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The world champion’s record-breaking Colnago Y1Rs sold for over ten times the value of a standard model. It sold for $190,500 USD, the price of a Porche 911.
A single bicycle changed hands at Sotheby's yesterday for €163,430. That's $190,500 in U.S. dollars. Not a vintage Masi or a museum piece from the Merckx era. This bike is barely six months old. It's Tadej Pogačar's Colnago Y1Rs Stripped Black. The same machine he piloted up Mont Ventoux during stage 16 of the 2025 Tour de France, then rode to victory at the World Championships and Il Lombardia. The hammer fell on December 5, closing a bidding war that obliterated Sotheby's pre-sale estimate of €14,000 to €17,000. The final price came in nearly ten times higher than expected.
This wasn't just any race bike. The Colnago Y1Rs represents the cutting edge of aero road technology, a monocoque carbon frame designed to slice through wind with 20 watts less drag than its predecessor at 50 km/h. Pogačar's version rolled on Enve SES 4.5 Pro wheels wrapped in Continental GP 5000 TT tubeless tires. Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 managed the shifts. A Colnago one-piece integrated cockpit and fi'zi:k Argo 00 Adaptive saddle completed the setup. The total weight hovered around 6.9 to 7.0 kilograms. But specs don't explain a $190,500 price tag. The bike wears a unique "Stripped Black" finish, a raw carbon aesthetic with rainbow World Champion accents that Colnago finalized during a Tour rest day. It's a one-off design that will never be replicated. More importantly, this frame carried Pogačar through one of the most dominant stretches in modern cycling history.
In 2024, Pogačar accomplished what no male rider had done before. He won the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France, and the World Road Race Championship in a single season. He added Monument classics to that haul, cementing a year that rewrote the record books. Then he did it again in 2025. His fourth Tour de France title came with a margin of more than four minutes over Jonas Vingegaard. Six stage wins. Total dominance in the mountains and time trials. By the time this Y1Rs hit the auction block, Pogačar had collected four Tour titles, ten Monument victories, and two World Championship rainbow jerseys. At just 26 years old, he's already being discussed alongside Merckx and Hinault. When a rider reaches that level, even his equipment becomes legendary.
The cycling memorabilia market has seen eye-watering prices before, but context matters. Lance Armstrong's Trek Madone Butterfly, featuring real butterfly wings lacquered onto the frame by artist Damien Hirst, sold for $500,000 in 2009. Another Armstrong bike, the Trek Madone Yoshimoto Nara with artwork by Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara, fetched $200,000. A third Armstrong machine brought $160,000. All were charity auctions. All featured one-of-a-kind artwork by world-renowned artists. Pogačar's Colnago carried no Hirst butterflies or Nara illustrations. Just a raw carbon finish and rainbow stripes. Its value came purely from racing provenance and the rider who made it famous. At $190,500, it's now the second-most expensive bike ever sold at auction. It surpassed every Armstrong bike except the Butterfly. And it did so on the strength of performance alone, not charity appeal or celebrity artwork. What This Says About Pogačar's Legacy The buyer, whose identity remains undisclosed, now owns a piece of that history. A machine that climbed Ventoux, conquered the Tour, and wore the rainbow bands across some of cycling's most prestigious finish lines. For the rest of us, it's a reminder that greatness isn't just measured in watts or watts-per-kilogram. Sometimes it's measured in what someone is willing to pay to own a piece of it. And yesterday, that price was $190,500.
#Pogacar #TourDeFrance #CyclingHistory #ColnagoY1Rs #CyclingLegends
News Source - Bike Push
