Combing my hair….

Freewheel and cassette tools through the ages

I’m starting to wonder if Campagnolo have lost the plot. I should declare an interest. I am a lifelong fan – well so far anyway.

William Morris said: have nothing in your house you know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. A Campag equipped bike seem to tick both boxes. Twenty years ago I found I could afford a bike in Columbus SLX tubing with a full Campag Chorus groupset. Actually I couldn’t really afford it, but that’s another story. I got it anyway and it was a thing of beauty. The bike has now gone, rust never sleeps. But many of the Chorus parts were still in beautiful condition and made me quite a few quid on eBay. 18 months ago I bought a bike with the 2008 Chorus group. Still beautiful, still worked beautifully. However, it didn’t take long to see that some changes in the equipment market over the period are not necessarily for the better.

Firstly, as anyone who puts the miles in knows, taking care of and replacing the chain regularly is essential to protect the rest of the drivetrain. The Campag ten speed chain needs a special chain link extractor. List price £103. Ker-ching. Second, the original Chorus bottom bracket was effectively fit and forget – certainly I put thousands of miles in before it needed new bearings. The modern Ultra Toque bottom bracket unit may be lighter but certainly wasn’t as well weatherproofed and lasted less than one full season. I was rapidly gaining the impression that the needs of the professional rider was driving everything and the keen amateur was just expected to go with kit which was difficult to service and lacked the earlier robustness.

However the best was yet to come. In a move which was redolent of software industry practice, the 2009 innovation was 11 speeds. A narrower chain, a new chain tool (list price an even more eye watering £137) and no backwards compatibility. I have met no one who wanted this innovation. It might be age, maybe if I hung out with young roadies I would get a different impression, but I rather doubt it.

What Campag have now done, according to their director for the French market Christophe Soenen quoted in Le Cycle, is to stop production of their mid-range 10 speed chains – no Chorus, no Centaur – just a choice between the high end Record and the entry level Veloce. They’ve stopped making the 10 speed Chorus cassette, for the moment they have retained Centaur cassettes – which is good news given a Record 10 speed cassette will set you back two hundred quid.

Oh dear, maybe it is time to consider the rather less beautiful alternatives. That’s me in the corner, losing my religion.