Campagnolo out of the World Tour

[GonaSovereign]

Originally Posted by Veloo

I for one am sad to see[IMG][/IMG] their presence go from the peloton having been brought up on 1980's cycling.
It's not just a competition of riders to me but also of the componentry.

Makes me think of some rumour I heard about the year that David Millar crashed in the Tour prologue and raised hell about having to use crappy Dura Ace and demanded that someone get him reliable Campy for him to ride. No idea how true that was.

The day Millar infamously dropped his chain and lost the prologue...he was on Campagnolo. He ran 1x and had no chain guard.

[vespasianus]

Originally Posted by rain dogs

A lot of overreactions.

IF (cause this news is also premature) they are absent from the world tour for this year, it's less than ideal, but there are many more professional teams than World Tour.

In 2017, 2018 and maybe one more year? I don't remember... Sram only sponsored 1 WorldTour team. But they chose to sponsor other professional teams and not focus on World Tour.

The reality is Shimano owns the World Tour space because their components are so much cheaper when you start thinking of outfitting an entire team. Sure, they have their teams that they pay, but that's only 4? 5? The rest buy their stuff. Maybe Campagnolo finds a fit and swoops in and pays one of those teams if the results/partnership makes sense.

Campagnolo is never going to be able to outbid Shimano or Sram, so that leaves the teams that likely aren't getting a lot of results anyway. Campagnolo can get a lot more feedback/product development working with more small teams for a year or two.

I thought for some reason Shimano was also the company that offered the free wheel service - which I guess would work much better if you were using a Shimano groupset?

[jimoots]

Originally Posted by rain dogs

It's in what I wrote...

How hard would Rotor have to bid to have one? How hard would Sram have had to bid in 2017 to have 2 or 3? Or Campagnolo last year to have 2 or 3? There's obviously more to it than you think or 9,10,11....12? teams wouldn't be paying for their groupsets.

Again... maybe they do, maybe they don't. We're still in 2023.

It is my understanding that a team not sponsored by Shimano does pay for its own parts.

Some of the publicly available financial docs do seem to suggest that teams not sponsored by Shimano/Sram spend more on equipment, although they are just shown as buckets of expenses (i.e. equipment) not a line by line ledger.

[jimoots]

Originally Posted by vespasianus

I thought for some reason Shimano was also the company that offered the free wheel service - which I guess would work much better if you were using a Shimano groupset?

Since 11 speed cassettes were broadly compatible and my understanding is that this continued with 12 speed

[aaronf]

Originally Posted by GonaSovereign

The day Millar infamously dropped his chain and lost the prologue...he was on Campagnolo. He ran 1x and had no chain guard.

And from what I recall he was advised by team mechanics to have some sort of chain guide, specifically a FD locked in position via limit screws, but insisted otherwise.
I also think he later acknowledged his mistake, maybe in his book, but I haven’t read that in quite a few years now.
Lastly, don’t forget this was well before narrow-wide rings were a common thing.

[johnniecakes]

Just seems to me to be part of the decline of the brand. Others are out innovating them and that coupled with more competitors make it tough on luxury or legacy brands. I would expect them close up shop in about a decade or so. A little bit sad since I started on Campagnolo in the 1970's. No shops around me have any Campy parts or bikes with them on. So how does the brand get new riders on their components when you can't find them? As new riders get on the Chinese groups (Sensah, Ltwoo) Shimano and SRAM may see some market share erode also.

[tylercheung]

Would Campy ever go direct to consumer ordering on their website? Making it easier to buy their stuff would go a long way…

[meyatt]

I think it's bad overall for Campy to not be present. It's bad for them from a marketing perspective, it's bad for their own product development, and one less major component manufacturer in the dance means less innovation.

However, it feels like they've been on a downward trend for at least a few years now, particularly with younger audiences. I don't know anyone in their 20s and 30s who rides it, and the design of what they're currently doing is pretty hideous compared to SRAM and Shimano.

In addition to being ubiquitous, Shimano's component design for Dura Ace has always been pretty tasteful. SRAM has played all the right cards from a marketing perspective in terms of sponsorship (Jumbo, Legion) and expanding their reach into gravel while their performance caught up to Shimano.

It just feels like Campy, despite being a historically very innovative company, hasn't found their angle moving forward.

[mstateglfr]

Originally Posted by prototoast

As an economist, I think more competition is good and I hope that we don't fall into a world where only two companies are making top tier groupsets. But also, I have no particular attachment to one of those companies being Campagnolo. If Campagnolo can't maintain their position on the world tour, hopefully someone like Sensah or Ltwoo steps up.

This.
I eagerly await the time when Microshift, ltwoo, or Sensah ride up and manage to snag a world tour team.
The inability to process and ensuing meltdown will be glorious to watch.

[Marvinlungwitz]

.

[BdaGhisallo]

Originally Posted by Marvinlungwitz

Since you are of the 80s era, surely you recall Fignon’s broken BB axle, one of the more memorable equipment failures.

Untitled by Marvin Lungwitz, on Flickr

The story I recall of that incident was that Campy was testing titanium bb axles and quickly found them to be unsafe. All of the prototype axles the Renault team were using were changed out to the standard steel. All of them except Fignon's, because he had taken his bike with him on a training camp and, somehow, his axle was overlooked.

Come the 1982 Blois -Chaville (Paris-Tours) classic, Fignon was off the front and this happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeNU2HM6iOY

[BIKERR23]

Campagnolo simply doesn't have any OEM supply deals in place with brands for either side to be involved

[C40_guy]

Originally Posted by tylercheung

Would Campy ever go direct to consumer ordering on their website? Making it easier to buy their stuff would go a long way…

On the other hand, losing retailer support would make servicing more difficult.

[Ttx1]

Originally Posted by C40_guy

On the other hand, losing retailer support would make servicing more difficult.

I agree that retailer support in the US is weak and weakening.

I also believe that decent shops can readily get parts from distributors, readily access tech manuals, readily watch the same YouTube vids avail to the rest of us, and can earn service revenue on Campy customers if they are so inclined.

However it's not easy to find a mech that "knows Campy" in and out these days...

[Alistair]

Originally Posted by Alan

...entry level OEM groups ... requires the same effort to make a Chorus and up part vs Centaur and down.

Yes and no.

The low end parts are cheaper to make because they use less high-end materials (stamped metal vs carbon, more plastic, etc). The new, cutting-edge engineering largely should happen at the high end, and eventually make its way down the ladder to entry-level. We see this with SRAM and Shimano all the time.

The only reasons that make sense to cut out low-end (or even middle-tier) groups are factory capacity (and no capital to buy more capacity) or marketing (trying to be a niche luxury brand). I get the sense Campy wants to do the second, but I'm not convinced it will work - with parts compatibility always an issue across brands, and most new bike spec'ed with SRAM or Shimano, how would a new buyer even get introduced to Campy?

With Ferrari or Rolex, you find out via movies and celebrities and F1. Campy doesn't have movies or F1 and with no WT teams, they don't have celebrities either.