the 2.8 series had a lot of issues with breaking, and then they got better. Of course it took years, when did I say it didn't?

Not really sure what the ride quality of a 20 year old aluminium frame has to do with whether an oversized BB spindle might be an improvement. Not that there is anything wrong with a square taper, of course.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Hell for years Dura Ace was only compatible with Dura Ace - no other group - had to be pure DA (for the rear shifting at least) Chain, Cogs, Hub, Shifter...not even 600 Ultegra would work with it.

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What if the Hokey Pokey is what it is all about?

Yup....I was gonna say that :)

Kleins predated cannondale by quite a bit, and were amongst the lightest frames of their time. Bicycling raved about the "feel" of the bike.



Styrrell

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Styrrell

"Bicycling raved about the "feel" of the bike."

And as we all know, Bicycling is widely regarded for its insightful and non-biased reviews. (Though I am a Klein owner!)

There may be some benefits to electric shifting, but I think that the downsides outweigh those. Can't ever say that I wished a cable actuated derailleur was faster, I don't think an electronic one would be any faster since the delay is in actually moving the chain to the next cog, not in the actuation of the shift. ghost shifting isn't really an issue with properly maintained equipment, and road bikes don't really get enough gunk on them in the course of a single ride to prevent shifting.

I just expressed my reservations over where they had been heading. I like Campy equipment, but I'd like to see refinement in other areas than electronic shifting and adding a gear (which in my experience is more finicky than 9 speeds, and just means that I have fewer options for 9 speed parts now. Perhaps they are focussing more on what I would like to see (not that I am necessarily right, although I'd like to think so). Maybe by moving to a new crank system they can eliminate most of the metal parts on the crank, and have full carbon all the way through? Probably would need metal surfaces at the bearing supports and where the left and right cranks connect.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

"And as we all know, Bicycling is widely regarded for its insightful and non-biased reviews. (Though I am a Klein owner!)"


So you mean I can get legs/lungs/VO2 like Lance in 2 weeks like the Bicycling article says I can?

Rats

I'm just waiting for electronic, wireless shifting. Think about it. Nice clean lines. No added weight for any type of cables....and best of all...us computer geeks could develop a hack to allow us to shift YOUR bike. Now that would bring a whole new strategy to racing.

I would love to see a integrated computer with power measuring capability built into Campy or Shimano (or SRAM for that matter)

Can I please have it at cheaper than SRM or is that too much to ask?

Not that excited about bottom bracket changes, I currently have Octalink, Campy square taper, ISIS and FSA external bottom bracket on different bikes and I cant tell a damn bit of difference between them.

Why? Carbon for the sake of carbon? That is honestly why I got my Record Carbon crank....carbon for the sake of carbon. I cant tell it is not a Shimano 105 crank if I am not looking at it. What has this whole rest of the periodic table done to us that the only ingrediant we want is carbon? It is not the king of everything...



I know, carbon chains...imagine the weight savings...

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What if the Hokey Pokey is what it is all about?

"I've gone to the trouble of joining this board"

welcome.

i think some of us view campy as an enigmatic company, and have experienced both the good and the bad.

the good:

1. ergopower, just a better design.
2. ergopower's hoods, more, well, ergo. more comfortable BY FAR than shimano's STI levers.
3. 10sp, definitely caught shimano sleeping YEARS in advance.

the bad:

1. 10sp cassette options were woefully badly selected, and campy for YEARS offered no ratio wider than 12/25, unless you wanted 13t as your first position cog.
2. 10sp chain was bad, bad, bad, and the permalink design was flawed, and campy maintained it was perfectly fine all the way until the redesign came out.
3. for the purposes of those on THIS board, campy's utter refusal to bring the price of its 10sp bar-end shifter down to a point even TWICE the price of shimano's dura ace bar-end shifter meant that campy would never make any penetration into our market. and it never has.
4. campy ought to have spent time updating its chain and crank/BB instead of carbonizing everything. in recent years chorus has just flat-out been the better group, cost no object.
5. squarehole BBs are woefully old technology. i'm glad campy is updating. but it took them too long.

