Johan Museeuw's Colnago C40 Pro Bike

- [Man] For cycling fans over a certain age,
this bike will almost undoubtedly have,
at some point, been your dream bike,
if it's not still today.
Because this is a classic
Colnago C40.
But then, even more than that,
this is a legendary
Mapei Team Colgnago C40.
And if that's not enough still,
this is actually the very bike that Johan Museeuw raced
in the Tour of Flanders in the year 2000.
And it's still in fact owned by the Lion of Flanders today.
Now what makes a Colnago C40 such a classic bike?
It is a good question because when this was introduced
to the Pro Peloton, in secret, back in 1993,
it was not the lightest bike out there,
although it was super light still
at under 1000g for a 54 frame.
And it's said it wasn't the first carbon bike
out there either, even though there weren't
many people riding carbon back then.
And neither was it the stiffest,
although I can tell you with good authority that this is
a super stiff bike.
So perhaps the secret, then, lies in the fact
that it is a combination of all three of those things
and also, Colnago sponsored some of the best
pro teams of the era.
And so this bike won a lot of races.
Now, the carbon construction of this frame
differs quite significantly to most carbon frames today
in that instead of coming out of a mould,
it's still made by hand.
So carbon tubes are bonded, literally glued,
into carbon lugs.
So the headtube here, the bottom bracket
is seat tube cluster.
And so what that allows Colnago to do
is effectively custom-make carbon frames.
And so this one here, Johan Museeuw's very own bike,
is custom-built to his exact specifications.
You can see by eyeballing it that
I suspect he's customised a very
laidback seat tube there.
Unlike carbon bikes of today, there was much less
specialisation of bikes back in the year 2000.
So the Colnago C40 excelled in both Classics
and Grand Tours alike.
Although I have it on good authority that
the bikes of Paris Roubaix had
quite a lot of extra carbon involved,
so the frames weighed 300g more.
So I do wonder, given how stiff this bike
of Johan Museeuw's is, whether or not he's actually got
a few extra layers of carbon in this layup as well.
Now, for many Colnago fans, it would be sacrilege
to put anything other than a Campagnolo groupset
on this frame.
And so, I'm very pleased to be able to say
that this has Shimano Dura-Ace.
I'm sorry.
But the Mapei Team used Dura-Ace for a long, long time.
This is Dura-Ace 7700
which actually was launched back in 1996.
And what's on this bike is the 25th anniversary groupset
which came out in 1998.
And actually, it's almost as long lasting as the frame,
which was retired in 2004.
This groupset was superseded in 2004 as well.
The eagle-eyed amongst you may well notice
two exceptions to that 7700 groupset.
First is the cassette, which is actually
an eight-speed cassette and not the usual
nine-speed cassette that Museeuw would've been running
at the time.
The likelihood is, he would've had an 1123.
And the other one is more interesting.
That's the cranks, which are actually Dura-Ace 7410,
which was the previous iteration of Dura-Ace.
We think that the reason they're on here
is because Museeuw, like a number of other riders
at the time, was a little bit sceptical about
Shimano's HollowTech crank technology.
He elected to stick with the solid previous cranks
rather than go for the lighter, hollow versions
that we now just take for granted.
And the other interesting thing about these cranks
is the fact they are so long.
They're 177.5 millimetres long, which is pretty epic
by today's standards.
And I guess would've come in handy
for levering his way up the burgs.
Because he's only got a 41-tooth inner chaining on there,
making it 41 and 53 up front.
We've also got the old-school Shimano
SPDR Dura-Ace pedals on there as well.
Now, wheels on this.
Classic bike-lovers will rejoice
at the Ambrosio Nemesis wheels on there.
Complete with Durex coating.
Yeah, seriously, Durex.
It says it on the rim.
Now, at that time, all Classics riders were still using
the box section aluminium rims.
Super comfortable, super durable.
And although some riders, Museeuw himself,
had dabbled in deep section aerodynamic wheels
quite a long time before this point,
these were still the to-go wheel of choice
for the Classics.
The tyres are also not the exact ones
that Museeuw used in the 2000 Tour of Flanders.
On that day, he was using green Vittorias.
Here, he's got Vittoria Corsa CXs
that are quite a lot narrower than he would've used
on the cobbles of Flanders.
He'd have gone for 25s, whereas these are
probably like 21s.
Now, if you're thinking to yourself,
"Goodness me, that is an awfully long stem,"
you'd be right, because it is.
It's 140 millimetres long, which is quite surprising
given that it's a fully custom bike.
But nonetheless, it's certainly in keeping,
especially it being a Colnago owned brand stem.
And handlebars are ITM, and the seatpost, as you can see,
is a now little-seen Shimano one.
Then the other thing, the last thing
I'm gonna point out for you is this.
Which is brilliantly retro.
It is the wired cycle computer.
Johan used a cat-eye computer on there.
And you can see the wire very neatly tied up
next to his brake cable up there.
This is an iconic and quite formidable bike,
all capped off by the now legendary Mapei colour scheme.
And yes, I definitely was one of those people
for whom this was a dream bike.
If it isn't now, actually, still.
But I was lucky enough to actually ride it.
And we have a video that is just up there
and you can get through to it with one click.
Before you go there though, do make sure
you subscribe to GCN.
To do it, it's very easy and it's completely free.
Just click on the globe.
And then to finish off this video,
why not watch, talking about Johan Museeuw himself,
an interview with the very man conducted by
Matt, and that's just over there.

Johan Museeuw's Colnago C40 Pro Bike

Latest Posts