbert, Matt Goss of Australia and Norway’s Edvald Boasson Hagen. But Bettini knows how to win races and win the Olympics. I think it’s going to be a race full of sur­prises.” Modolo predicted.

Colnago has cre­ated a spe­cial lim­ited edi­tion Thomas Voeckler ver­sion of the C59 Italia Team Edition frame dec­o­rated with polka dots to cel­e­brate the much-admired French rider’s suc­cess in the Tour de France moun­tain competition.

Just 135 of the very spe­cial frames will be pro­duced –the exact points total Voeckler scored in the climber’s com­pe­ti­tion, and they are dec­o­rated with the same iconic red polka-dots as the Tour de France climber’s jer­sey. The frame is expected to become a real col­lec­tors item.

“Thomas is one of the heroes of the Tour de France and so it’s only right we cel­e­brate his suc­cess with a spe­cial bike,” Ernesto Colnago said.

“We were inspired by the way he won his stages, espe­cially the stage to Bagnères-de-Luchon; that was a real show of Thomas’ panache and char­ac­ter. He also took the polka-dot jer­sey that day and then kept it all the way to Paris. We’re very proud that he and other other rid­ers at Team Europcar used the new Colnago C59 Italia and M10 S Team Edition bikes.”

Voeckler rode the final stage of the Tour de France on his spe­cial polka dot Colnago C59 Italia Team Edition, before climb­ing onto the final Tour de France podium to be crowned as the best climber’s of the race.

Colnago had a fan­tas­tic Tour de France thanks to stage vic­to­ries by Voeckler and Pierre Rolland. Voeckler won the polka-dot jer­sey and Rolland fin­ished eight over­all and was the best French rider in the over­all classification.

The spe­cial lim­ited edi­tion Thomas Voeckler Colnago C59 Italia Team Edition frame will be avail­able via our net­work of offi­cial deal­ers, along­side our full range of bikes.

Colnago and Team Europcar cel­e­brated another hugely suc­cess­ful Tour de France thanks to an aggres­sive race by the French team that saw Colnago bikes in vir­tu­ally every break­away attempt, win three stages vic­to­ries, fin­ish eighth over­all thanks to Pierre Rolland, and win the hugely pres­ti­gious polka-dot jer­sey with Thomas Voeckler.

The Team Europcar rid­ers used the new Colnago C59 Team Edition and Colnago M10 S Team Edition bikes, show­ing the beauty and qual­ity of our 2013 bikes to the world.

Thomas Voeckler sparked Voeckler mania in 2011 when he fin­ished fourth over­all in the Tour de France and wore the race leader’s yel­low jer­sey for ten days. This year he started the Tour de France with a knee prob­lem and knew he would have lit­tle chance of repeat­ing his suc­cess. However this did not stop the much-loved Frenchman from going on the attack and he pulled out two inspired per­for­mances to win stages 10 and 16 and also took the climber’s polka-dot jer­sey. He rode into Paris cov­ered head to tail –includ­ing his Colnago c59 Team Edition bike, in polka dots and savoured his well-deserved moment on the final podium.

Pierre Rolland con­firmed his huge tal­ent with another stage vic­tory to La Toussuire after win­ning at L’Alpe d’Huez in 2011. Rolland also fought hard to fin­ish eighth over­all, the best Frenchman at this year’s Tour de France.

“I’m proud of my Tour de France and that of every­one in the team. It’s been fan­tas­tique!” Rolland said.

“Every Tour is emo­tion and this one espe­cially so. I enjoyed the joy of win­ning a stage, but also the pain of crash­ing. Some things went well, oth­ers didn’t but that’s Le Tour. It’s always three weeks of emotions.”

Thomas Voeckler won his sec­ond stage at the Tour de France and pulled on the polka-dot jer­sey as leader of the moun­tains com­pe­ti­tion with yet another emotional-fueled and coura­geous ride.

Voeckler went on the attack early in the stage with the deci­sive break­away group. While other fal­tered in the heat and on the climbs, he seemed inspired and pro­duced the per­for­mance of his career. He even­tu­ally broke clear with fel­low Frenchman Brice Feillu and then attacked hard on the Col du Peyresourde. He went on to win alone in Bagneres-de-Luchon, almost in shock after his inspired performance.

