Celebrating the 100 year anniversary of Columbus tubing, Savile Road put together a team of two legendary Italian brands and U.S framebuilder David Kirk of Kirk Frameworks to produce a tribute bicycle.
Steven Le Boyer of Savile Road explains, “We do custom bikes, and I’ve always had great respect for the Columbus brand. So I went to David Kirk to create a bicycle that celebrates both tradition and innovation, two qualities that Columbus embraces.”
Kirk designed a frame made from Columbus Cento steel tubing, their special edition that marks 100 years in bicycle tubing production. The frame sports innovations like a custom shaped headtube and Kirk’s signature curved seatstays, but pays homage to tradition with artistic flourishes like the Columbus dove cameos on the seat cluster.
Navigating the fine balance between innovation and tradition that he sought for this project, Le Boyer chose paint in a striking signal green color used by Porsche, rather than the more cliched Ferrari red.
For a bike that celebrates Italian heritage, there could be only one choice for components, and Campagnolo provided a rim brake Super Record gruppo.
Angelo Caccia of Columbus joined Le Boyer for a special ceremony to mark the collaboration.
Le Boyer said that Kirk may produce other framesets from Columbus Cento tubing, but a very limited number, perhaps 5 at the most.