Atlas Shrugged

Campagnolo almost killed the premium bicycle industry by their stagnation in the 70’s and 80’s. Yes they built a premium product when compare to the European manufacturers at the time however there was no innovation or product improvement for decades. Japanese top tier components were better right out of the gate and caused renewed interest and demand for product.

Pars 

I get your drift, but not sure I would completely agree with you. The first gen DuraAce sucked compared to Campy. And remember that Campy was always a really small company compared to Shimano, who was an industrial giant. It also killed me that the design team(s) at Shimano could not agree on simple things like a common brake lever/hoods, and how much in the Shimano world wasn't really rebuildable. One of my favorite quotes from back in the day re: Campy (NR/SR stuff) was that it "has its idiosyncrasies, but it works the same way, every time. And it doesn't break." Loose quote but you get the gist of it.

repechage

you are not old enough. The French with the Spidel syndicate had improved product but not well accepted. Shimano was not really taken seriously until the 7400 series DuraAce. The EX group had some good ideas but not good enough. Campagnolo from the “Nuovo Record” group innovated at a glacial pace. The last rear mech had more capacity, a better primary spring but very evolutionary geometry.
the Mavic group puzzles in there too.

georges1

Well according to this link Tour de France bikes 2023: who’s riding what? I quote "As in previous years, Shimano dominates the teams’ drivetrain choices, with just three teams on SRAM (Jumbo-Visma, Movistar, Lidl-Trek) and one (AG2R-Citroën) on Campagnolo – one down on 2022 with the defection of UAE Team Emirates to Shimano at the beginning of 2023." Shimano is obviously far more reliable and less finicky than Campagnolo. Back in the 70's 80's 90's when Campagnolo representing half of the professionnal peloton was held in very high regards but they didn't invent what Shimano did. SIS, Dual Pivot Braking , SPD and hollow tech technology were Shimano patents and creations. When Shimano started to make its Dura Ace wheels, they made a very serious impact in the bike world due to their absolute reliability and premium quality. Older campy wheels like the Zonda, Vento, Shamal , Bora, Shamal despite being very nice aesthetically are fragile compared to Mavic, Shimano, Zipp, Hed or DT. The price tag on Campagnolo spare parts is very heavy and for vintage stuff like C record, you need to have a fat wallet.

georges1

The Dura Ace 7410 allowed Gianni Bugno to win his first UCI World Championship as well as allowed to Lance Armstrong to win his first UCI World Championship as well and allowed Festina, Rabobank, Mapei, MG Technogym and Polti to rack up several victories during the grand tours or Liège Bastogne Liège or Paris Nice races. Dura Ace 7410 was introduced in 1991, it featured Dual Pivot Braking SPD 7410, ST 7410, even a rare stem. The quality of Dura Ace 7410 is appreciated still today and beats Campagnolo Record for the quality/price ratio cost as well as shifting smoothness by a wide margin.

abdon 

Nah, Campagnolo began losing it way before that, and largely out of their own arrogance. As far back as the mid 70's they knew they needed to go after the mass market, but honestly it looks like they felt it was beneath them. so they created the perfect blend of garbage to show their contempt and priced higher than the oh so much better Japanese offerings. In 1976 or thereof enter the Nuovo Valentino:


And to think that this little gem coexisted with the Nuovo Record.

Then there was the whole long cage derailleur fiasco in which they once again took the top spot as the undisputed deliverer of contempt for anything not race related. Sure, we'll make you a touring derailleur. It will be a bad copy of the Shimano Crane, it will be 3 times the price, and it will break 3 times as fast. You are welcome.

They niche themselves into irrelevance. Today the cycling industry size is around $101.92 billion. Campagnolo market share of that is $142 million, or 0.139%.Shimano on the other hand has a 50% market share in all parts, and 70% of the high end market.

El Chaba

Nothing qualifies somebody for entry into the elite club of amateur cycling industry/equipment history critics as much as harsh criticism of Campagnolo. If one wants to enter the top level of the club, one only need to predict the imminent demise of the company for lack of sales. Very often, the criticism for Campagnolo is accompanied by gushing praise for SunTour. If ever there was an overrated company, that was it. They had a good invention….one….the slant parallelogram derailleur. The vast majority of their group sets was comprised of components badge engineered from other makers within the Japanese component industry. In the day, SunTour components were almost always selected for one reason…low price. Relative to their manufactured numbers they are rare today, mostly because they were made with very soft alloys that did not hold up. Broken from derailleur clamps, broken and stripped cable anchors, etc. were all the hallmarks. In the end, the market made its choice and Campagnolo survives today and is doing quite well, and SunTour went the way of the Corsair.

