Conference noted::bicycle

1781.0. "Another note on Campy" by TPWEST::SHROYER () Fri Nov 16 1990 16:50

Interesting note for all of you Campy folks.  Dr. Fuso is always
dressed in Dura-Ace. 

Please excuse any typos.

Later dudes and dudettes....I'm going for a Friday afternoon ride.


{From the California Bicyclist - November, 1990}

		
		   Campy and Me

		by Maynard Hershon


	Its fifteen years and I can still remember buying my first
Campagnolo parts, chrome steel Record pedals to replace the French
throw aways on my Raleigh Competition. 

	In those days, even at the merest novice level, you knew that 
cycling in the blood meant Campy on the frame.  Other choices meant 
you were willing to compromise; you were cheap, maybe, or fascinated 
with gimmicky lightweight silliness.

	Years, miles and bicycles passed but I never got over 
identifying Campy with commitment.  Nuovo turned to Super, Super 
turned to C, C evolved into Croce.  I bought it all.  When I dared to 
think the unthinkable, that the Croce of '89 worked no better than the 
Nuovo of '69, I held my tongue and typewriter.

	Campy could do no wrong.  Why, the pulse of cycling beat in 
Vicenza.  You probably felt much the same; maybe you still do.

	All of us Italophiles watched at a distance as the Japanese 
began to be taken seriously in racing and on bikies' bikes.  We 
watched Campy try twice and fail twice to produce indexed shifting 
that simply worked.  We gritted our teeth as our single-bolt seat post 
clamps slipped.

	We faltered on hills when our front derailleurs dropped our 
chains between the rings where they spun, uselessly, infuriatingly, as 
we shifted up and down in search of propulsion.

	Thousands of us replaced slipping Campy shift levers with 
Simplex Retrofriction, grateful for the confidence that, once placed 
in a gear, the bike was likely to stay in it.

	We stared in amazement at the Campy slipless pedal, a pricey 
miracle of over-engineering in search of the first buyer.  Who did 
they think would want these, we wondered.

	In '88, secretly wavering but still loyal, I spoke at two 
seminars here in the San Francisco Bay Area for a U.S. Campy importer 
and distributor.  In my short "Campy Pride" speech for the assembled 
bicycle dealers, I focused on the solid European quality, the enduring 
toughness, the pride of ownership of Campy bicycle accessories.

	Then last year, after the final Tour of Italy stage into 
Florence, I had dinner with Valentino Campagnolo.  My bike press 
friends and I tried to explain the U.S. market to Valentino as best we 
could.  We tried to understand him.

	As you'd imagine, we brought megavolts of emotional energy to 
that table; Campy meant and means a lot to us.  I didn't write about 
that dinner because I couldn't decide how I felt about the 
conversation.  Further, I still felt I could speak no evil about 
Campagnolo.

	A month or so later, I wrote a polite letter to Valentino, 
offering to be his American penpal, someone not involved in the sale 
of his product or a competing product, someone who rode a bike and had 
an idea about how bikies here think.  Someone worried about Campy's 
evident loss of prestige and market share.

	I eventually got a polite letter back, written in that 
half-English you'd recognize from Italian ad copy.  Thanks for your 
interest, it said.  I was not encouraged.

	As part of my payment for the dealer seminars I requested a 
mixed Campy parts group; after 15 enchanted years, that group broke 
the spell.  The front changer, a Croce, moved the chain up to the 52 
so slowly you could go to coffee during shifts.  Fiddling by the best 
mechanic I know did not help.  Still I could have lived with that 
changer and the Croce rear derailleur that, was not a bit better than 
a Nuovo Record would've been.

	But the brakes.  The brakes broke the camel's back.  I ordered 
Chorus brakes, the split-caliper sidepull models.  I didn't like the 
Deltas; they looked bulky and complicated and hard to work on.  The 
Choruses, on the other hand, looked strong and solid.  They are not.  
You cannot make the levers work smoothly.  Look inside one.  The inner 
cable leaves the pivoting stop and immediately bends around a curved 
steel plate.  How can that work?  Doesn't a cable need as straight a 
shot as possible to operate right?

	Perhaps that lever could serve some company as a compromise 
aero solution until its engineers could come up with a specific design 
for the job, but is it a permanent, expensive aero lever?  Uh-uh.

