Snipit:"I had the perception that the Campagnolo brakes were also very
slow to enter the US market. They were hard to get rarities in 1972. Does anyone recall sets for sale earlier in the US or even as a catolog option."
Joe,
I started riding in 1955 and the only brakes available were side pull Universal and Weinmann. The Swiss brakes were the better of the two brands. Then, all of a sudden, the cycling world went center pull crazy about 1960-61, and it seemed that Mafac was the only brake one could get. I hated the
new brake fad\u2013they simply didn't work as well. Also, all the fittings
on the Mafac brakes were metric. So if one didn't have their little (wonderful) tool kit, your only option was to use a small adjustable wrench that soon turned
hex nuts round.
I faithfully read the Tour copy of "Le Miroir du Sports" (as best I could) every fall. (It didn't arrive until September at most foreign newspaper stands.) That is how is first discovered that Campagnolo made
side pull brakes in 1968 by looking at the pictures. There was also a review in the British weekly "Cycling & Mopeds." I asked a local bike shop here in NYC that imported Frejus bicycles to get me a pair of the
new brakes. The owner, Tom Avenia, was a cycling buddy and I had them by the spring of 1969, and so did every other "serious" cyclist I knew.
In those days that would be enough to count on your fingers and toes.
Michael Allison
New York, NY