Kabuki12

I know nothing about the modern components . I’m stuck in the seventies and my seventies gear is working just fine. Whether it is the Campagnolo NR / SR stuff or the wonderful SunTour Cyclone or Superbe stuff , it just works. Fortunately they made boat loads of gear back then and my bikes are all working as good as they ever have , some for over 50 years. It’s pretty hard to argue that the longevity exceeded most expectations. I have around 15 bikes , most are Campagnolo equipped and period correct. The only failure in my humble 50 years of riding is a Nuovo GS rear derailleur that had a cage loosen and I was able to repair it easily. Campagnolo or Shimano makes no money on me! One of my riding friends has a very nice Specialized carbon bike that he paid more for than I have in my entire fleet. We both live up on a hill and when we leave for a ride , both coasting down hill , my bike rolls past him and he says” there goes those Campy bearings!” We are the same weight , he may be 10lbs heavier ,I don’t really know , but my old HF Record hubs roll very nicely!

Road Fan

One aspect of Campy's market has been the lower-level bike. Italy made millions of them (Base Atala, Fiorelli, and many other brands) based mainly on Italian components. Peugeot did similarly, French-made bikes with mild-steel frames, using lower-level French components. Schwinn was on the same bandwagon (but sourcing many parts from French sources), Trek (which had very good frames which mainly differed in tubing, but sourced components from all over the world, sometimes full Dura-Ace and Campy Record equipments. As well Raleigh had mild-steel lines of road-bike-shaped cycles, in many cases amazing machines. Why should you say Campy was losing it when they may have just seen a 1950's market niche which could greatly help their bottom line even if they only captured 10% of the whole post-WW2 European bike parts market. Kudos for agility to be able to grow that production line while maintaining development and sales in the Tour/Giro racer and aspirant sectors. Sounds to me like a company with a staff too busy to become arrogant!

Did Shimano come out with a Chorus analog which delivered sometimes higher quality than Record, and nearly always better price/performance value? Early '80s Ultegra was in the right price point, but not in the same ballpark in quality and function. S and C were just very different companies!

smd4

You do realize that Chorus came out in response to Shimano, and not the other way around?

abdon 

They were so busy that they turned that 10% into 0.139%, and managed to lose dominance in the high end of the market that they used to own. Does that sounds like a success story to you?

repechage

that Nuovo Valentino existed for the Italian city bike market. Was not seen in the USA much.
in the middle-ish 1970’s arrived the Nuovo Gran Sport- G.S. In the USA probably most often seen on the Raleigh Competition G.S.

Canpagnolo reduced the style of it where they did not have to. The finish of the steel parts also. Probably an error. Good styling should not be tossed just to present a price point appearance.

abdon 

One of the reasons the Japanese are the Europeans for lunch was because most of them would truly gimp their lower tier offerings. Unnecessarily so. Take vintage cameras; little things that would cost next to nothing to put on a less expensive camera was not because those were 'features' you would have on an expensive camera, and the logic went that people would not pay top coin for the better one if the cheap one would do. Well the Japanese flip that on its head and heaped features and functionality with wanton abandon. Heck to this day; whatever technological breakthroughs come out in the latest Dura Ace group set will be the standard features of the next version Ultegra.

Take another hard look at that Nuovo Valentino. It was ugly, it was cheaply built, and it was still more expensive than the better performing Shimano or Suntour of the era.

Robvolz 

Anyway, I thought these pedals were cute with the “Italian Inspired” engraved on them.

Carry on.

smd4

Better than "Japanese Inspired," I guess.

EDIT: Actually, maybe Campy should have stamped that on its slant-parallelogram derailleurs, LOL!! They might have received more business!

SJX426 

I am of the opinion that the equipment is a small percentage of the success of professional rider. not enough to support the differences between 1st and second place. Of course, this s qualified by assuming the same level of functionality and reliability.

gugie 

Our own @Portlandjim was right in the middle of this, visiting both Campagnolo and Shimano when he was working for Specialized, First gen Dura Ace did suck, but the Japanese have a Kaizen philosphy, and eventually surpassed Campy (sorry @Choke). I've heard the story first hand along with others:


When Jim Merz starts the story with "When I was at Tulio's wake..." you shut up, lean forward, and listen.