	And - the lower caliper arm, the one that bisects its partner, 
is simply, shockingly, willowy.  Its flexing precludes the possibility 
of a firm, solid feeling Chorus brake.

	First I thought the cable routing through the top of my new 
frame was the problem.  Oh, no, I said to myself, not my new frame.  
Panicked, I called my framebuilder; he calmed me down.  I went back 
out to the garage.
	
	Frustrated and unwilling to believe the design could be so 
poor, I removed my rear Chorus caliper and bolted on an old Nuovo 
Record one.  Suddenly, my rear brake, with all its extra cable, felt 
firmer than my front.  I ground my teeth.  I called my framebuilder 
back.  Not your fault, I told him.

	I installed the second Nuovo Record caliper.  Even then, the 
brakes felt crummy.  I looked again at the ill-designed levers and 
thought a bout Japanese ones, but my components made a statement, an 
all-Italian statement.  I love the frame and hated the brakes.

	I fiddled with cables and housing.  I painstakingly rerouted 
and lubed everything.  Nothing helped.  At my point of maximum 
irritation, I wrote 1,000 or so words intended to be a column about 
that experience.  Cooler heads convinced me to sit on the piece.  Send 
it to Valentino, someone suggested.  I printed it up in letter form 
and mailed it off to Vicenza, to Mecca.  I pulled not one punch, take 
it from me.  I remember mentioning that the brakes were only useful 
for keeping someone's fishing line on the bottom.  I recalled 1968, 
when Campy produced Record brakes with "No-Name" until they could be 
certain those brakes were perfect.  I asked Valentino if anyone at the 
factory had tried Chorus brakes before Campy began shipping them.  
Were they tested at all?

	No answer.  Months passed.  No mail from Mecca, from Valentino 
or anyone else in Italy or at Campagnolo U.S.A.  I learned I was to 
visit Italy again this year and that Campy would be a stop on the 
tour.  How would they react there, I wondered.  What would Valentino 
say?  Would he see me?

	We visited seven or eight companies on that tour.  All the 
Italian industry people seemed to me to be bright, reasonable, warm, 
interested in us and our market and anxious to please the three 
visiting U.S. bicycle journalists.  Wouldn't you be?  We represented a 
couple of million of readers; an editorial mention in any of the 
magazines we write for is worth a fortune in ad dollars.  Each company 
had prepared for our visit and treated us wonderfully except for 
Campagnolo, the outfit, I'd guess, with most at stake in America.

	On our arrival, we were met, after about a half hour, by a 
young man whose job in the commercial department at Campy and 
experience in the bike industry totaled two months.  No Valentino, no 
company executive.  When we asked, the young man told us that there is 
no marketing department at Campagnolo, not one employee whose job it 
is to plan market strategy.

	He tried his best, but he was not equipped to field our 
questions.  he had virtually no background or inside information, not 
even enough to learn anything from us.  As an example, after we'd been 
there a couple of hours, he reminded us that Campy was new to the 
mountain bike area.

	"We made our reputation on the road," he said.  We said we 
knew.

	During our factory tour and lunch, we could hear Valentino 
Campagnolo being paged.  We felt he was there during our visit but 
felt us unworthy of his time.  That's us as YOU, U.S. bikies: we 
represented YOU.  The five of us included three writers from major 
U.S. magazines, a gentleman from the Italian association of bicycle 
and motorcycle manufacturers (Campy's a member), and a gentleman from 
the Italian Trade Commission office in Los Angeles.

	Each of us received a tour, a swell lunch and a snazzy 
Campagnolo corkscrew.  My wife said she thought the corkscrew perhaps 
symbolic.

	Oh, while I'm pounding, here's another nail or two in the 
lid.  When you are told that only here in America do mechanics and 
riders complain about Campy hassles, do not, repeat do not, believe 
it.  Many Italian manufacturers shake their heads when asked about 
Campy.  If Campy is the engine that pulls the Italian industry train, 
that engine is struggling.

	Italian people know the indexing has never worked.  They know 
the parts take twice as long to install as Japanese parts and function 
no better.  To be sure, no one claims Campy materials or construction 
techniques are surpassed by anyone, but how long must bike parts last? 
 Is it satisfying that mediocre stuff simply endures?

