The Big Two in cycling components, Campagnolo and Shimano, have delivered us lots of great bike parts over the years. But now and then it all goes horribly wrong. Let’s take a look at some of their worst blunders.
Shimano HollowTech II cranksets: might split in two
The most recent failure on Shimano’s part came with its HollowTech 2 cranksets. As the name suggests, these cranks are hollow inside, with two alloy pieces being bonded together. The theory is sound, and to be fair to Shimano, many people have experienced zero issues. But when they failed, they really went in dramatic fashion.
The cause for these issues seems to be water ingress. It would work its way in through the hollow axle, get busy causing some corrosion in the bond structure and that’s when you’d find your crankset in two pieces.
With its new 12-speed groupsets, Shimano says that the issue has been resolved, and was quite adamant that there was never an issue in the first place for many years… but finally, in September 2023, Shimano announced a voluntary inspection and replacement recall notice for 760,000 Dura-Ace and Ultegra bonded 11-speed road cranksets, after thousands of snapping incidents worldwide and what seemed like as many emails sent to us as part of our own internal investigation into the creaky cranks.
> Check your cranks! Shimano finally recalls 11-speed road cranksets after more than 4,500 incidents
Campagnolo Delta brakes: looked great, worked indifferently, weighed lots
Widely considered one of the most beautiful bike parts ever made, these centre-pull brakes undeniably looked stunning. Unfortunately, that’s about where their good qualities ended.
On paper, the idea was good: a centre-pull brake with the mechanism — a parallelogram of levers and pivots — hidden from the world by an aluminium cover. The Delta was part of perhaps the best-looking Campagnolo group ever made, 1986’s C-Record and the brakes were the jewel in the group’s crown, with meticulous polishing even in places where nobody would ever look.
The first version was recalled because, depending on who you believe, the pads could fail from over-heating on long descents or the cable clamp could fail, leaving you with no braking at all.
Subsequent versions solved that problem, but still didn’t stop mechanics complaining that the Deltas were hard to work on. The cable had to be long enough to reach the clamp, but no longer as there was nowhere for excess cable to go.
The cable clamp used a 3.5mm hex key, a size you won’t find in many off-the-peg tool sets. Campagnolo included one with the brake, but if you lost it a replacement was hard to find, especially in 1980s America, where Imperial units still reigned supreme. The last incarnations used a 4mm hex bolt instead.
This didn’t solve what some engineers saw as the brake’s fundamental flaw, that the mechanism inherently provided inconsistent braking power and as the pads wore you could end up with no braking at all.
Jobst Brandt, author of ‘The Bicycle Wheel’ was a trenchant critic of the Delta brakes. Brandt had worked on brake design for Porsche and observed that “variable ratio brakes [are] known to be useless … It should be mechanically obvious that a regular-parallelogram when at extreme extended position (cable fully extended) has zero mechanical advantage and at the other extreme (the cable corners together) has an infinite mechanical advantage. This is not a logical range in which to operate a brake, nor is even a part of that range.
“Such a characteristic is unconscionable for any brake manufacturer to offer as a brake, and even more so for one who sponsors racers who descend mountain roads or ride criteriums.”
They were also the heaviest brakes Campagnolo ever made, at 480g/pr. For comparison, a pair of 1981 Super Record brakes weighed 334g/pr, while a 2010 Super Record D Skeleton pair weighs 276g, almost half the Delta’s heft.
Despite all this, the Deltas’ sheer beauty makes them some of the most sought-after bike parts ever made. Prices of around $700/pr for a set in mint condition aren’t unusual, and many owners seem to still be perfectly happy with them.
I’ve only been able to skim the surface of the Delta story here. If you want to know more, take a look at this Italian article on them, with material gleaned from magazines and catalogues of the era; Retrogrouch’s article on the Deltas; Campagnolo fan site CampyOnly’s road test; and an amazing complete strip-down at Bikehugger that shows just how fiddly the internals were and will probably give nightmares to any mechanic who’s never encountered Deltas.
