The still make 'em because they're ace and are priced to move.
Yeah, they still build a replica Mini Cooper S, too!
In terms of ride, the only real difference between the CAAD and a SuperSix Hi-Mod is the latters' amazing road vibration damping and about 100g less weight.
Meh! You forgot the most important feature...the Cool Factor. You can't be a Cool Kid on a recycled beer can.
The only thing worse than a Vitus frame was Campags attempt at indexed shifting in the 80's and early 90's.
My God, was that ****...****. So bad it could be switched to friction with a twist of the knob. Even when it 'worked'...it didn't work. I had a Chorus or Victory version and I NEVER got it dialed in. What was that? 7-speed?
Plastic Sachs-Huret rear mechs shifted as well.
The all steel Huret Alvit was, without peer, the worst rear EVAR manufactured. The term "fishing for a gear" was invented by Alvit users.
I reckon that Delta brakes lead to more crashes than all the crud alu frames in the mid 80s. Sure, set them up right and they stopped kinda ok. Kinda... is being kind. Chuck the brake cable in and set the shoes as wide apart as you would have done with a sidepull and you were in for a sphyncter closing moment or three if you had to jam on the anchors.
Oddly, I raced them (the C-Record versions) in hilly races for a season or two with no problems other than loooong braking distances and set-up distances that lost you gobs of positions. Campagnolo ad men probably came up with the original version of "racing brakes are only meant to slow you down, not stop you!" 15 minutes after Deltas hit the market. I have a never-mounted pair of Croce Deltas...great paper weights.
My Vitus came "unbonded" but didn't dump me on the floor. It has a few day vacation at British Aerospace where the top and downtubes were removed and bonded back to the respective lungs. Life was good after that.
The first versions were not pinned. Later versions were...for our safety! LMAO. Around here, we just scrapped them. They ended up on curbs during community trash pickup days. The frame flex, thudder ride and el explodo construction had even the tightest riders stripping the components off and turning them into...lamps. The road salt we use in winter mixed into the road spray and penetrated the joints, causing the epoxy to fail and the aluminum to oxidize from the inside.
Nashbar sold a bunch of them and I stopped into the outlet store one day to find a pile of them in the 'warranty pile' in a back room.
I wonder how many freebies Sean went thru in a season?
My friend's Vitus was a slow fail. He did not go down hard either. Now, the poor kid on the black Alan...lost hide measured in square feet. What was the third popular glued brand? I'm drawing a blank right now, but if I'm remembering things correctly that was the one that generated the most destructive and complete failure I've ever seen in a frame, prior to the carbon explosions of a few years ago.
