SpeedofLite 

bikemig 

I like how in terms of shifting performance, campy was near the bottom of the barrel

Ex Pres 

For me, the winner from the charts above is the Cyclone MkII (weight + capacity takes it over his choice of Tech). But Campy SR will still go on my next early 80's build.

T-Mar

@Salamandrine

BFisher

"Ruggedness, reliability, and reputation clearly enter into the equation, and that's why the vast majority of racers use Campagnolo or Campagnolo-copy single-pivot derailleurs."

Honestly, I don't understand how his writing gets interpreted by so many readers into a Campy bashing gospel. Here is a test being done by a guy who has admittedly never raced. He's trying to quantify things and give some kind of objective performance analysis. But he'd likely admit that what seems "best" on paper is often not best in practice. He doesn't seem like an unreasonable guy. So, many readers take his conclusions and start this whole Campy vs the world thing. To the vast majority of riders who still use this old stuff, the analysis is irrelevant. It doesn't matter at all. Just because one may prefer, say, Suntour over Campy, is not a confirmation of Berto's analysis. It is just another preference. And this doesn't mean I disagree about the virtues of the slant parallelogram.

Ride on and ride strong, Campy, Suntour, Shimano, or what have you.

T-Mar

To be fair, the "bashing" was started long ago by the Campagnolo crowd, who refused to believe that anything could even approach their beloved components.

sheddle

Someone really needed to take a hacksaw to Simplex's product lineup because those SLJ mechs were really nice.

Always wanted to try a Huret Success/Super Success, too. One day...


e) I wonder how much of the Japanese reputation was built by their midrange derailleurs, rather than their high end products. The SLJ/Success seem to compare favorably to a Dura-Ace (not the patented Cyclone, but nothing did), but try riding a Prestige or Allvit versus a Suntour V or Shimano 500/Titlist and well...


(in fairness I think Huret got their stuff together with the Challenger/Rival, but it was probably too late)

T-Mar

I rode Sachs New Success in the mid-1990s. It was pretty much on par with Shimano 600 Ultegra.

In my experience, Shimano and SunTour drove success from the bottom up in the 1970s and early 1980s. People who had bought entry bicycles with Japanese equipment during the early 1970s boom, often upgraded to mid-range Japanese equipped bicycles because of their positive experiences. However, consumers were far less likely to remain loyal to the Japanese when upgrading to the high end, despite some excellent high end Japanese components. Things really didn't change at the high end until Shimano introduced New Dura-Ace with SIS, for the 1985 model year.

Of course, we're talking strictly road models. The Japanese ruled the nascent ATB scene, except for a small percentage of models equipped with Huret Duopars.

sheddle

hey, don't forget original Centaur/Record OR!


There's rumors that Campagnolo will launch a gravel group a la Shimano GRX, and while I usually don't like trendiness, it'd honestly be cool to see them back in the off-road game.

embankmentlb

The thing about Campy is that it was designed for an era that rightly or wrongly was being replaced. It was built to last forever and work in the worst conditions. Reliability was the mark of quality. Buy it once and ride. The prevailing American culture of replacing with the next greatest innovation made Campy hard to justify. Like an old VW beetle, a marvelous car engineering wise. Made for a time that has pasted and passed it by but amazing none the less.
Is that good, bad or just history?
In the end Campy from that era and the C-record era is My favorite!

Salamandrine 

Oh, very cool. Thank you @SpeedofLite for finding this and posting it! I don't really have time to read it right now, but I will tonight. After a quick scan it looks like it was a solid and logical test rig. I was a little concerned that each RD would have a different chain, freewheel and shifter, in which case the test would be not useful. Those 3 things IMO are about 60% of it, if not more.

All I have to say for now is that IME all of the RD in this article worked well. The Shimano RD I mentioned I didn't like in another thread were the earier Crane and Dura-Ace EX, and the early 600 pre Ultegra. I'll try to explain later after I read the article more carefully. Oh, and I don't believe I've ever worked on that particular Huret, but I might have.

sheddle

I think it was also a Japanese thing, the business practice buzzword is "continuous improvement".

Apart from tradition/superstition, the Japanese were innovating so fast that some of their derailleurs were practically obsoleted by the time they were on the shelves. Shimano in particular took this to silly extremes sometimes. Meanwhile the NR/SR didn't shift as well, but shifted well enough, and everyone in the entire peloton knew how to work with one, either as a rider or as a mechanic.

Suntour stuff in particular (I don't have enough experience with old Shimano, apart from old Deore/Deore XT which is bulletproof) had no real issues with reliability (with a few notable exceptions like Mountech/Superbe Tech), but that's something we know in retrospect, not something that could be proven at the time- especially because they kept coming out with new models.

