MONTREAL — Brandon McNulty is carrying the torch from teammate Tadej Pogačar with a new glittery black world champion's Colnago Y1Rs unveiled after his daring attack on the streets of Montreal last weekend. The bike makes it three years in a row for the men's world champion to be aboard the historic Italian brand, and together McNulty and Pogačar are bucking the recent trend of white world champion machines.
According to Colnago, the Y1Rs features a "glossy black carbon base enriched with a subtle glitter effect" and is "defined by a bold colour-block graphic featuring the iconic UCI rainbow stripes." The stripes cover the entirety of the forks and the majority of the rear triangle, while the Colnago graphics on the downtube and top tube carry a holographic rainbow sheen. The Y1Rs uses a bayonet-style fork rather than a traditional tube-through-a-tube design, with a fun easter egg hidden behind the bayonet fork hinge where the Colnago wordmark would normally sit.
The build is focused on saving weight and will be raced, not just shown at sign-on before swapping to a standard matte black version. White paint typically uses heavy titanium-based pigments, so black is an easy way to shave grams. McNulty's bike is fitted with new Enve SES Pro wheels identifiable by silver spokes and hubs, plus an aftermarket rear derailleur hanger, thru axle, lighter bottle cages and time trial tyres to keep system weight and rolling resistance to a minimum.
Pogačar started his two-year reign as world champion on a white bike before racing a black version since the middle of last season. Black bikes were previously used by Peter Sagan, Mark Cavendish and at times Julian Alaphilippe, as well as Anna Van der Breggen and Annemiek Van Vleuten in both of their stints as world champion, but white has dominated in recent years with Mathieu van der Poel, Remco Evenepoel and Lotte Kopecky. With Pogačar's preference for plain black, McNulty's commemorative machine is one the peloton is actually likely to see in action.