campy's problem is intense hubris. they make great stuff, but its people have got the worst case of *not invented here* extent in the manufacturing world. they feel that no technology is as good as theirs, and that's in every component category, and they proclaim this even while secretly working in the back room trying to catch up. worse yet, they think nothing of theirs ever breaks or fails. try to get them to honor a warranty item.

in short, campy's folks are VERY talented. they just aren't as talented as they think they are, and that's how my campy super record went from being clearly the worlds best to clearly unwanted by anyone but me in the short span of 5 years (1980-1985 or thereabouts). campy has still never quite gotten over that.

i write this as an owner of 2 campy road bikes, including the 10sp record road race bike i currently ride most of the time. as to "what i want," i have for years wanted AND ASKED FOR a 11-25 or 12-27 10sp, a slightly longer cage on the rear derailleur, a wippermann-style master link on campy's chain, affordable bar-end shifters, an updated crank/BB.

when i say i "asked for" this, i would've purchased some thousands of OEM upper-end kits had i gotten the bar-end shifters. but, campy didn't think this necessary, and as such is STILL shut out of the triathlon.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Dan,

Campy offers 3 lenghts for the rear derailleur in ALL of their gruppos.



As for the cassettes, chain, BB, and bar ends, well... I agree.

I hear ya about carbon for the sake of carbon, but it does have a few advantages, as well as disavantages.

1) corrosion resistance

2) lighter weight.

A carbon BB spindle makes as much sense as carbon steerer tubes, no? probably similar weight savings to be had as well. Not that that transfers into any kind of measurable real world performance.

Carbon chains would be cool, that would go nicely with those carbon chainrings and cassette cogs I saw.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

"Campy offers 3 lenghts for the rear derailleur in ALL of their gruppos."

i am aware of that (or, i should say, i became aware of that after i'd purchased my gruppo and discovered the narrow range of the stock derailleur). i guess i should've phrased it differently. there is little practical use for a derailleur with a 24 or 26 tooth total capacity these days. any gruppo today should come stock with a derailleur that handles in the neighborhood of 29 to 31 total teeth, then if you want to switch it out for something else, fine.

when i asked a certain highly placed campy executive some years back why they didn't make a cogset with a wider ratio than the 12-25 it was because, i was told, campy's european market needs nothing smaller than a 39x25 (hence no need for anything other than the short cage derailleur).

i'm visiting the marmolada and the stelvio (et al) in late april. i think i'll check out the gearing italians use on their climbs.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

"when i asked a certain highly placed campy executive some years back why they didn't make a cogset with a wider ratio than the 12-25 it was because, i was told, campy's european market needs nothing smaller than a 39x25 (hence no need for anything other than the short cage derailleur). "

HA! Yeah, I'm sure everybody in Europe can take Category 1 climbs with only a 39x25. Hmm, I seem to remember a few PRO teams using compact cranksets with 36t gears. Campy probably just wants you to buy a compact crank and front derailleur instead of a larger cassette. Thanks, Campy. They need a 12-27, no question. Just do a short and long cage like Shimano; no need for 3 cage lengths. I have actually had passing thoughts of ditching all my Campy wheels for Shimano's w/ Wheels Manufacturing cassettes, just for the better ratios. Why can't everybody just run the same spacing and freehub body spline pattern?!?!

Don't ask logical questions.

The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

A couple of years ago people were demanding Campag go to splined axles as that was what Shimano and FSA and whoever were doing. Chainsets wedged on to square axles were just soooooooo old fashioned, splines were far superior, apparently. Thankfully Campag stuck to their excellent square tapered bottom brackets, weathering the fashion for splines, meaning people like me can use 'new for 2006' Centaur brackets on their 1986 C-Record chainsets, for example. Now everyone is demanding Campag bin the square axles for outboard bearings....but I think Campag should continue to hold out to see where this area goes....it will clearly evolve somehow but I reckon they should offer something for the MOst design whilst still using their current brackets in the same way they are doing with hidden/ahead/standard headsets. Do Shimano make hidden headsets yet? Or even Aheadsets? Last time I looked at their catalogue they didn't....it was almost like they resented paying another company to make their own version of their design......the worst case of 'not invented here' extent in the manufacturing world :)

Oh and Shimano knows only too well their stuff breaks.....which of their worldwide recalls came last, the SPD SL cleat or the brake cables?

"Do Shimano make hidden headsets yet? Or even Aheadsets?"

campy doesn't doesn't own the monopoly on hubris. because campy has tradition and style, it still has "gruppo integrity," that is, people buy the entire group, or nothing at all.

shimano doesn't have much tradition, and so doesn't have this luxury. this is why shimano's stubborness has cost them to suffer death by a thousand cuts. first it lost the headset, as you point out. and the seat post. then the hubs. the cranks, the BB, the brake calipers. the chain. now a shimano dura ace "bike" consists of dura ace front and rear derailleurs, and the shifter.

it took them a LONG time to get up to speed on wheelsets, because of its dogged determination to use its keiretsu partner (or at least golf buddies) araya.

at least that has how it has seemed to me. fortunately, it only stayed stubborn for 2 years on the 110mm bolt pattern crank.

why spline instead of squarehole? because the latter is notoriously hard to make, AND you have a much harder object (the broached and coined BB axle) more or less reforming the forged crankarm every time you replace the crankarm onto the BB @ 34 foot pounds or thereabouts -- a nice way to eventually achieve a smaller q-factor :-)

hey, i love campy. i'm going to the dolomites in 6 weeks, for some bocce ball & turkish coffee. and to see how those pretend-simonis crawl up the 18° grades in their 39x25s.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

will you be taking your campy bike with FSA Compacts and 13x29? Dont laugh I know someone who did just that to his c40 to ride some of the passes

p/s disclaimer - I have a campy equiped bike with campy compact cranks (but not the 13x29!)

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__________________________________________________
Simple Simon
Where's the Fried Chicken??

"campy has tradition and style, it still has "gruppo integrity," that is, people buy the entire group, or nothing at all. "

See I feel I have sinned in this area. I just bought a Chorus grouppo but threw in an FSA crank. Am I a bad person???

I had a Campy bike with Shimano brakes and crankset. What does that make ME??

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

you have sinned but from someone who did something similar the situation is not lost. I changed the f-force to campy chorus carbon cranks. Just wait till the non drive side crank falls off while "just riding along". Ask Ves about it, but I suspect I got one of the faulty sets.

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__________________________________________________
Simple Simon
Where's the Fried Chicken??

Have a nice time. :) Regarding the conversation you had with 'the executive'. You asked why there was nothing wider than the 12-25 and I take it you mean something starting with a 12T like a 12-27 rather than the 13-26 or 13-29 or 14-28 cassettes etc they made....as well as the triple cranks and long arm mechs they made going way back. So maybe he means that market research at the time found racers wanted mid-range sprocket choice rather than a 27 sprocket. Was the Dolomites part of the conversation? Executives say a lot of crap off the record anyhoo....sometimes it comes back to haunt them.....very soon after in the case of the UKs former high street jewellry store boss Gerald Ratner....one off the cuff remark cost him his job and then the whole business collapsed.



Anyhoo....deep drop calipers is what I want Campag to make....not that I need them myself but it stops me getting a winter frame with mudguard clearance, the thought I'd have to get Shimano or some weirdo make of caliper.

Come on over to the dark side. You know you want to.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Don't worry...it happens to the alloy clad opposition too

http://www.cyclingnews.com/...p?id=vuelta052/2_14g