champion like Merckx. It helped us to grow... when we made special forks, and special bikes." This included the super-light steel frame used by Merckx in 1972 to break the world one-hour record. With a growing reputation from their racing wins, Colnago entered the market for production bikes. In the U.S., the early seventies saw another bike boom, and Colnago "pumped out bikes as though the future of humankind was at stake." The mainstay of the Colnago line in the 1970s was the Super, followed by the Mexico, named in honor of the successful hour attempt. Other models were added including the Superissimo and Esa Mexico. While the finish on these early Colnagos could be variable, they were great riding bikes and developed a cult-like following. In 1979, Ernesto Colnago presented Pope John Paul II with a custom gold-plated steel bicycle. In response to criticism that his frames were not stiff enough, next Colnago experimented with ways to change the behavior of frame components. In 1983, he introduced the Oval CX with an oval section top tube to add stiffness. He then experimented with various crimped-tube frames which became production models as their top of the range frames, beginning with the "Super Profil" and "Master." Later "Master-Light", Master Olympic and Master Più extended the range. Colnago built a frame from Columbus tubing used by Giuseppe Saronni to win the world professional road race championship in 1982, and afterwards a short-lived collection of bikes were badged with the Saronni name. In 1983, Giuseppe Saronni would go on to win the Giro d'Italia stage race on a Colnago bicycle. Steel frames winning races made Colnago's reputation: "Between them, Eddy Merckx and Giuseppe Saronni won 719 races from 1965 to 1988, and the bulk of those victories were aboard a steel Colnago. Ernesto Colnago first designed the Master frame in 1982 as a replacement for the Mexico, which was named after Eddy Merckx’s successful Hour record in Mexico city. Over the course of 17 years in the pro peloton, the Master was ridden to hundreds of wins, and there are few bikes that have such a palmarès.": Since the 1980s, while Colnago continued to produce high-end steel bikes, they began to produce cycle frames using material other than steel, including titanium, aluminum, carbon fiber and mixed materials. One unique frame from this period, the Bititan, has a dual titanium down tube. Crimped and