Thanks to being the first over each of the four major moun­tains in the stage, Voeckler also pulled on the iconic polka-dot jer­sey and leads the Tour de France climber’s com­pe­ti­tion by four points. With just some lesser climbs to cover dur­ing the final stages of the race, Voeckler is the favourite to win the climber’s com­pe­ti­tion in Paris on Sunday.

It was the Frenchman’s sec­ond stage vic­tory in this year’s Tour de France and the third win for Team Europcar and Colnago. Voeckler used his spe­cial Colnago C59 Team Edition bike dur­ing the stage, con­firm­ing it is the per­fect bike for rac­ing in the mountains.

“I can’t really under­stand what I’ve done. It’s the kind of thing I watched on tele­vi­sion as a kid but today it was me who did it, said Voeckler after his stun­ning victory.

“I raced as if each climb was a sep­a­rate race. I know every metre of the climbs from train­ing here in this region. That really helped me. Even so, I’m find­ing it hard to com­pre­hend what I have done. Winning in Bellegarde was spe­cial but this is some­thing else. Now my pri­or­ity is to defend the polka dot jersey.”

Team Europcar and Colnago enjoyed a fan­tas­tic sec­ond week at the Tour de France and are hop­ing for even for even more suc­cess before Le Tour ends in Paris on July 22.

The Team Europcar green jer­seys and strik­ing black and white Colnago Team Editions bikes were present in almost every break­away attempt in the first week with­out land­ing the suc­cess they deserved. Their luck changed on stage 10 when team leader Thomas Voeckler lead by exam­ple with a panache-packed vic­tory on the hilly road to Bellegarde-sur-Valserine. Voeckler’s Tour was ham­pered by a pre-race knee injury but he fought on and raced with his trade­mark aggres­sion and deter­mi­na­tion to win.

The day after Pierre Rolland struck again for Team Europcar and Colnago, win­ning the moun­tain stage to La Toussuire. The tal­ented young Frenchman crashed while in the break­away of the stage but fought back to win alone. It was a rare but immensely sat­is­fy­ing series of back-to-back stage vic­to­ries. There were other plac­ings too, with Voeckler also fin­ish­ing third on stage 15 and Cyril Gautier fin­ish­ing fourth on stage 12.

Voeckler won on his trusted Colnago C59 Team Edition bike, while Rolland used his pre­ferred mono­coque Colnago M10 S. Colnago is unique in being able to offer the two dif­fer­ently con­structed but top of the range bikes.

Moral in Team Europcar is rightly upbeat. It’s been yet another suc­cess­ful Tour de France.

“What a dif­fer­ence a week makes. Things are a lot dif­fer­ent after two fan­tas­tic stage wins,” Voeckler pointed out dur­ing the sec­ond rest day in Pau.

The Tour de France heads into the Pyrenees for two test­ing stages before turn­ing north towards Paris. Pierre Rolland is hop­ing to move up from ninth over­all and may even try to take the climber’s polka-dot jersey.

“Both Pyrenean stages are stun­ning. The Tourmalet is a leg­endary climb that inspires every rider, while the day after (stage 17) ends with a sum­mit fin­ish. We’re going to have to fight all the way but I’m lucky to have a strong team to sup­port me,” Rolland said.

“It’d be nice to take the climber’s jer­sey but I came to the Tour de France to win a stage and do well over­all. I’m ninth now and don’t want to have any regrets when I get to Paris. Of course if there’s a chance to take the polka-dot jer­sey, I’ll go for it because it’s a pres­ti­gious jersey.”

Pierre Rolland con­firmed his huge tal­ent and gave Colnago a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive stage vic­tory at the Tour de France by con­quer­ing the Alps and his break­away rivals to win the stage to La Toussuire.

Thomas Voeckler was the first rider to win at the Tour de France on the new Colnago C59 Team Edition bike on Wednesday. His vic­tory inspired his younger French team­mate and Rolland won rid­ing a Colnago M10 S in Team Edition col­ors. Rolland cel­e­brated vic­tory by lift­ing his Colnago above his head just after cross­ing the line.

Rolland attacked on the first climb of the short but test­ing stage, the Col de la Madeleine, and got across to the break of the day with team­mate Christophe Kern. Davide Malacarne was already in the move, giv­ing Team Europcar the power to force the break­away clear. Kern worked hard to help Rolland on the Col de la Croix de Fer, reduc­ing the break to just a few riders.

