By now we’ve all heard about Tom Boonen’s comments about how Tadej Pogačar was at a disadvantage in the Paris-Nice team time trial in comparison to some of his rivals because his team, UAE, was riding the Colnago V4Rs.
If you aren’t caught up, here’s a quick recap
Boonen was chatting with fellow former pro-cyclist Dirk De Wolf on a Flemish podcast, and the conversation ended up being quite the Colnago diss-fest. Among the seemingly “off-the-cuff” remarks was Boonen’s swipe that Colnago “...haven’t quite mastered the aero thing yet…”
Colango, the company, wasted no time in responding. In a statement, the company promptly offered “to bring, at its expense, the Belgian and his colleagues to ride and test the V4Rs bikes used by Colnago’s sponsored teams around the company’s Italian headquarters, followed by a public conversation about the podcast’s data that allowed them to identify the 2km/h difference in performances with other brands as reported by the podcast, in comparison with the data provided by Colnago on the bike’s white paper, available since its launch on the Colnago website’s homepage.”
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So, that happened.
Now, Colnago the person has also issued his statement on the situation. In a single line, Ernesto Colnago, founder of the eponymous bike company in Cambiago, Italy in 1952 dropped the mic.
Today the founder of the legendary Italian company posted his response to Boonen’s comment on his Instagram:
“I don’t think this comment deserves so much a response from me, but rather an apology from someone else.”
Boonen responded on Instagram and admitted his “#meaculpa.”
“It's a shame I never got a chance to ride one of your bikes,” Boonen wrote. “To me Colnago stands for passion and legacy. So it breaks my heart that my words where poorly chosen when I responded to Dirks claims in our podcast.”
We're happy that Boonen issued an apology, but we'll be honest: we still hope the Belgian takes Colnago up on its offer to test their V4Rs.
Natascha Grief got her first bike shop job before she was old enough to drink. After a six-year stint as a mechanic, earning a couple pro-mechanic certifications and her USA Cycling Race Mechanics license, she became obsessed with framebuilding and decided she wanted to do that next. After Albert Eistentraut literally shooed her off his doorstep, admonishing that if she pursued framebuilding she will be poor forever, she landed an apprenticeship with framebuilder Brent Steelman in her hometown of Redwood City, CA. After that, she spent several years working for both large and not-so-large cycling brands. Somewhere in there she also became a certified bike fitter. Natascha then became a certified personal trainer and spent nine years honing her skills as a trainer and coach, while also teaching Spin. During the dumpster fire that was the year 2020, she opened a fitness studio and began contributing regularly to Runner’s World and Bicycling as a freelance writer. In 2022, she joined the staff of Bicycling as News Editor.