Shimano Dyna-drive pedals: great cornering shame about the bearings
The lower the rider, the better a bike corners. That was the idea behind these novel pedals which dispensed with a conventional axle so the foot — and therefore the rider — could be moved a couple of centimetres down.
Instead of bearings at each end of the axle, Shimano moved them into an over-sized pedal thread, an inch in diameter rather than the standard 9/16in. That meant you needed a crank with a larger pedal eye, and Shimano made those too.
Unfortunately the design put unusual loads on the bearings which reportedly didn’t last long as a result. The pedals were of course incompatible with any other cranks and at the time Shimano wasn’t big enough to have a new standard adopted by the rest of the industry. Even now it’s hard to imagine even Shimano forcing through a change to the pedal mount — it’s the last true standard in bike parts.
Campagnolo Power Torque cranks: once fitted, never removed
With over-sized axles and outboard bearings, modern chainsets are lighter and stiffer than old-style set-ups where the cranks bolted to a square-taper axle. As Shimano and others switched to two-part cranks, Campagnolo stuck with square taper for its cheaper models, while attaching a half-axle to each crank in its high-end Ultra-Torque system.
In 2011 Campagnolo introduced Power Torque. Like other two-part crank systems it has the axle permanently attached to one crank while the other is mounted on splines and held in place with a bolt (which requires a hulking great 14mm hex key; not hard to find, but not likely to be part of any mechanic’s existing tool kit). However, unlike the pinch bolts on Shimano’s two-piece cranks, or the self-extracting crank bolts on other designs, there’s no built-in way to get a Power Torque crank off the axle once it’s tight.
This, mechanics howled when they first had to take off a Power Torque crank, is bonkers. Then they nipped down their nearest tool shop for a mechanical puller so they could yank the crank off the axle and found that had to be carefully ground to fit behind the crank.
Five years later Campagnolo’s technical manual for Power Torque cranks still offered only a tiny hint as to how you were supposed to remove a Power Torque crank — a “type Beta/Usag extractor” is mentioned, but not which model (there are dozens) or how it should be used to avoid causing damage.
Tool makers like Park Tool and Cyclus have stepped up and made pullers to remove Power Torque cranks but it’s mystifying that Campagnolo itself hasn’t come up with a beautiful but insanely expensive tool for the job. After all, they do make a £190 chain tool and a £180 corkscrew.
Shimano Biopace chainrings: wobbliness to no avail
When Shimano launched this ill-fated mid-1980s attempt at popularising elliptical chainrings it released a paper on the idea via Bike Tech, a newsletter from the people who publish Bicycling magazine in the US. In summary, the paper goes: “Sensible argument, sensible argument, sensible argument, HUGE ASSUMPTION, sensible argument, sensible argument.”
The assumption was about the orientation of the long axis of the ellipse, which Shimano decided should be at roughly 90 degrees to the orientation of every elliptical chainring before or since.
This meant the gear effectively dropped through the power stroke, which felt weird but you got used to it. However, there were reports that for some riders it caused knee problems and at a time when Shimano’s target users, mountain bikers, were looking for ever-lower gears Biopace’s limitation of a 28-tooth inner ring was a serious flaw.
There was never any evidence that Biopace was more or less physiologically efficient than round rings. In the early ’90s Shimano quietly dropped it. The company had moved its attention to better gear shifting and had come up with chainrings that incorporated shaped teeth and ramps like its Hyperglide rear sprockets. These didn’t work with Biopace, which gave Shimano a face-saving way to drop it, though by this point enthusiast riders had switched back to round rings anyway.
Campagnolo Super Record titanium bottom bracket: saved weight, broke
Replacing steel with titanium has long been popular way for bike component makers to save weight. There are plenty of sub-components where this works really well: cable clamp bolts, adjusting screws, even rear derailleur mounting bolts are loaded lightly enough that it doesn’t matter that the titanium part isn’t as strong as the steel part it replaces.
You’re probably thinking “Hang on, titanium has a better strength-to-weight ratio than steel.” That’s broadly true, but titanium is less dense than steel, so to get an equally strong part you need more of it. If a component can’t be made bigger, the titanium version will be weaker or less durable.