Rolland crashed on the test­ing descent of the Col du Mollard but picked him­self up and bat­tled on, deter­mined to win. He caught the rid­ers in front on the early part of the climb to the fin­ish and fought back the pain as he was cheered to vic­tory by the French crowd along the roadside.

“This stage had become a night­mare for me. I’ve been dream­ing about it for six months. I really went for it but I didn’t have the legs and only won because of my men­tal strength,” Rolland said.

“Last year I won the stage to L’Alpe d’Huez thanks to my tac­tics. But this time I was the favourite in the break­away. I’ve been so unlucky in this Tour de France but I didn’t let it get to me and was deter­mined to win.”

Thanks to his incred­i­ble per­for­mance, Rolland also moved up into the top ten over­all in the Tour de France. He is now ninth, 8:31 behind over­all race leader Bradley Wiggins of Team Sky.

Thomas Voeckler is back! In 2011 the Team Europcar team leader became a hero at the Tour de France as he fought to defend the leader’s yel­low jer­sey. This year Voeckler has been strug­gling with a knee injury but showed his panache and nat­ural aggres­sion by win­ning the test­ing moun­tain stage to Bellegarde-sur-Valserine.

Voeckler and all the Team Europcar rid­ers are using the new-look Colnago C59 Team Edition bike from the 2013 Colnago col­lec­tion. He gave the bike a vic­to­ri­ous bap­tism, con­firm­ing it is a per­fect race bike.

Voeckler made sure he was in the break­away of the stage and then was one of the strongest rid­ers on the climbs. He was the first over the Col du Grand Colombier and the Col de Richemond, pick­ing up a total of 28 points and so tak­ing the lead in the climber’s competition.

Voeckler was in the front group after the long descent to Bellegarde-sur-Valserine and then chased after late attack­ers Jens Voigt and Dries Devenyns. He passed them in the final kilo­me­tre, had the strength to make it to the fin­ish and win alone. He waved one hand in an emo­tional vic­tory salute.

“I’m 33 years old, this is my tenth Tour de France and so I fully appre­ci­ate what I’ve man­aged to achieve. Taking the polka-dot climber’s jer­sey is great but I also wanted to win the stage too. I got it!” he said.

“Everyone doubted that the prob­lem with my knee was true. But I had eight days off the bike at home before the Tour de France. It was an amaz­ing feel­ing when I crossed the line.  My knee hurts, every­thing hurts but it’s worth it.”

Team Type 1-Sanofi com­pleted a hugely suc­cess­ful Tour if Austria, with Italy’s Daniele Colli win­ning the final stage of the race and Alessandro Bazzana win­ning the red points jer­sey and Georg Preidler tak­ing the polka-dot climber’s jersey.

It meant that Colnago bikes dom­i­nated the Tour of Austria. Colli won the sprint rid­ing a black and white color ver­sion of the Colnago M10 S, while some of his team­mates used Colnago C59 Italia bikes.

Colli has taken sev­eral impres­sive plac­ing in races this year and finally landed his first win of the sea­son with a pow­er­ful sprint fin­ish in Podersdorf. Colli rightly cel­e­brated his vic­tory by punch­ing the air.

“I have been in the top ten 21 times this year, and on the podium seven times with­out climb­ing on the top step. With the help of my team­mates I’ve taken a vic­tory for the first time at this level, and for the first time since I had can­cer,” Colli said.

Colli was diag­nosed with a malig­nant tumor on his knee in late 2010. He under­went a bone graft and ther­apy before mak­ing a com­ing back. He signed with Team Type 1-Sanofi for the 2012 season.

“At 300 hun­dred metres I saw another rider start the sprint, and so I looked back to see who was com­ing. The road was clear in front and so I went for the win. It was the great­est feel­ing of sat­is­fac­tion I have had in a long time.”

The whole Team Type 1 – Sanofi rightly cel­e­brated their Austrian suc­cess. Colnago is proud to be the bike spon­sor of the team that does so much to pro­mote the treat­ment of diabetes.

“We won two stages with two dif­fer­ent rid­ers, we took the points jer­sey and the King of the Mountains clas­si­fi­ca­tion as well. To have so much to cel­e­brate in July in one week in Austria is a great tes­ta­ment to the hard work and pro­fes­sion­al­ism of the rid­ers, the staff and the man­age­ment at Team Type 1-Sanofi,” team man­ager Vassili Davidenko said.

