Exclusive first look: Colnago AC-R road bike

Colnago have just launched the brand new AC-R, their most affordable carbon road bike to date, which borrows technology from their race-ready M10. It’s offered with a Shimano 105 build for £1,999 or Ultegra for £2,699.

Colnago have worked hard on this frame and that shows. It’s finished to a very high standard. The carbon frame is manufactured using similar processes to those used for the M10, the lightest frame the company produces, and a regular choice of the Europcar team. It’s a monocoque frame with oversized profiles in key areas, a new fork, wishbone rear stays and smart internal cable routing that is Di2/EPS compatible.

The geometry mirrors that found on the M10 too.This size 52 bike has the same 16.6cm head tube with the same 55cm effective top tube length. The wheelbase is the same at 1,001mm as well so the handling should be very similar.

So similar are the two bikes, in fact, that they both share the same paint finish, this white on black being an option on both models. There’s also a red and white finish, but we didn’t get to see that. There are eight sizes from 42 to 58cm on offer.

The bike here is built with a Shimano 105 groupset with a compact 50/34 chainset. Colnago spec their own brand X-Brake 3 calipers and Artemis CW32 aluminium wheels. Tyres are Vittoria Zafiro 23mm models. There’s quality Deda handlebars and stem and a non-brand seatpost, finished with a smart looking Colnago saddle. White bar tape matches the saddle and white decals on the frame.

We were lucky enough to leave the Colnago UK distributor Windwave with one of the few AC-R’s yet to arrive in the UK, so we’ll do a proper Just In article on it soon and of course follow up with a review once we’ve got some miles in on it.