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interview: Dino Cento of Campagnolo

  • by Lee Rodgers
  • Posted on November 29, 2012December 1, 2012

it’s not the most comfortable of situations these days for Campagnolo. once the foremost supplier…

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8 responses to “interview: Dino Cento of Campagnolo”

  1. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew
    November 29, 2012

    I never thought I’d like Campy. Now, with two years of it after too many struggles with Shimano, I can’t imagine anything else. Shimano, SRAM and Campagnolo all have excellent systems that do exactly what they are supposed to do.

    It really depends on generating demand through marketing and getting the groups on the bikes ridden by winning teams. A cyclist’s job is to attract consumers to products. Campy was caught napping in this regard and, as you pointed out, sought to leverage its tradition as a marketing tool. Consumers have short memories and want whatever the pros are using. Tradition means squat.

    The name that shall not be spoken played an integral role in introducing SRAM to the market. The first generations of SRAM road groups were less refined and had some niggling engineering issues that made them arguably inferior to both Shimano and Campagnolo, but they grabbed some serious marketshare for being light and especially with the endorsements from some of the biggest names in cycling. Winning the imagination of the consumer makes all the difference.

    For me, I prefer Campy for the ergo hoods and easy shifting for my short fingers. I have more shifting options from more places on the bars. Lots of people may also like these attributes, but until Campy starts winning more big races, fewer riders will be willing to look less pro.

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  2. crankpunk Avatar
    crankpunk
    November 30, 2012

    thanks for the comment Andrew, much appreciated! yeah it’s been over 20 years since i rode Campy but i’m keen to give it another go – it was awesome back then. Sram played a smart game, bringing that little bit of rock ‘n roll to a very staid market. having said that though, i’d say most experienced riders i know feel that Shimano is better, day by day. the advent of electronics could be interesting though in this regards, because very quickly you can see/feel the flaws/benefits of different systems. already Shimano’s Di2 looks more compact battery-wise than Campy’s, which is a critical point for many. IF though Campy can nail the shifting and compete on price, could be intriguing to see what happens. what is interesting though is that Campy themselves see their brand as ‘niche’. maybe they have to get past that way of thinking to truly become a major player again…

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  3. Arthur Monty Avatar
    Arthur Monty
    December 2, 2012

    After twenty years on Campy, I’m now switching to Sram, I’m not interested in electronic shifting, or moving to 11 speeds, ten is fine, and I love the crisp shifting of Sram, plus Campy has gotten way too expensive since the dollar/euro exchange is so poor.

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  4. crankpunk Avatar
    crankpunk
    December 2, 2012

    yeah they don’t do themselves many favors on pricing. Sram does have that crispiness to it, though after racing on it for a season i’ve found the shifters can get a little ‘tight’ – RD needs maintaining more than Shimano in my experience too. the Force group is great value for money though i think, better than Ultegra on a few points. personally i prefer the shimano smoothness and have found their FD is the most reliable too. gonna try to get my hands on a Campy set though… be interested to hear what you think of Sram, Arthur, let us know

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    1. Arthur Monty Avatar
      Arthur Monty
      December 3, 2012

      Will let you know what I think after at least a partial season, I was sad to leave Campy, but price did have something to do with it, and I’m not a fan of Shimano, regardless of how well it performs, I also needed a cassette that gave me a better choice of gears, I’ve been riding a 13/28, and found that the 13 wasn’t large enough, and I had a tendency to spin it out on descending , but, need the 28 to climb the cols in southern France where I spend half the year.

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  5. crankpunk Avatar
    crankpunk
    December 3, 2012

    the cols in Southern France eh, sounds like a tough life you have! good luck with the Sram, you should also feel the weight benefit too – the only drawback being you now have no excuses – crank on Arthur!

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    1. Arthur Monty Avatar
      Arthur Monty
      December 4, 2012

      Yeah no place to hide !!, or at least no more excuses !
      Art

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  6. zhwang Avatar
    zhwang
    March 22, 2013

    I think a major problem with Campagnolo is the downgrading of their lower end groupsets and thinking only of putting more and more carbon fibre or titanium bits on their higher groupsets.

    Their Veloce groupset has lost more and more features since 2008-9 that were standard before that – the move to PowerTorque cranks (which are a nightmare for a home mechanic compared to any other external cup BB or square taper BB, just google the park tool tutorial to see), the loss of UltraShift – the thumbshift button on anything below a Chorus groupset only lets you shift to smaller cog one at a time, rather like the mechanical Shimano small shift paddle.

    Compare this to a 2010 Veloce where you could upshift 5 cogs at a time with one full thumb shifter press. Again, compare this to a 2002 Veloce groupset which you could shift 8-9 cogs; the entire range of the cassette, with one full press of the shifter. Contrast this to Shimano/Sram where their mechanical groupsets are all functionally identical across their range.

    Whereas Shimano and SRAM are allowing trickle-down technology to occur with their groups, Campagnolo are actively crippling and downgrading their lower end groupsets. Especially for the meat of the market – the lower end – their prices for components are far too high. Veloce/Centaur rear derailleurs, cassettes and cranksets are usually twice the price of equivalent Tiagra/105/Apex/Rival components.

    Centaur/Athena have all of the functional disadvantages associated with Veloce, except with the option of carbon fibre (their carbon fibre shifters are heavier than their alloy ones FYI). Athena mechanical has the additional disadvantage of needing a €130 Chorus-11 cassette. Ultegra and Force cassettes are less than half this price.

    Unless you go big (Chorus-11 or Athena-11 EPS or higher) there’s no point as you’re just buying functionally and purposefully crippled gear with expensive replacement parts. While I understand they need to diversify and separate their product lines, downgrading functionality is a really dirty move that they cant really justify by any means. I can easily see why Campagnolo is looked at as a snobby groupset; the company isn’t even trying to be competitive in anything except the high end market of Chorus or higher, and at that it’s doing a bad job.

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