For fine Italian steel bikes only one tube maker will do:Columbus.But, as Cyclist discovers,the company is as much about modern technology as artisan craftsmanship
s I walk into Columbus HQ, just outside Milan and 45km south of the Eastern Alps, I encounter an enormous canvas. It’s a painting of a high-rise apartment building saturated in the red light of sunrise. A sleeping woman lies in the foreground and in the background a man leaps, arms spread like wings, from the balcony.
It’s all rather fanciful and surreal, and I wonder if I’m in the right place. I expected the headquarters of a company that specialises in metal tubing to be stark and industrial, but I’m soon to discover that the world of steel is a surprisingly complex and beguiling realm.
Steel is like water,’ says Paolo Erzegovesi, CEO of Columbus. ‘The rules are exactly the same rules that we have to consider when water moves in the tube or channel. It’s a fluid.’
Erzegovesi is doing his best to explain the company’s intriguing manipulation of steel – processes that take raw unfinished tubes and refine them for framebuilders to turn into top tubes, down tubes, stays, head tubes and other frame parts in everything from the entry level to the highest tier of custom bespoke bicycles.
At one machine, I watch as a short steel tube with a rough chalky finish is pushed through a circular die. What emerges out of the other side appears to be an entirely new material. It’s now mirror-smooth, black and nearly twice as long. It has a greater internal diameter, thinner walls and a new exterior finish, all without one degree of heat applied – using just pressure. This ‘cold drawing’ creates new shapes and dimensions, but is also used to butt the tubes, creating a variable wall thickness from end to centre.
Denne historien er fra August 2016-utgaven av Cyclist.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra August 2016-utgaven av Cyclist.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Best of both worlds
The new Trek Madone blends the speed of the brand's quickest superbike with the lightness of its mountain-crushing Émonda to become the ultimate race bike
Eddy Merckx Pévèle Carbon
A versatile design that shows the pros and cons of flexible build options
Gravel ride: Girona Welcome to Cycling Central
Girona in Catalonia has become one of Europe's most popular cycling venues thanks to its weather, roads and culture. But it's still possible to leave the hordes behind by going off-tarmac
Revolutions and evolutions
The wheel may be a 5,000-year-old invention but designers are still finding ways to make it lighter, faster, safer and more stable.
Kitzbüheler Horn
The Austrian climb that dishes out pain
Cycling history in six items
In the first of a series on cyling's historical artefacts, Cyclist visits the KOERS Museum in Belgium to discover the pick of the exhibits.
Different times
What was the cycling world like 75 years ago? Now in his midnineties, Scottish former champion Ramsay Mackay remembers those times like they were yesterday
Big Ride: Alpe d'Huez - Climb and a half
No climb is as emblematic of the Tour de France as Alpe d'Huez. Ahead of its first appearance at the women's Tour, Cyclist takes a ride around it and up it. And then up it again
This Olympic Road Race might actually be worth watching
A punchy finale around Paris's Butte de Montmartre will bring the excitement usually missing from the Olympic Road Race, says Felix Lowe
Beryl Burton wins her first road Worlds
Beryl Burton claimed the first of two World Championships Road Race titles in 1960, becoming the first rider to win pursuit and road world titles in the same year