	In the days leading up to our Campy visit, the other writers 
and I talked endlessly about Campy and Shimano, about what we'd say in 
the factory offices, about how we could approach Valentino without 
hurting his feelings, about how we could tell him that watching his 
company go backwards was like watching your high school sweetheart on 
the arm of some sleaze.

	We agonized about how we could express our truly sincere 
concern for the bike parts of the summers of our youths.  We thought 
you'd have the same feelings, you readers; we figured we had the 
opportunity, we'd say those things for you.  But we didn't.  We 
couldn't.  We didn't see Valentino, didn't see anyone of weight at 
Campagnolo at all.  Evidently, to me at least, we care more about 
Campagnolo than Campagnolo cared about us.  Funny huh?  You'd figure 
Campy had more to lose.

	Me, I'm doing just fine.  I love my Dura-Ace brakes.


{Maynard is a traditionalist who agonized for many years over this 
open critique of Campy}

     Italia, love it or leave it! I'm going to assume that you wrote this
    expecting some opposition to you opinion. Sorry to hear that you're
    recent experience has led you to such a low regard for the Campy line.
    I will concur that ATB stuff might be behind the local Huffy offering,
    but I have to say that I have had nothing but positive experience with
    my C Record (and, previously CHORUS gear).
    
     Admittedly, I'm not a Cat I racer with the feel and dexterity of an
    electron microscope/diamond cutter. 
    
     As for the Delta Brake comments... I love 'em! As for the index system,
    I tried it a year and thought it did the big suck! Agreed? OTAY! But
    I'm still hooked on friction (I know, Neanderthal). I am planning on
    going SIS this summer with my TT bike... Editorial to follow...
    
     So, please don't feel denegrated by his majesty's indifference about
    an audience. I think something has to be said by the page you heard
    in the factory... I have to winder how often Mr. Iaccocca (sp?) gets
    paged on the production line (probably never).
    
     If I sound like an "addict", okay... shoot me up. I love the stuff!
    
      Chip-entino
    
    

    
    .0 was an ... affecting ... piece for Campy aficionadi, 
    I have to confess.  Probably because they (we) know there
    is at least a grain of truth in it.
    
    I have obtained my Athena brakeset, and it looks positively
    '30's streamlined and wonderful.  But I am still wondering whether
    I'd be better served by Shimano Ultegra brakes - with cabling
    designed for aero cabling, and retro-force levers.
    
    I didn't even think once about Campy shifters.  I am another
    Neanderthal friction demon, and had to replace the C-Record
    shifters on the main bike with Simplex Retrofriction, just
    as the article's author did.
    
    The crankset, BB, and headset are Chorus (as Chip may recall),
    Campy still seems to come through with beautiful, durable, and
    functional bearing-based components (same for the hubs - they're
    the old-fashioned Record).  And the Campy rims I chose are reputed 
    to be good.  And *of course* the Chorus aero seatpost should give
    me that extra edge.  :-)
    
    But ... the rear derailleur is Shimano Ultegra.
    
    Is this an ok compromise?  I figure it is, best I can tell.
    
    -john

                    <<< Note 1781.1 by WMOIS::C_GIROUARD >>>
                                -< COME ON... >-

>     Italia, love it or leave it! I'm going to assume that you wrote this
>    expecting some opposition to you opinion. Sorry to hear that you're
>    recent experience has led you to such a low regard for the Campy line.


	Sorry dude, although I entered the note, it was not written by 
me.   It is interesting that Maynard put this article in a local bike 
wrag, rather than his monthly column in Winning.  Maybe he wanted to 
have limited distribution.

	By the way, I still have some high flange, 36 spoke record 
hubs in my garage....still in excellent condition.    
    

    Yeah, I've to admit I do get a little emotional over the stuff.
    Sorry.... :-)
    
      Chip

    	The sad, but true part is that the author WANTs to like the new
    Campy stuff quite badly - so do I.  If I object to anything it is 
    Maynard's comparison of the new stuff to Nuovo Record.  There is
    nothing wrong with Nuovo Record, and I LIKE the NR group on my old 
    Cinelli.  It makes me mad that I can't buy new Campy equipment without
    sacrificing functionality - even at a substantially higher price than
    Shimano and Mavic.