As for Campy NR/SR never breaking, rear axles and drive side crank arms were definite weak points. As a mechanical engineer, I'd consider both of these as design flaws.

It does irk me that while Campy components could be readily rebuilt (and many bike shops had that cute little Campy spare parts cabinets), Shimano never seemed to want to support that, and pushed the upgrade every few years mantra.

rccardr 

An interesting discussion, for sure.
Except Dura Ace first gen (or at least 7100, which I consider first gen as the RD did not say ‘Crane’) most assuredly did not suck when compared to similar Campagnolo offerings of the period. I’ve owned and ridden a bunch of both and still ride the DA 7100. They both had their quirks, but if one sucked, so did the other.
Compared with anything Shimano made after 1985, though…yeah, not as good.

abdon 

gugie , I have to admit that I have a very biased view on the subject because my niche is not racing components. I think the culture that hindered campy did so across the entire spectrum but outside of racing those failings were amplified and more obvious.

Heck for a while even tiny suntour was eating their lunch and for twenty years all campy did was to try to convince everybody that wasn't so.

repechage

the pushing for more rear cogs did not help, incremental accumulation of insolent design perhaps. Stay with 120mm spacing and bending was much less frequent.
‘Campagnolo did finally address the drive side crank design issues, on the cusp of Corsa Record. A bit late.
‘the shop I worked for had an Equipto industrial drawer cabinet with Three! Drawers devoted to Campagnolo. Rare was the repair that required an urgent order.
for the chronic axle benders we guided them to Phil Wood.

Shimano did try to answer the small parts problem with an order from Shimano direct system for spare parts 1975-76, the minimum qty per part was often silly. 25 pr of EX brake and pad holder pairs?
we just fit Campagnolo pads and holders.
lead times were poor too, most had to come by air from Japan. Shimano did bury that cost but cumbersome. Prepaid or COD.

Germany_chris

Does anyone on this thread know how Campagnolo measures success?

I didn't grow up in the era of campy domination, I grew up with the domination of mountain bikes which were pretty much all Shimano all the time, I just don't have the fond memories of campy that many of the oldsters do.

As my username implies I'm not in the states, I moved to Germany in 2005 and it was nearly impossible to find a bike that had campy in a normal bike shop, in 2012 I raced CX for a shop in Stuttgart which really just served the high end because they were a Colnago dealer they had some campy but they were somewhat unique in that.

Now if I go to FahrradXXL a fairly large German chain bike shop I can buy an in stock road or gravel bike with campy off the sales floor, wile Ekar will never be as common as SRAM and Shimano it's available at normal shops (around me) at a competitive price.

IMHO gravel is mountain bike circa 1988 and campy has a place in that market, the pro peloton is only one place to measure success.
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In Germany_chris' world Campagnolo has the best hood shape, SRAM has the best shifting mechanism, and Shimano is the most available. I'm going to build a new bike in the next couple months and that bike will most likely be shifted by SRAM because when push comes to shove I trust SRAM more then the other two.

Andy_K 

If Campy didn't break, one wonders why the cabinet of small parts was necessary.

On the other hand, Shimano makes me crazy. They have a wonderful archive of online documents detailing every part of their components, but even with recent stuff those parts are generally unobtainable. I once broke a dust cap on a Shimano hub and went to my LBS to try to get a replacement. I had the exact Shimano part number and a link to the exploded view on Shimano's website, but the best the LBS was able to do was rummage through a drawer looking for something else that might have been compatible. Meanwhile, I'm only in the past couple of years having trouble sourcing the parts to rebuild Campy shifters that were made 20 years ago -- and I was able to find a source for those, it just took more than five minutes of looking, which hadn't been true a couple of years ago.

Manny66 

I havent Laughed this hard all week !!

gugie 

Profits?

georges1

The ultegra 600 tricolor provided far better quality price than the campy chorus on all levels, campy didn't invent indexed shifting nor dual pivot braking or spd pedals.Chorus in the 90's was less qualitative than c record , you will need to wait 1993-1994 to be more or less at the same level of quality than Record but price wise Campy was always very expensive if not over expensive.