Meanwhile, the flip side of "make something that works forever" was the European tendency to rest on your laurels. Campagnolo taking until the 90s to adapt the slant geometry was inexcusable.

Forgot about this, but don't forget tubing. Top end steel road bikes were mostly Reynolds or Columbus up until the carbon fiber era- but Tange Prestige (either as Prestige, or as its Ritchey Logic guise) was more or less the default choice for high end steel ATBs, apart from some True Temper/Miyata and a few Columbus models.

Chombi1 

Funny how the article notes the Campy SR RD to be "The Racer's Standard"...... and then give it just a "Fair" rating for shifting performance on their data table......
Heck! Even Simplex's very rudimentary and Delrin pivoted LJ4000 scored better than the Cmpagnolo RDs, with a "VG" shifting rating.
As for reliability, per my experience with Campy RDs, they are as reliable as many say. Just very strongly built and well finished, but I never had any problems with all the Japanese and French dersilleurs (Suntour, Mavic and Simplex) I had on my bikes, either. They just did not look as fancy or in some cases, as well finished as the Campys.

T-Mar

I didn't mention tubing because we were talking components, specifically derailleurs. But yes, the Japanese dominated the ATB field in both components and tubesets. Basically, the Japanese bicycle industry committed to the nascent ATB industry while the Eurpoeans were still casting a wary eye.

American frame builders had noted that the Japanese tubesets were more consistent and cleaner than European tubing, thus requiring less preparation and work. The Japanese were also more willing to customize tubing. Consequently, the American ATB pioneers started building with Japanese tubesets. Many of their innovations would be quickly adapted into standard, dedicated, ATB tubesets used by contract and full range Japanese bicycle manufacturers.

Meanwhile, the Japanese component manufacturers had also jumped on the bandwagon, listening to the American ATB pioneers and developing components dedicated to ATBs. Japanese ATB tubesets and ATB components were being raced and developed before Reynolds, Columbus and Campagnolo put a wheel off-road. The Japanese had done to the Europeans in the ATB field, what the Europeans had done in the road racing scene: established a a race proven credibility with consumer, before the other had even entered the fray. Campagnolo was especially hard hit. They had given a 5-6 year head start to the Japanese and their ATB groups scarely caused a dent in the market.

Regarding Prestige, it was, IMO, the tubeset that turned the tide for the Japanese. Up until then, Japanese tubesets were well respected but generally regarded as not being on quite the same level as Reynolds or Columbus. Prestige was similar to Reynolds 753 but, IIRC, had the added advantage of not requiring certification, being more available and less expensive. I also don't believe that Reynolds responded with a stiffer, imperial sized version of 753 until after Prestige. It didn't hurt that Prestige arrived shortly prior to New Dura-Ace. The two were a formidable combination in raising the status of Japanese bicycles. Of course, ATB versions soon followed and became the dominant high end ATB tubesets.

sheddle

Even Rossin and Colnago used Prestige/Ultimate on some of their 90s steel bikes. It wasn't infrequent to see Columbus on high-end Japanese bikes (going after a domestic market which had a taste for Columbus steel and Campagnolo parts on the high-end), but seeing Japanese tubes on an Italian-made bike is always fun.

Miele Man

I like it! I LIKE it! It says on the image, Dura Ace AX best of all those tested.

Cheers

T-Mar

Dura-Ace AX was the best, at the time, because of the indexing mechanism. However, it did require higher than typical level force for the upshift, to negotiate the indexing steps. I've always considered Dura-Ace AX the most under appreciated group of the early 1980s.

BFisher

I do like the way the AX group looks. Well, maybe not the brake calipers so much, but I think it looks sharp. Never had the pleasure of using any of it.

ctmullins 

Thank you SpeedofLite !! Candy for vintage derailleur junkies like me.

Out of curiosity, what did Berto think of Hyperglide when it was introduced? Those ramped teeth are absolute game-changers; true paradigm-shifters for vintage bikes and vintage derailleurs. I’ve said it before, but they allow me to indulge my drop-parallelogram fetish without having to suffer for it. In hindsight, I find it both amusing and saddening to think of all that R&D effort spent on developing the derailleur, instead of really doing something new with the freewheel cogs. What a head-slapper that must have been for everybody else when they saw what Shimano came up with!

Classtime 

If you were using the 24 on a hill, it was because you had been dropped and we're just pedaling home---was my favorite part. The test results pretty much match the consensus here: "Suntour shifts better but my grail bike(s) have Campagnolo."

