Originally posted by Giz
Why the hell does everyone keep going on about the price of Campagnolo products, yes ok they are rather expensive but you have to pay the money to get the product. The other component manufacturer hardly pours any money into developing there road components just the crappy mtb side. Whereas Campagnolo which has turnover which is substantially less that the opponent continously develops there components, with new derailleurs, shifters, wheels etc.
If you want the best buy Campagnolo, you won't regret it
Shimano's turnover is double than of Campagnolo but that is because most of that comes from mass market product sales. Campagnolo basically has a narrower product range choosing to concentrate only on its core product offerings from the Veloce to the top-of-the-line Record. Comparing similar products of Shimano w/ the Campy core products, the gap isn't much more ie. Record v DuraAce, Chorus v Ultegra, Centaur v 105 so on and so forth.
From what I gathered, Campy R&D spending over the past dacade has quadrupled versus the decade before that and as a % to its total sales on their core products versus Shimano, Campagnolo share is definitely higher.
Before Campagnolo offered the C-Record, Chorus, Croce d'Aune, Athena gruppos, it was fighting a losing battle for market share in the upper-market products with Shimano. The appearance of Suntour in this arena did not help a bit. At that time, the best Campagnolo could offer was the Super Record gruppo, engineering gems in their own right (today highly sought by collectors along with the grand sport).
Tullio Campagnolo realised this and the only way to arrest the decline was to compete with the best that the far east can offer. Overnight, R&D was more than doubled and at times. The gamble paid off and the result was the C-Record, Chorus and alike.
And then, the battle for product superiority between Shimano and Campagnolo followed hereafter. The casualty to this battle was Suntour's Superbe Pro Gruppo (note: shame that Superbe Pro was shelved because I think it was a very good product, the hubs were at par in smoothness as Campy's).
To conclude, Campangolo also realized that to be at the forefront of the high-end market they should trailblaze in product innovation and not just a follow-me. After Campy followed Shimano in the STI levers and dual pivot brakes (which is considered by pundits as a milestone in bicycle technology), Campagnolo has led the new product innovations such as the first to introduce an 8-speed, 9-speed and 10 speed drivetrains, first to use Carbon fibre in brake levers, rear derailleurs, Cranks and alike. Campy's latest innovation this year is the use of multi-directional carbon fibre in the Crank and the use of directional carbon fibre in the front derailleur and on the rear derailleur pulley mechanism.
Footnote: I dont see shimano following suit with carbon fibre technology because of the continual development in the use of lightweight aluminum alloy and the hallowtech technology. Hollowtech II is proof to this. What most Shimano afficionados that I know want to see is the faster trickle down of technology on the lower groups. For example, it took only a year before Campy offered the same 10 speed drivetrain to their lower groups and that it pushes 'shared technology' which means a Centaur 10-speed derailleur will work on a 10 speed Record drivetrain. The one gripe I have with Campagnolo is the use of plastic in the brake levers in the Veloce group. It does not only look cheap but the levers actually flex under hard braking.
