Six jours

Somebody got lost on the way to the FG/SS forum...

Antipodes

Yes, old Campy stuff is like jewellery: It looks great, but that's where it stops. Admittedly, the hubs are superior and the brakes work well, but the shifting is very questionable.

I beg to differ. I changed the crappy Triomphe r. derailleur out for a mid-'80s Superbe Pro on my Marinoni a while back, and the difference, even with the original Sachs chain and Maillard freewheel, is like night and day. Even the basic, older, lower end stuff I have had good experiences with. I once had a Nishiki with Suntour Power Ratchets downtube shifters mated to 1st gen. Cyclone derailleurs and even that shifted like butter. The Campy NR or SR, which were the jewels in Campy's racing crown, cannot come close. The build quality is very good and it looks nice, that's all.
Why Campy stubbornly held onto their anachronisms for so long is beyond me.

G piny parnas

blah, blah, blah--- campi is the best!!!!!!!!-- don't wake me--- Im dreaming NOt of the suntour equiped
colnago--- swheeesh

SurferRosa

No contest.



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jamesdak 

You are so right, Suntour is SO MUCH BETTER!

SJX426 

Having lived through the last 60+ years, I can remember the negative association with Japanese products as a child.
What I didn't know was the impact of Juran and Deming on the Japanese manufacturing industry. Custom hand built Japanese quality has been around for a long time, centuries. Deming taught them how to implement quality into their manufacturing process.
What is not common knowledge is that it was Ford that rejected Demings offer to improve quality. He went to where someone would listen, hence the Toyota reputation for quality.

I am sure the quality mindset spread throughout the industrial domain in Japan, including the bicycle industry.

I am a supporter of both Suntour Superbe Pro and the Campagnolo products. More bikes with the later then the former. The Superbe Pro group is going on the Trek 760, which I think is a good pairing for both, which are often not seen as significant as the De Rosa and Campagnolo.

I number of comments are right on along with some that are a result of limited experience. As for me I fall more into the limited experience crowd, but I know what I have and its limitations including bad configurations that don't work well with an understanding why. One of the benefits of being blessed with slightly above average mechanical aptitude enhanced with education and practical first-hand experience. Oh and being very humble.

Mr. 66

Getting down to the dirt. I have a blender of Suntour with Campy hubs for the 716. The late Suntour MTB is great stuff to use for touring. Here I am getting down and dirty with the Trek on a moderate MTB downhill run.


I admit my downhill run, I caught air a few times and had to dismount for the biggest ramps. With the skinny tires it was difficult to stay on course. Lol Campasuntolo...

tkamd73 

Was gonna also heap on the old Campy derailleurs, but after swapping out the Regina freewheel and chain for newer Shimano one, and modern chain, the old Campy NR shifts quite nicely. Dare I say as well as my Cyclone II? Way better looking regardless.
Tim

El Chaba

The SunTour rear derailleurs shifted very well….or maybe I should state that they were more refined in their shifting. For front shifting, the advantage was to Campagnolo. The differences were much smaller when dealing with racing ratios. A Campagnolo Super Record rear would just dance across a straight block or even something like a 13-21. The differences were more noticeable with something like a 13-26. One difference between the two-and it is an important one in racing- was the ease of a rear wheel change in the event of a flat, etc. The SunTour rear derailleurs had so much chain wrap that they were a PITA in a quick wheel change situation. Forget about a smooth shift, that is the sort of thing that may prevent you from rejoining the peloton. Of course, nobody is racing any of this stuff today, but in its day that was a major distinction. Another hit on the SunTour was that they seemed to be made of very soft metal….I think that has played a major part as to why some SunTour models are rather rare today compared to their original numbers.

jamesdak 

?? I've yet to have any DT shifting setup that can match my Suntour Superbe stuff. Very smooth and very precise, not sure what you're trying to say with the comment above "forget about a smooth shift". That's the beauty of the three Superbe setups I'm running right now, smooth spot on shifting.

Fredo76

In 1976, my Paramount had been stolen, and I built up the new racing frame I'd made with maximum frugality. If a part was both lighter than Campy, and cheaper than Campy, I chose it instead of Campy. Some replacements worked great, including the then-new Suntour Cyclone derailleurs, which I still have. Others, like the Avocet seatpost, were OK, but nothing special. It took me a long time to appreciate how bad my Galli Ti brakes really were. Nice drillium levers, but very ineffective stoppers.

