jamesdak 

Well in the spirit of keeping this fun rollin' along.....

So you're saying that a rider that figured out how to compensate for an imprecise, inadequate shifting system was superior to a rider who shifted a precise, fully adequate one?

smd4

So? That's one of the reasons its products were superior!

SJX426 

C'mon guys, it isn't about size or quantity! It is about knowledge, skills and ability, with adequate funding! Significant innovation is often found with an individual. Rarely are committees become innovative. Teams, of any size can produce innovative ideas but they too are rare. IMHO innovation often is coupled with system thinking skills.

BFisher

Rest and Relaxation department?

You know, it is possible to enjoy all of it.


And if indexed shifting really is a benchmark of technological success, well, that was achieved decades before Shimano.
Sturmey-Archer for the win.

branko_76 

I don't think he is saying one rider was "superior" to another simply because they were more comfortable with Campy...

Mr. 66

I have one that will go into service soon.

jamesdak 

So savvy?? I mean it's pretty much the same thing.

embankmentlb

For professionals it’s all about winning. Winning is about training and putting in ungodly amounts of miles. If you have not put in the miles you will not be at the finish. No amount of fast shifting makes up for that. With Campy, athletes had the confidence to go mile after mile in sun, rain, dirt and muck.

For the rest of us on our local club ride, Suntour works just fine and dandy.

branko_76 

if you meant it, why didn't you say it?

jamesdak 

jamesdak 

Ah, so maybe the answer is here. Racers make up a minuscule amount of all the bike riders. So Suntour IS best overall.

Trakhak

One difference I seem to remember from my days working as a bike mechanic in the '70s was that all the Campy rear derailleurs used solid bushing pins for the four pivot points whereas Suntour used folded-over sheet steel for most of the models, with the result that the Suntour derailleurs got sloppy over time.

The top-of-the-line Suntour derailleurs probably had solid pivot pins, though, since they were such exact copies of the Campy parts, at least for a while in the early days, many of the Suntour and Campy small parts were interchangeable.

jamesdak 

Oh, that's a good little tibit about the parts being interchangeable!

Ironically from my small experience I've seen the opposite. The Victory RD on my 1985ish Colnago Super was a mess when I got it with the most play I've ever seen in any jockey wheels. Where as all the Suntour kits (at least a dozen VX, Sprint Cyclone, Superbe) have all been problem free.

Now in the spirit of putting all my kidding aside, the Victory setup worked like total crap when I got it. But once I tore it down completely, serviced it all, and then rebuilt and reinstalled it the drivetrain worked quite well. For the RD though, it was now running new aftermarket jockey wheels, modern cable and housing, a new chain, and shifting over a modern 8 speed cassette. In this configuration it was precise and accurate with no need to overshift and then adjust back. Still lacked the sexy feel of my Superbe stuff but perfectly fine for use in my opinion. I would expect the higher end stuff to be better and more ALMOST the equal to Superbe. LOL, sorry Campy guys...... I just can't help myself.

embankmentlb

Great point.
I can agree with that!

branko_76 

so savvy??

jamesdak 

So if you're savvy doesn't that make you a superior racer, so same thing?

I mean IDK, which means I must not be savvy or superior. LOL!!!

kunsunoke 

Dad wasn't wrong. Suntour Cyclone and Superbe friction shifting is a miracle of the universe - but then that's also true for just about any friction system using slant parallelogram derailleurs.

Campagnolo Nuovo/Super Record friction shift quality is heavy, clunky and prone to requiring large amounts of over-shifting and trimming. The rear mech uses a simple parallelogram design, with robust pivots, so the accuracy will never be as good, even with corncob freewheels.

Doesn't matter. NR/SR rear mechs will keep working a thousand years from now.

branko_76 

oh, this could go on and on and on.....

Drillium Dude 

When I read some of this stuff, I have to wonder if a lot of Campy detractors have ever shifted a properly-adjusted NR or SR derailleur across a straight block - or even one with a one/two tooth jump between cogs. Because I never have any of the shifting issues called out in this thread and others like it. A user asking a racing derailleur to perform outside its range doesn't make it a bad product, it just means the end user is clueless about its intended use and the restrictions upon it due to that use.

Sloppy shifting? Far from it. Mine are, to a derailleur, precise and solid. I don't cross-chain, I regularly re-tension the cable, re-check the upper and lower limit settings, and keep the pivots lubricated. Not just blowing smoke or blindly following the blind, either; as recently as July of 2020 I had a Suntour-equipped bike and was able to make some direct comparisons. Guess what? Based on performance (both shifting and braking), I went back to Campy. It was a beautiful bike, too, with black/silver anodized derailleurs and near-mint Superbe brakeset, but beauty isn't everything - because it's all about the performance for me. As a result, I went from this:



Back to this. Note the seatpost; a Nitto 65. Why not a Campy NR/SR? Because this is longer (more practical for fit), and the serrated cradles don't slip like those on a couple SR posts I've used:



Sold the parts and chalked up the experience to "interesting, but in the end, not an improvement". YMMV - but I do admit to wondering how much of this "Campy shifts like crap compared to Suntour" is based upon anecdotal rather than empirical data.

DD

seypat

Not in my experience. I'm strictly talking about Campy NR RDs. Give me any other RD please. In fact, if Simplex hadn't made the horrible decision with Delrin, they might still be around. At least their stuff worked........until it broke. The French high end stuff was/is as good as anything else out there.

seypat

On a side note, I've never understood the obsession with having a matching group on a bike. Most of the actual racing bikes I have bought have had a Franken bike component mix. The last one had:
Cinelli stem/bars
Suntour derailleurs
Campy hubs/Regina freewheel/Mavic tubulars
Simplex Retrofriction DT shifters
Sugino crank

If it's for dough, instead of for show, the performance, not the brand is really what matters.

jamesdak 

Hey I'm doing my part to keep 'er goin'. This kind of silly threads are fun because sprinkled in all the fannism (is this a word?) are a few gems of truth.

jamesdak 

Good gawd man, riding a combination like that is just asking for the bike to explode under you, like riding carbon fiber!!!

jamesdak 

Mmmmm, hmmmm...... next thing you'll be telling us is that Delta brakes work.

But seriously, I have to admit I've never ridden the high end Campagnolo stuff from the same period as when Suntour was the best. I really should find something equipped with it and give it a try. If it truly does feel better to use than my beloved Superbe stuff that will make for one orgasmic ride. Dang it, I don't need another bike, but now I'm curious.....

seypat

I think there's a lot of BS, brand snobbery, etc out there in the C & V world. For instance, most of my bikes have friction bar end shifters. I've got them in Simplex, Campy, Suntour and Shimano. The overwhelming favorite in the C & V community is Suntour. I wonder how many of these Suntour bar end fan boys despise Campy RD shifting? They both have the same type of feel. The Campy RDs are described as "heavy, clunky and slow," but the Suntour bar ends are great because of the dependability and "positive feedback." That's BS! Put them together and you have a bicycle that shifts like an 18 wheeler.

I apologize for the rant.