An Open Letter to Campagnol - Embrocation Cycling Journal

[metanoize]

Embrocation Cycling Journal: An Open Letter to Campagnolo

[anthonymaietta]

Awesome.

[henry g.]

Good advice. I hope they are listening.

[zetroc]

I'd like to add "please bring back top pull front derailleurs!"

[SteveP]

yes and no

sram has the marketing budget and uses it...
but the campy products are manufactured to much higher standards...
they will and do last a lot longer... and im not a crazy campyphile.

you can get the stuff discounted to teams or the stuff that lasts a long time.
you pick.

[Archibald]

yes and no

sram has the marketing budget and uses it...
but the campy products are manufactured to much higher standards...
they will and do last a lot longer... and im not a crazy campyphile.

you can get the stuff discounted to teams or the stuff that lasts a long time.
you pick.

Word.

That "letter" is ridiculous. If SRAM is the new standard, that's a pretty low bar. Maybe Campagnolo should have all their products made in Taiwan and China and spend all the extra money on more glossy full page magazine ads for the ADD crowd. While we're at it, what happened to SRAM's involvement and support of MTB racing? It's nowhere. You want race support and you'd better be running Shimano because they're the only ones who show up every weekend.

[Scott G.]

I don't think the guy is serious, it's a spoof.

[962]

I don't think it's a spoof (spoof of what?) though it is written in a humorous style.

But I didn't care about any of that except for how the stuff gets into my hands here in the US, or doesn't, as the case may be.

[Chris]

I don't see a lot of people trying to pawn off a trade of their six month old campy or shimano in trade for some red and some coin. On the other hand...

[caleb]

yes and no

sram has the marketing budget and uses it...
but the campy products are manufactured to much higher standards...
they will and do last a lot longer... and im not a crazy campyphile.

you can get the stuff discounted to teams or the stuff that lasts a long time.
you pick.

Disposable is the new standard in durable goods.

[Fourflys]

I wonder if the new Luxemberg team will be running SRAM? ;)

great point about the price in the US... BUT, I still like it TONS better than SRAM although I could either way with Shimano vs. Campy... guess I just like the ability to go down the cassette 3 gears at a time, if just for fun if nothing else...

[nobrakes]

I'm riding 5 year-old record 10 speed on 2 of my bikes, and the stuff seems to be shifting better now than it did when new. I'm not to happy with the way the pedal-socket screwed itself out of my record compact crank arm, but other than that, it's been trouble-free. I liked what the writer said, and I think Campy is not doing what it did when I was racing, which was the mentioned race support and involvement. It's a Shimano thing, now, with Sram on it's tail (in road or cross, anyway).
11 speed is an answer to a question nobody asked. I was expecting the electric gruppo, on the tail of Di2. They had a satisfactory prototype, that the pro riders really liked, but they balked, and Shimano is now the standard in that arena, all alone. And I want it. I don't want to 'upgrade' to 11 speed, no matter how good it is, because I have lots of 10 speed cassettes, and a good source for 10 speed expendibles, like chains, so why bother? Electric shifting would be a neat upgrade for me, and I'm really rooting for Campy to market theirs, even if it might not work like Di2. I do hold things made in Italy dear to my heart.

[slowtwitch]

Crikey, last thing Campy needs to do is listen to that guy.

Not so sure the threaded inner ring is a great idea......


st

[EDS]

yes and no

sram has the marketing budget and uses it...
but the campy products are manufactured to much higher standards...
they will and do last a lot longer... and im not a crazy campyphile.

you can get the stuff discounted to teams or the stuff that lasts a long time.
you pick.

I haven't been riding long enough to wear out a group yet, so I don't have personal experience with this, but what is an acceptable amount of mileage before a gruppo meets its maker (obviously chain, cables and cassette are wear items that need to be replaced, but everything else - except for maybe chain rings)? 25,000 miles? 50,000 miles? more?

[jerk]

i love the author but that letter is fucking stupid. i have sram force on my bike and its fine- but it is not ultegra or even athena level stuff by any standard. fortunately, you don't spend that much time shifting when you are riding a bike which is why i don't give a shit what kind of parts are on my bike as long as the gearing is right, the cranks are the right length and the q-factor is narrow. how the derailleurs actually move and how the shifters operate doesn't matter.

[t-hoe]

gee I dunno. I think the letter is pretty fair. I've worked on all of the big three. Campy aint what it use to be either...I've been thrashing some SRAM force for three cross seasons. I've rebuilt the front shifters twice ( nasty crash, ubber mud) and didn't need a 2nd pair of hands to do it!
Sure Campy may last longer, but twice as long? at twice the price?
I myself have 5 sets of wheels just for cross and can actually afford to put cassettes on each and every one!

[henry g.]

I didn't think he was suggesting that the SRAM product was better: just that their marketing, relations to US vendors and racers was better. I didn't get any inference that Campy quality was not #1, just that their US sales and distribution was not.

[e-RICHIE]

I didn't get any inference that Campy quality was not #1, just that their US sales and distribution was not.

agreed atmo.
they took the pipe when storino was fired.
that was a definite line in the sand.

[bellman]

Crikey, last thing Campy needs to do is listen to that guy.

Not so sure the threaded inner ring is a great idea......


st

It's got to be better than the $25 each sex bolt combo forthe record crankset that they got going now........................

[Saab2000]

It's got to be better than the $25 each sex bolt combo forthe record crankset that they got going now........................

Wait until somebody strips out the threads on the chainring and it costs $200 for a new ring.