Tadej Pogačar might not have had the World Championships he wished for, with a human-like 37th place finish for the double Tour de France-winning superstar, more than six minutes down on race winner Julian Alaphillipe. That said, Pogačar battled to 37th place in style aboard one of the finest looking bikes in the peloton (IMO), a custom painted Colnago V3Rs.
Pogačar himself proposed the Ice and Fire design concept and contacted Colnago just after the Tour to create the custom design for the Flanders 2021 World Championships. The white/ice in the design is said to represent the temperature of Pogačar’s thoughts when he is racing: Foreigner levels of ice-cold. While the red/fire represents “the burning in his legs that takes hold as he pushes hard on the pedals toward victory.”
While I sort of wish I hadn’t heard the design concept, nothing could detract from the beauty of the paint job. To say this frame is painted white and red would be an understatement similar in magnitude to saying Tadej Pogačar is a good cycler. Colnago has used its “frozen edition” paint for a deep winter frost-like effect throughout the frame. The frame also features the Colnago name on the downtube, Colnago clubs logo on the head tube, Pogačar’s first design credit, and the Campagnolo logo – almost perfect, if only it weren’t for that Emirates logo on the top tube.
The bike is almost identical to Pogačar’s Tour de France Colnago, with Campagnolo Super Record EPS groupset, Bora Ultra WTO wheels, Vittoria Corsa Graphene 2.0 tubeless tyres, Deda Alanera integrated cockpit, and Prologo saddle.
Blockchain technology theft protection
Colnago has made one significant update to Pogačar’s bike that it hopes to roll out to all production models in future. Colnago claims this Ice and Fire V3Rs is the first racing bike in the world to integrate blockchain theft protection technology. Blockchain technology uses decentralized, cryptographic hashing to make the history of a digital asset very difficult to alter. In simpler terms, blockchain technology can prove ownership and a complete unalterable ledger of a bikes history.
Colnago has partnered with blockchain specialists MyLime to provide this extra level of security for Colnago buyers and sellers. MyLime describes itself as “a flexible and modular platform specific on blockchain technology.
“MyLime stands for my lim-ited e-dition. Where ‘my’ reflects the concept of ownership and ‘limited edition’ the one of scarcity. Those are only two of the drivers which reflect the value of an object.”
A Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag on the downtube links to the MyLime app and tags details such as the frame’s date of manufacture and sale on the MyLime automotive ledger. Using the MyLime app, any interested parties can validate a frame’s history. Original owners will also receive an NFT (Non-Fungible Token) as proof of ownership, transferrable with any future sale of the frame.
Of course, this is not Colnago’s first foray into the world of NFTs, having sold an NFT of a Colnago C64 for $2,300 more than an actual C64 earlier this year. This latest use of NFT technology seems much more practical and useful for everyday Colnago owners.