Atlas Shrugged

Corrected, I was wrong and being a blowhard.

LesterOfPuppets

Personally 10-sp aluminum Record cranks remind me more of 9-speed Ultegra and 105 cranks than those Suntour cranks.

I happen love the looks of those Record cranks and 6500/5500 also.

DangerousDanR

This is Bike Forums, so we are all acting like blowhards. But I agree with your assessment when applied to my 1982 Peugeot. I ride the Peugeot a few times a year just to remember how much better my newer bikes (all of them) are. And I put Dura Ace 7800 brakes and modern wheels with a 9 speed cluster on the Peugeot, because I like to stop and I like to go.

tomato coupe

It's a beautiful bike, but it reflects an era of even greater homogeneity (in regards to appearance) than today.

drlogik 

We're all blowhards here at times. Yes, I like my vintage look and craftsmanship. That craftsmanship is still alive today in the high end bikes, It's the "look" of the new bikes that doesn't appeal to me. They elicit no emotion in me, except maybe the new Pinarello Dogma F. It has flowing smooth lines, It looks like its moving even when it's standing still, like a track sprinter in the blocks. I might be talked in to one of those if I hit the Powerball.

mschwett 

QFT. remove the nostalgia and it’s hard to make a case for that being aesthetically superior, let alone functionally.

simpler, more standardized, and easier to maintain, yes.

tomato coupe

artichoke

icemilkcoffee 

There is no half click 'trim click' with the Campy FD's. Every click is the same, so you do have to click twice to change up or down. Whereas on Shimano, you click once (full click) to change. Or you can do a half click to do a half step trim.

Shimano has a problem with the glued-together cranks. The solid aluminum ones (ie. 105 and below) are totally fine. And the Hollowtech II design with the hollow axle and external BB is entirely successful. Look at how many other company copy that general idea- only changing the diameters and some minor details. How many other companies copy the Hirth joint thing? Hardly anyone. So that tells you which one is the better solution. In any event, Shimano came up with the external bottom bracket idea, and Campy's UT was just their attempt at copying Shimano but making it fussier. And using wavy washers to take up slack is just a bad idea period.

easyupbug 

I appreciate your opinion. As a retired mechanical engineer I have no romantic attachment to lugged steel but do find today's carbon fiber dull. Hard to clearly state but maybe understood in these very different approaches:
and https://officinabattaglin.com/the-man-of-steel/

Shadco 

So you haven’t ridden Campy have you?

.

Fredo76

Modern cassettes have twelve gears. Modern audio requires 12 speakers. Coincidence?

It's just a matter of time before a 13th is required for both!

seypat

What the upper limit on volume? Is it at 10 or a number about that?

prj71

Sounds like some of you spend more time looking at your bike than riding it. I could care less what the components look like.

Atlas Shrugged

The actuality can be quite different without the editing and a romantic narrative. The reality of the batch-produced Italian frames of the ’70s and ’80s is not noble or romantic. They were bulk produced in standard sizes by production welders and metal workers. It was why any bike shop dealing with these bikes at any scale had the beautiful Campagnolo Tool kit in its resplendent wooden case. It was required to face all the surfaces, chase and clean up the threads, align the dropouts etc. There is nothing special about the skills required to build bicycle frames, especially once batch production has been established. Lastly, just because more manual labour was involved does not correlate with higher quality, better-performing products. Take a video of an old speed shop rebuilding performance motors by hand and compare that with the shop which builds Porsche or BMW M series motors. The speed shop may be more artisanal, but the performance, reliability, and consistency do not even come close.

himespau 

I've long wished I would have picked up a couple of sets of that in Triples. I have 10 speed triples that I like, but I believe the Athena increased the max cog size on the rear form 29T to 32T and there are times when those extra 3T would be nice as I get "more experienced".

Reflector Guy

With a coat of paint and a chrome dork disc the size of a pie plate, that bike would look almost exactly like the old Sears Free Spirit 10-speed I rode for about a decade...

veganbikes

You just made me throw up a little. Clearly you missed the pictures or something. Sears did not ever use Glico tubing with nice lugs. I guess if you so thickly coated it in paint that the tubes and lugs were well hidden under deep layers of paint it might be slightly similar in that yes a lot of bikes have a similar shape throughout the history of bikes.

easyupbug 

Yes, I agree if you can not distinguish or differentiate.

MooneyBloke

Agree. The four arm + hidden bolt aluminum Record crank of the 9s-10s era is a thing of beauty. There used to be a fan site called "Campy Only," and the web master shut it down when the record group started looking more or less like the Shimano stuff. I'll freely state that I think modern four arm cranks are eyesores. They aren't the sort of thing I'd want to see on a Richard Sachs for instance.

Leinster

Is the right answer.

Another key moment was when they got rid of Athena and replaced it with Potenza.

50PlusCycling

I started using Record components in the early 80’s. They worked well, you could order small components if something broke, and the finish was extremely durable. It was quite difficult to scratch or mar the coating on crank arms, brake calipers, and derailleurs.

Recently I have been running Dura Ace 9200 components, and I am surprised how fragile the finish is. The crank set shows more scratches and wear marks in a few months that my old Record parts showed after a few years. Perhaps it’s a marketing strategy to make things look worn more quickly in order to get people to replace or upgrade them more often.

mschwett 

that’s my only complaint about my current DA 9200 gear; the finish is scuffed off completely in two spots on the crank arm. from my shoes. otherwise it still looks fantastic, incredibly reliable and quick and smooth.

stan01

Sweet setup. Is that a vintage Thorens or a newer model? And how is it setup?

prj71

Mmmmm....Yummy.

botty kayer

+2 that was it for me. Paying Campag levels of coin for something that looks like the lid of compost recycling bin. Campag should be functional AND aesthetically pleasing, that looks like it fell out of the ugly tree, smashing its face on every branch on the way down.

And Shimano don't hold any high ground on the looks as they've not made a half decent looking crank for 20 years, since the 7800 era, and its wheelie bin styling with all their modern stuff.