Pogačar Debuts Prototype Colnago TT2 at Romandie Prologue — A 550g Frame Cut and a Mountain TT in Mind
The most-photographed bike of the spring is no longer the one Tadej Pogačar climbs on. It is the time-trial machine he raced into fifth on the 3.2km Tour de Romandie prologue, and that on closer inspection turned out to be an unannounced prototype: the UAE Team Emirates world champion's first competitive outing aboard the new Colnago TT2.
The differences from the outgoing TT1 are subtle from a distance and significant up close. Colnago says the TT2 frameset — frame, fork and dedicated seatpost — is 550 grams lighter than the equivalent TT1 in size small, a saving the brand calls "the largest single-generation weight reduction in our time-trial history." Drop-shaped seatstays sit in conventional positions rather than the very low junction the TT1 used, and the frame's overall silhouette is less aggressive: shallower tube shapes, a less radical seat-tube cutout, a head tube that looks closer to a road bike's than the predecessor's.
Colnago's claim is that the aerodynamics have been preserved — and modestly improved — despite the weight cut. The brand is publishing a two-watt saving at 50km/h based on a weighted average across the yaw angles a typical time-triallist encounters, an unusually conservative number for a launch. The honesty of the figure is the point. The TT2 is not aiming to be the fastest TT bike in the wind tunnel. It is aiming to be the fastest TT bike on a long mountain time trial, and that means weight matters.
That positioning is no accident. The 2026 Tour de France features a hilly closing time trial that is, on paper, the kind of stage where a 550g saving on the bike pays back several seconds across the climb. UAE's confidence that Pogačar will line up at the Grand Départ on this frame — rather than the heavier TT1 he raced through 2024 and 2025 — was clear from the equipment paddock at Romandie, where two TT2 frames were prepared and one was used.
Pogačar's prologue ride was not the headline result. He finished fifth, seven seconds behind stage winner Dorian Godon over a course that does not reward weight-driven design choices — a 3.2km flat-ish opener was always going to favour the dedicated specialists. The point of the day was not the time. It was the kilometres on a frame that has not been raced before, on a course where the consequences of any handling issue are limited.
Colnago has confirmed the TT2 will be made available to its dealer network in September 2026 in sizes XS, S, M and L. The size-small build Pogačar raced is the version that will go furthest in shifting the geometry conversation: the smallest size has been broadened in fit range, while M and L frames carry taller stacks to ease position setup for amateur riders who do not race in the world champion's posture. The launch pricing has not been disclosed.
What is now in motion is a six-week stress test of the prototype across the closing days of the Romandie GC and into the Critérium du Dauphiné rolling time trial in early June. Pogačar will not race the bike again at Romandie — Sunday's closing 17.1km Lausanne TT is a course on which the TT1's aero envelope is closer to optimal — but UAE's working calendar has the TT2 confirmed for Dauphiné Stage 4 and the Tour de France's closing TT, with a switch back to the TT1 reserved for the flat opening prologue.
For Colnago, the timing is everything. A new flagship time-trial machine launching the September after a Pogačar Tour de France win — the working assumption inside UAE that the closing TT will play a meaningful role in delivering — is the marketing window the brand has been building toward since the TT1 launch in 2022. The first commercial deliveries land in time for the 2027 spring training-camp season. The first race wins, if they come, land six weeks earlier.