I have wondered if the unlined black Campy housing was "special" less-expensive housing that was offered after the linings had been added to the grey housing. This would be consistent with it's inclusion with Gran Sport brakes. I'm not positive that black was the stock color with Gran Sport, but that's certainly what I recall from the early 80's. By time the black cables were being included with the Triomphe brakes, the linings were present.
I do think that the unlined black housing that I've seen was "genuine Campy" because we receieved some from a reputable vendor at some point in the mid 80's. I recall this because I was surprised at the time to find that this black housing did not have lining, and that the linings from a grey set would not fit into the black housings. More recenty I purchased some grey and black Campy housings from BC, and they were the same unlined type (both the grey and the balck), with the same smaller ID. Otherwise, they seemed just like normal, lined Campy houings, in terms of the color, finish, casing caps, etc.
It's my understanding that Campy cables and housings were made by Cashrighi (sp?). I have seen cables of that brand and it sure looks the same as Campy, but in a huge range of colors, including neon pink and neon green. Yuck!
Tom Dalton Bethlehem, PA USA
oroboyz@aol.com wrote: << I have seen unlined black Campy housing, so I believe it goes back to the 1970's. >>
Tom, having sold that stuff from 1972 on, I could be wrong but I don't think there was anything but gray housing until the very late 1970s and possible even the early 1980s. I think some bike suppliers substituted other colors for their own reasons, either aesthetic or possibly even financial (as Campag housing was incrementally more expensive and they could save a nickel here, a dime there.)
Of course in the shops and ateliers, there was active housing color changing and customizing; in fact, it was almost uncool to use the supplied Campag stuff, even though it was often superior to aftermarket products...
Dale Brown cycles de ORO, Inc. 1410 Mill Street Greensboro, North Carolina 27408 USA 336.274.5959 http://www.cyclesdeoro.com http://www.classicrendezvous.com
-----Original Message----- From: Tom Dalton <tom_s_dalton@yahoo.com> To: mark@sisuhome.com Cc: Classic Rendezvous <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org> Sent: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 10:05 am Subject: [CR]Campy housing colors
From: Mark Buswell wrote:
Hi all.
I recently picked up a set of Campagnolo brake cable housing in grey. Is the grey housing specific to Nuovo Record brake sets or did it also come with Super Record brake sets? What about white?
Mark, allow me to make this as confusing as possible...
The standard housing with Record and Super Record brakes was the grey housing from the time each brakeset was first offered (1968 and 1973, respectively, I think) until 1985 (late 84?), when the script logo calipers came out. The early housings were unlined and the lined housings came later. By the early 80's the linings were definitely present, though they may have come much earlier. (Anybody know???????)
When the C-record group was rolled out circa 1985, the housings were pearl white. This was the standard housing for the early (recalled) Deltas, and the stop-gap Cobaltos. At the tail end of SR production, the brakes were coming through with the "C-record" pearl white housings and the associated, thinner wires. The pearl white housing was standard for all Campy brakesets until 1992, if I recall correctly, then the standard became black.
While the black housing was standard in the off-topic 90's, Campy had been offereing it for a long, long time. I have seen unlined black Campy housing, so I believe it goes back to the 1970's. I have always associated it with Gran Sport brakes, becuase it was only on Gran Sport equipped bike that I normally saw it. As I said, that changed with the intro of the script logo brakes, circa 1985. (The funny thing about the very common script logo brakes is that the SR version was only top-of-the-line for one year before the Cobalto was rolled out. Looking back at the old pics, and speaking generally, the Euro pros used block logos in 1984, script logos in 1985, Cobaltos by mid 1986, and a mix of cobaltos and Deltas in 1987 and later. Also, for all the talk of script vs block, globe vs. shield, etc. on CR, all but the block logo caliper and globe logo hood are off-topic.)
Just to beat this to death, Victory and Triomphe came out around 1984 and included grey and black housing sets, respectively. Finally, the 1983 50th Anniversary brakes came with grey housings.
That's about it for housings... wanna talk cables? Hoods? Pulleys? Brake shoes? Keeping all the spare parts straight is a bit of a fools errand, and I'm the fool. Obviously, a normal Campy-equipped bike would make use of whatever spare parts were available, but I've taken some pains to figure out when changes were made to the service parts so that I can use the "correct" items when possible. That said, how many of the 1.8mm brake wires have you seen lately? They've gone the way of globe logo hoods.
Tom Dalton Bethlehem, PA USA
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