Thomas Voeckler was the star of the 2011 Tour de France, rid­ing his yel­low Colnago C59 Italia bike as he defended the race leader’s jer­sey for ten day. This year the Frenchman is in another fight as he tries to over­come a knee injury that has also cost him a place in the French team for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Voeckler is a fighter and has no plans to give up just yet but has been forced to change his hopes and ambi­tions for this year’s Tour de France. While his team­mates have gone on the attack vir­tu­ally every day and Pierre Rolland remains an over­all con­tender, Voeckler has been happy to fin­ish each stage.

“My knee prob­lem has affected my Tour de France. I was unable to ride my bike for 12 out of 22 days before the Tour de France. That’s a lot and has affected my form,” he told French news­pa­per L’Equipe.

“Fortunately it’s not get­ting any worse and so I’ll take things one day at a time. I shouldn’t feel too sorry for myself, there are guys who are all smashed up after crashes. I don’t want to aban­don the race but I have to be rea­son­able. Last year, Christophe Kern wanted to keep rid­ing and it cost him sev­eral months of the season.”

“I won’t be a tourist, that’s for sure. I don’t like to give up on my goals but some­times you don’t have a choice. At Team Europcar we’ll work for Pierre Rolland. I’ll see how I feel later in the race and see if I can do something.”

Like all of France and around the world, we can only say one thing: Allez Thomas!

Sacha Modolo cel­e­brated selec­tion for the Italian team for the London Olympics by win­ning the third stage of the Tour of Austria with a pow­er­ful print fin­ish in Lienz.

Modolo will be the likely leader of the Italian team in the Olympic road race on Saturday July 28, and will ride along­side Marco Pinotti, Vincenzo Nibali, Matteo Trentin and Luca Paolini. Modolo fin­ished sec­ond behind Britain’s Mark Cavendish in the offi­cial test event on the course for the road race last summer.

The 25 year-old Italian is one of the leader’s of the Colnago CSF Inox team and won stage three in Austria rid­ing a Colnago C59 Italia bike. He proved his Olympic cre­den­tials by beat­ing fel­low Italian Francesco Gavazzi and Austria’s Daniel Schorn.

“Today’s a great day for me. I’ve been selected for the Italian team and I’ve won again after a dif­fi­cult Giro d’Italia. I’m feel­ing phys­i­cally and men­tally strong and I’ll be ready to play my part for the good of the team in such a hugely impor­tant event like the Olympics,” Modolo said.

Colnago bikes notched up yet another pro­fes­sional vic­tory at the Tour of Austria, with Italy’s Alessandro Bazzana (Team Type 1 – Sanofi) win­ning the uphill sprint to the line in Innsbruck after an excel­lent lead out from his team­mate Georg Preidler, who fin­ished fourth and also pulled on the best young rider’s white jer­sey. Marcoa Canola of the Colnago-CSF Inox team fin­ished third in the sprint to the line.

Bazzana pulled on the race leader’s yel­low jer­sey and the red points’ jer­sey, mak­ing it a day of cel­e­bra­tion for the US-registered team that uses cycling to spread a mes­sage of hope and inspi­ra­tion for the dia­betes community.

Bazzana raced on a stun­ning black and white Colnago M10 S bike, our mono­coque model that sits at the top of the Colnago range along­side the Colnago C59 Italia –used by other rid­ers at Team Type 1- Sanofi. The 2013 Colnago M10 S uses new lam­i­na­tion tech­nol­ogy and com­pos­ite mate­ri­als and is com­pat­i­ble with both elec­tronic gears and mechan­i­cal gears. It is just one of many updates that were unveiled on our new website.

Bazzana said: “In the final lap the pelo­ton all came back together, and we talked among the team to find out who was feel­ing strong. I felt very good all day, and so Preidler got in front of me with 5km to go and took me all the way to the front.”

“In the final 1000m the road went uphill very sharply, and I watched some other teams try to get away on the final hair­pin curve. With 50m to go I saw the last rider in front of me cracked and I passed him with no time to take my hands off the handlebars.”

The Team Type 1 – Sanofi squad in Austria includes Rubens Bertogliati, Laszlo Bodrogi, Alexander Efimkin, Jure Kocjan, Daniele Colli, Javier Megias Leal and local hero Georg Preidler. The Colnago- CSF Inox team are also com­pet­ing, with a team lead by Sacha Modolo.