Jerry wrote:
"But even the Titlist would have been an immense inprovement on the Gran Turisimo boat anchor, both in weight and performance. Amazing that Campy for decades could not figure out how to make decent touring equipment or lower cost racing stuff. Their stuff was either top of the line or crap."
If you had been to Italy at the time, the answer to this point would have been immediately visible. Drive for a week in any part of Italy and you would see the following: Italians on nice high-quality racing bikes, Italians on incredibly functional city bikes, foreigners riding overloaded, overequipped 'touring' bikes. Beyond that, no other bikes would be seen. Campagnolo knew their market and followed it well. A market for touring bikes in Italy is and was non-existent.
Jerry also wrote:
"The original Rally was Campy's first good touring derailleur and it wasn't until Victory/Triomphe in the C-Record era that Campy made a good lower cost gruppo. Campy seems to have learned the lesson form the Japanese about covering the entire market price range, as today's Veloce and Mirage (or whatever names they are called this year) are functionally almost identical to Record, give or take one gear on the cassette."
The fact that Campagnolo made no 'touring' derailleur makes perfect sense when you look at the common rides of the collective Italian ridership. City bikes needed no enormous gear range and the racing bikes got by very well with their then 42/26 low gear. As one of my 70 year-old riding friends in Italy rightly pointed out: If you need a smaller gear, you can just as easily get off and walk the bike at the same speed.
As for Campagnolo covering the entire market price range, this is news to me. To me they have never touched the true low end.
Steven Maasland
Moorestown, NJ