If anyone's Campagnolo Nuovo Record derailleur ever shifted sloppily, it was worn out or adjusted wrong. It happens.

embankmentlb

70s & early 80s Campy was designed for ruggedness and reliably over anything else.
It was built in a time where bike shops were not always available and mail ordering parts took months. Serious riders and racers could not be delayed or stranded waiting on a fix for a part that failed.
Campy had a reputation for doing this job very well. Others did not. Was this reputation deserved? I think so. Where components by Suntour and Shimano not as durable? Maybe not. Maybe so. It was a perceived risk real or not. As we crept into the 80s equipment was easier to come by so the extreme reliability factor slowly became overshadowed by outright performance.
I think that is why the very top of the sport was much slower to adopt to Asian designs. Euro pros had much more to lose & the gamble was to big.

steine13

I was into bicycling in the late 80s, but then school and life got in the way... so on a visit back to my LBS back home where incidentally I'd bought a leftover Moser in '89, with sew-ups and a Triomphe groupset... I asked one of the sales guys, I've been out of bikes for a bit, I know a lot of it is Japanese now but what about Campagnolo?

He thought for a moment, and then summed it up "Im Gegensatz zu früher -- es schaltet, und es bremst!" -- "As opposed to the old days -- it shifts and it brakes."

And that about sums it up, and matches my Triomphe experience. Campy gear was always beautiful and high quality, but Shimano absolutely trounced them in functionality, so they had to get their act together, and as far as I know, they did.

smd4

Having ridden Dura Ace since 1986, I never had to wade in to this debate...All this fighting for second and third place.

SJX426 

Having used 7400 on my Pinarello for over 3500 miles and then switching to Racing T for the triple, I can say there really isn't much difference in performance except the ease of rebuilding the Ergos was easy. Switched from 8 speed to 9 for the Racing T. Ran it for a while with Wheel Industry spacers on the DA 8v without a problem before 100% switch. Cone for the DS DA rear hub is unobtainium.
Can't get the Shimano A RD to shift well on the wifes bike.

jamesdak 

Hmmm, that's about the same time Suntour's patent for their slant parallelogram ran out and Shimano and Campagnolo were able to copy the design and finally become competitive with Suntour. Just sayin'...

79pmooney

1977, I raced a '76 Fuji Pro equipped with SunTour, Sugino and Gran Compe. There was one club/team in the area sponsored by Fuji. They raced the brand new Superbe equipped Pros. Almost the entire rest of the scene was Campy. We rather enjoyed the fact that with no effort at the setup and maintenance end, we had better shifting by a lot and often gained feet to a few yards on our competitors shifting on difficult climbs. Yes, the Campy FDs were better but with a 54-42, the shifting up front with the Cyclone was so good, nobody cared.

The brakes - I had to remember that I had a lot more stopping power than everybody behind me with my Gran Compes vs their NRs and to use them lightly. (After my racing days, a friend gave me his low mileage NRs. After many years of sitting in a box, they went on a racing frame I was using as a year 'round commuter. Downhill stops in the rain were scary! The Gran Compes weren't great rain brakes but I never feared I could not stop.)

Race wheel changes were faster with the NRs. Gotta give them that. (I just saw footage from American Flyer of the Canadian actress (somebody Rae?) doing a 16 second support van door to pushing off rear wheel change!) Aside - funny that wheel changes, a fact of road racing, were much faster 40-50 years ago than now! An actress 40 years ago could humble the best mechanic now.

smd4

I think you mean Suntour had a patent for a design that they had no understanding could be used for index shifting, lost the patent, were two years behind with good indexing and never were competitive again? You mean that Suntour? Just sayin.'

jamesdak 

LOL, touché

Miele Man

Hence the saying, "Campagnolo wears in whilst the others wear out".

Cheers

Miele Man

Shimano's R&R department was a LOT bigger that Suntour's was.

Cheers

Miele Man

That was Rae Dong Chong and she'd done a number of wheel change takes before getting that final one done for the film. Btw, that final wheel change was 10 seconds from the time she grabbed the bike to the time she pushed the bike and rider.

Cheers

Miele Man

Is you rear derailleur the triple pulley one? I like those.

Cheers

Miele Man

I have a set of Campagnolo Mirage 9-speed shifters circa 2001. I bought them because I was told t hat by simply switching a couple of inner parts, that I could convert them to either 8-speed or to 10-speed.

I don't know if the older 8-speed shifters could have that done to them.

Cheers

El Chaba

One thing that can’t be ignored in this discussion is technique. If the rider just moves the shift lever in one direction or the other to change gears and stops moving the lever when the shift is complete, rear derailleurs like the SunTour do a better job as they complete the shift earlier in the movement. Savvy riders with derailleurs like a Camp Nuovo or Super Record learned that if you made a quick motion with the lever to overshift a bit and pull back that the derailleur would make a very clean and fast shift. You learn very quickly how much motion is needed….It is similar to cracking a whip but less exaggerated. In racing it was pretty important to master the skill. Of course some people just couldn’t get the technique down and for them there was SunTour and Shimano…..