Where is Campy?

Alex Conrath said:

[font=Arial]There have been many Campy vs. Shimano debates, and at least it’s a tie between the two. But I would have to give the edge to Campy as to which one most prefer.[/font]

[font=Arial]I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and there are a lot of LBS’s here. Big, Small and National chains types. Now for the part I don’t understand.Any and all of the LBS,s carry about 95 to 100 % Shimano kitted bikes. Heck I didn’t know Campagnolo was still in business till the other day I accidental spotted one Campy equipped bike amongst all the Shimano’s .So what gives, with all the bike manufactures and different stores here is SF. WHY is Shimano about 20:1?[/font]

Alex 😕

Shimano-Equipped bikes are far more popular in N. America than Campy bikes. That's just the way it is. (The online debates are probably not a good cross-section of the cycling public).

In San Francisco, American Cyclery on Stanyan (Near GG Park) has a good selection of Campagnolo components, and stocks spares and parts.

The Freewheel Bike shop on Valencia also sells Campy-equipped Bianchis, so I assume they stock parts as well.

City Cycle on Steiner and Union advertises Campagnolo on their website, but I've only been there once.

good luck!

Bike manufacturers get volume discounts when they buy components. For companies like Trek that make both road and mountain bikes, it makes sense to buy all of their components from the same manufacturer. Unit costs go down as the total bill goes up. There is some hope though, with Cannondale starting to spec Campy on some of their road bikes.

Camapg seems to be more popular on this predominantly US poll:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=108223&highlight=shimano

I believe it must be a phenomenon related mainly to 'off the shelf' bikes available in the US (please someone correct me if I am wrong). Campagnolo as a company is doing extremely well, and making tons of money (last time I checked, two odd years ago when someone shared their financials with me via pdf).

I suspect that there is quite a bit of campagnolo in the US, especially amongst the bigger spenders who spec their own frame and parts.

Can someone confirm this? 😕

Powerful Pete said:

Can someone confirm this? 😕

I can. In the last year or so I've seen a total of three Campy equiped bikes on shop floors. Local races and club rides look to be about a third Campy.

Why thank you. It is nice to know that a guesstimate based on no knowledge sometimes holds up! 😄

Maybe because campy is a bit more expensive? Saves the bike builders a little cash?

artmichalek said:

Bike manufacturers get volume discounts when they buy components. For companies like Trek that make both road and mountain bikes, it makes sense to buy all of their components from the same manufacturer. Unit costs go down as the total bill goes up. There is some hope though, with Cannondale starting to spec Campy on some of their road bikes.

Where Bianchi spec Shimano on many of their bikes.

Alex Conrath said:

[font=Arial]There have been many Campy vs. Shimano debates, and at least it’s a tie between the two. But I would have to give the edge to Campy as to which one most prefer.[/font]

[font=Arial]I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and there are a lot of LBS’s here. Big, Small and National chains types. Now for the part I don’t understand.Any and all of the LBS,s carry about 95 to 100 % Shimano kitted bikes. Heck I didn’t know Campagnolo was still in business till the other day I accidental spotted one Campy equipped bike amongst all the Shimano’s .So what gives, with all the bike manufactures and different stores here is SF. WHY is Shimano about 20:1?[/font]

Alex 😕

as MTB´s use Shimano it´s logical that the shops also stock the road components - lots of bikes are made in the far-east so it´s not logical to use Italien pieces.

Overall, I'd chalk up the result of the 20:1 Shimano difference - in major part due to the general public not really giving a rats a$$ what is on the darn bike... as long as you can shift it/ pedal it down the road (in general... $500-600 bikes.. and less). People who choose to ride that $3K bike .... can fine tune there ride to what they like/ Dura Ace / Campy / what ever 😉

Keep the bicycle affordable for the masses - is/ should be the key objective of bicycle frame builders/manufactures . I mean come on - Consumers simply "consume" ..... but with Campy its not exactly as simple as that. Its really a simple concept, kinda like sugar in coffee.

el Inglés said:

as MTB´s use Shimano it´s logical that the shops also stock the road components - lots of bikes are made in the far-east so it´s not logical to use Italien pieces.

Exactly my point..... Shimano is made for the masses (properly ergonomicly correct ? - for some, maybe).

That is why the MTB that I am currently building up is going to be 85% SRAM/Avid , 10% King , 5% Shimano (front der. + rear hub- I already had this to start). 🙂

Adam-from-SLO said:

Overall, I'd chalk up the result of the 20:1 Shimano difference.

yeah, I would guess that these forums are mostlyl used by enthusiasts and purists -- not really an accurate representation of cyclists across the board.

Adam-from-SLO said:

Overall, I'd chalk up the result of the 20:1 Shimano difference - in major part due to the general public not really giving a rats a$$ what is on the darn bike... as long as you can shift it/ pedal it down the road (in general... $500-600 bikes.. and less). People who choose to ride that $3K bike .... can fine tune there ride to what they like/ Dura Ace / Campy / what ever 😉

Trek is the perfect example of this. Stock bikes are all Shimano, but if you want to shell out the extra bucks for Project One they'll give you anything you want.

It doesn't help that there's this insane mentality around the US that Campy comes from a different planet. I've heard of a lot of shops that flat out refuse to service Campy parts because they've convinced themselves that they're too difficult to adjust.

artmichalek said:

insane mentality around the US that Campy comes from a different planet. I've heard of a lot of shops that flat out refuse to service Campy parts because they've convinced themselves that they're too difficult to adjust.

LOL, when it is the other way around...

Powerful Pete said:

LOL, when it is the other way around...

I've got both. Chorus and Dura Ace on road bikes and ST on mountain bike. None of them are difficult to adjust.

campy lost their lead in the high end road bike market when Shimano came out with SIS and STI and campy couldn't respond for a while. Campy's index shifting was terrible for the first two iterations. However, they seemed to do well with their first Ergo lever (which was serviceable from the get go). To put it in relative terms, Suntour went out of business because they couldn't get their act together with index shifting. And their slant parallelogram derailleur design is what made SIS possible (Shimano had to wait till the patent expired to do SIS). everyone uses Suntour's derailleur design since it's no longer covered by patents.

Now Campy is back on it. the only thing is that Lance caused them to lose their first Tour in God knows how many years. So I'm rooting for whoever is riding Campy next year.

regarding company size - Shimano is huge compared to Campy. I believe Campy does worldwide less than Shimano does in Europe. Something like that. Shimano also does a lot of other things - like make gears for Saturn transmissions, really nice fishing reels, etc.

campy also never did low end stuff well. so they couldn't compete with mountain bike stuff. ditto lower end road bikes. so the masses have (and know) shimano. most shops don't stock $2000+ bike exclusively. however,
like others pointed out, if you go to a group ride or a race, you'll see a lot of Campy.

cdr

hey thanks for the info.

i ride mostly campy and was wondering if they still exsisted.

did you know that campy makes the most precision berrings in the world? nasa even gets their berrings from them.