T-Mar

I like the looks of the brakes and actually prefer them to Campagnolo Delta (which I also own). To me, they're tiny, elegant jewels, much in the same vein as a Huret Jubilee rear derailleur. However, from a performance they were the weak link in the group. On the other hand, they also introduced aero brake levers, which would be one of the group's legacies.

Back to the Dura-Ace AX rear derailleur, the only reason it didn't score a perfect '0', was because Berto used a SunTour New Winner freewheel. Now, this is understandable because he wanted to eliminate all variables outside the derailleur itself and the New Winner was arguably the most popular freewheel at the time. However, Dura-Ace AX was an indexing derailleur and designed to work with a 7 speed cog set with a specific and consistent cog spacing, which new Winner did not have. Had the test been conducted with a Dura-Ace AX freehub using the dedicated Super Shift cogs and Uniglide chain, it would have rec'd a perfect score.

While the shifting performance of Shimano's New Positive Mechanism was excellent, it did have a drawback. Like earlier Positron, the indexing was built into the derailleur. In the event of a crash or something getting caught in the derailleur, the dropout hanger or derailleur could get bent, causing shifting issues. Also, in the event a flat during a race, a competitor might receive a neutral support wheel with incompatible freewheel cog spacing. Racers wanted the ability to to switch to a friction mode in an emergency situation. As a result, for New Dura-Ace (1985) Shimano moved the indexing mechanism to the shift levers, where the shifting could be readily switched between index and fiction modes by the twist of a D-ring. Shimano also took this re-design as an opportunity to incorporate a slant parallelogram into the rear derailleur, as SunTour's patent had expired. Contrary to popular belief, the incorporation of the slant parallelogram was not the primary reason for the new SIS indexing system.

Moving the indexing to the shift lever was a smart move, as it would become even more important feature to consumers when indexing was incorporated into the ATB groups. Once SIS had proven it's reliability, Shimano introduced STI, which incorporated the shifting function into the brake lever (i.e. brifters) providing a further level of convenience and safety but eliminating the friction option.

sheddle

The cam system required for an in-derailleur indexing mechanism also made the AX the heaviest top-line derailleur, iirc, and then, as now, people were weight weenies.

T-Mar

Selective Bero quotes on HyperGlide, mostly from 'The Dancing Chain':

"HyperGlide was a huge improvement. Use one of your favorite old friction-shifting rear derailleurs with a modern 9-speed HyperGlide cassette and the matching chain, and it will think it had died and gone to heaven."

"The result was that the chain flowed from sprocket to sprocket without having to climb on top of the next sprocket then drop down again. HyperGlide sprockets shifted almost instantly with low lever forces."

"hyperGlide made rear indexed shifting easier and riders could feeel the difference."

"My objection as a retro-grouch is that HyperGlide destroyed the ancient and honorable order of "gear freaking." or at least it limited the possibilities."

"In my opinion,the demise of Huret, Simplex, SunTour and others was caused by the inability of the companies to react to Shimano's successful product innovation, In order, these successful product innovations were: first good quality indexed shifting, next good quality mountain bike groups, and finally HyperGlide."

It's pretty hard for me to argue with any of these statements, as I had independently come to the same conclusions based on personal observation and experience.

However, none of these quotes mention (perhaps I just didn't find it) what I consider to be HyperGlide's biggest asset - the ability to shift under heavy load. Experienced cyclists knew to shift gears just before the incline changed or you started to run out of leg power. However, novice cyclists didn't and many times an unexpected incline would find them in too high a gear. Under those circumstances, a derailleur would almost invariably refuse to shift on traditional cogs. The cyclist would have to dismount (assuming they hadn't toppled over ) and walk the remainder of the hill. HyperGlide however, would complete the shift if you could get the crankset through at least 1/2 revolution, though still with audible distress.

I'd also add one additional innovation to his list - STI (aka brifters). This was another significant development , especially for novices, both in terms of convenience and safety. While Shimano's innovations benefited all, the experienced cyclist could get by just fine without them. The greatest benefit was to the novice cyclist. Being a full spectrum manufacturer whose prime goal was was to increase the enjoyment of the average cyclist, Shimano did more to grow sport than the European companies. The market responded to their approach and the company reaped the financial reward.

ctmullins 

Awesome stuff, T-Mar , thank you!

Personally, my Campy 980 is a joy when paired with my IRD Defiant 13-28 (and my Power Ratchet levers).

This technology even let me put a Soma long cage on a Triomphe derailleur and pair it with an IRD Defiant 13-32! Happy days!!

BFisher

Couldn't agree more on that first quote about Hyperglide. Every friction setup I have had, regardless of derailleur type, has been improved substantially by utilizing that cog design. I also like to pair it with KMC chains, like the Z7 and similar.