Re: [CR]What was the first year..?

(Example: Production Builders:Frejus)

Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 17:00:37 -0800
Subject: Re: [CR]What was the first year..?
To: Donald Gillies <gillies@cs.ubc.ca>
From: "Brandon Ives" <brandon@ivycycles.com>
In-Reply-To: <200503050021.QAA11063@cascade.cs.ubc.ca>
cc: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org

On Friday, Mar 4, 2005, at 16:21 US/Pacific, Donald Gillies wrote:
> e.g. oiler covers,

These existed on bikes built in the 1890s. A spring clip over an oil port was nothing new when Tullio and lads started using it.
> wingnuts on shifters, micro adjust seatposts (i think),

Didn't Simplex beat Campy to both of these?
> I believe some innovations to the gransport derailleurs

I must agree here though as they were the first with a widely used reliable drop-parallelogram derailieur. Too bad they never thought of slanting it as SunTour did 20-odd years later.
> Campy's problem in the 70's and 80's might have been that they did not
> have a culture of innovation. It was "Tullio or the Highway" perhaps.

Tullio was an amazing promoter and I believe put too much faith into 'tried and true' and started to believe his own hype. When he died they just kept going as Tullio would have wished. Even into the late 80s, maybe even early 90s, Campy said that index shifting wasn't going to go anywhere. I think maybe it could also have been the leadership in Vicenza being too proud to look at others designs in a complementary fashion.
> After Shimano had figured out the rear indexed
> Dura Ace derailleur, according to Berto, campy was forced to simply
> copy all the good ideas from Dura Ace and put them in Record mechs.

(Sorry Dale I'm going to slip outside of the timeline here) I remember in '86 getting a used Bianchi Brava which Shimano 105 and being blown away. I had always dreamed about a full Record Bianchi, but after one ride on this built in Japan Bianchi I was convinced 'click-shifting' was the future. Jump forward about 15 years and Campy created the first 10 speed rear cogset. After building up a few of those drivetrains I knew Campagnolo had finally figure out what Shimano started. It reminds me of the Darth Vader quote from the first movie (or is it the third movie) "When I left you I was but the learner, but now I am the master." enjoy, Brandon"monkeyman"Ives off to master a fish taco in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho