Just Like Beppe's

I've never been a big one for bike porn. Top end bikes long ago passed the point at which I will ever be able to afford one; and modern machines are so brutally functional they no longer lift my heart the way a handmade Reynolds or Columbus frame once could. Those articles towards the back of the glossies, where a recently retired pro rides the latest carbon extravagance someplace photogenic, have my eyes glazing over in seconds.

Even if I could afford one, I'd be terrified to ride it. Earlier this year, I took my son to the Manchester Velodrome to watch the Track World Cup. A hugely enjoyable weekend, enlivened by the occasional spectacular crash. As body after body piled into the pine-work, I watched horrified as carbon frames splintered into very small, very expensive pieces. At least with my bikes, there's a fighting chance of unbending or rebrazing them if I drop one.

But one star of this year's bike shows captured my imagination like nothing else - and just to make sure there's no escape, it features in an advert in this week's comic.

Ernesto Colnago's 2007 take on the classic Master is a thing of beauty. In the deep red, white and chrome that Beppe Saronni rode to such effect at Goodwood in '82; the whole thing is designed to make old men go weak at the knees. And it's steel; cared for properly it will last a lifetime.

For me, it would be a rekindling of an old love -- tinged with regret. In the mid-eighties, I was a regular at Ken Bird's shop in Crystal Palace. Every week, I would gaze longingly at the wine-red Colnago frame hanging in his window until the temptation proved too much -- I stuffed a bundle of notes into Ken's hand and went home, proud owner of a genuine Italian superbike.

I built it up over a couple of weeks, scrounging most parts off my previous bike -- a 531c Raleigh; buying some new bits from Whiskers in Willesden and making one early Sunday morning dash to Paolo Garbini's in Soho, to make sure I could sneak in and buy some cables when he opened the shop before the club run.

I remember the sense of pride on its first outing (to be honest, it rode no better than the Raleigh); the way the chrome winked in the sun; and the howls of derision from clubmates when the brakes squealed.

I kept that Colnago for years, until the combined pressures of a growing family and the Inland Revenue forced me to sell it.

Although the new Master is "reasonably" priced (less than £1k for the frameset), I don't think it will be finding a home chez Flandrian any time soon. But I'd have it any day over its flashier, carbon cousins.