That was the problem with the Super Record titanium bottom bracket that Campagnolo introduced in the late ’70s. When it failed, it failed at the square taper, leaving a bit in the crank and bit sticking out of the bottom bracket bearings. In the 1982 Giro d’Italia, race leader Laurent Fignon had a bad crash thanks to a broken Super Record axle, sending Campagnolo back to the drawing board.
Version two solved the problem by holding the crank arm in place with a nut instead of a bolt so there was no thread inside the axle to provide a weakening stress riser.
Bad ideas never die for long in cycling. The drive to lighten mountain bikes in the early ’90s led to some very dodgy substitutions of titanium and even aluminium for steel. The bottom bracket was a target, being a big lump of steel, and failure-prone titanium axles again put riders on the deck. One solution proposed by Keith Bontrager was to use a 7mm bolt to hold the crank in place instead of 8mm. That meant the axle would be thicker and more durable. This was available as the Axiom titanium bottom bracket in about 1996.
The whole issue was made moot by the development of splined, hollow bottom bracket axles and then two-piece cranks with even larger axles.
Shimano SPD-R pedals: you can clip in but you can never leave
While Look was creating and then dominating the road bike clipless pedal category, Shimano saw an opportunity in the booming mountain bike arena. Instead of a big plastic cleat that stood proud of the sole, Shimano tucked a small steel cleat into a recess in the sole so you could walk in the shoes.
It was a runaway success first among mountain bikers and then touring and commuting riders who liked the security of being clipped in, but wanted to be able to walk when off the bike.
Shimano made several attempts to crack the road bike clipless market with designs that included a single-sided pedal that used the same two-bolt cleat design as the mountain bike pedals. The tiny cleat didn’t work for road cyclists who complained it allowed the shoe to rock on the pedal; there were even reports of powerful riders managing to twist the cleat out of the sole.
Shimano’s next attempt was even worse. The SPD-R pedal had two bolts on the centre line of the sole, so it required shoemakers to retool to accommodate it. Aside from Shimano few did so your shoe options were severely limited. It was hard to get out of SPD-R pedals, making them the Hotel California of clipless pedals: you could clip in, but you could never leave. The cleat was still relatively small compared to a Look cleat so your shoe was still not as stable on the pedal.
To be fair, one group of riders loved SPD-R: track racers. The difficulty of exit appealed to riders for whom an accidental pedal release was a disaster and over a decade after they were discontinued, they were still a cult item among trackies.
Shimano eventually gave trying to go its own way and produced the SPD-SL in 2002. It fit the same three-bolt mounting as Look and allegedly finally weaned Lance Armstrong off the long-discontinued late 80s Shimano/Look pedals he’d been using for 15 years.
Campagnolo SGR pedals: never mind the weight, feel the ratchet
In the 80s and 90s every component maker had a go at coming up with its own clipless pedal design. Some were more successful than others, and Campagnolo’s 1987 SGR pedals were definitely one of the others.
The cleats slid into enclosures on the pedal. If the cleats or the this enclosure were dirty, you couldn’t engage the pedal. If you walked in the cleats, they developed a burr and you couldn’t engage the pedal.
To clip in, the pedal had to be orientated with the enclosures up. It didn’t naturally hang that way and the toe-catch-flip action used with Look pedals didn’t work, so Campagnolo built in a ratchet that stopped the pedal rotating till you were clipped in. When this ratchet wore out, clipping in became tricky, to say the least.
You could adjust cleat angle and float with screws in the pedal. However, if you didn’t snug these screws into place they fell out.
Like Delta brakes, SGR pedals were a product of a ‘never mind the weight look at the shiny’ design regime at Campagnolo that culminated in 1989’s boat-anchor Euclid mountain bike components. By the mid-90s Campagnolo had remembered cyclists didn’t want to lug round unnecessary mass and dusted off the scales, but in the meantime the SGRs were about the heaviest clipless pedals ever made, and had so much steel in the internal mechanisms there was no way to lighten them.
Campagnolo subsequently sold a rebranded Look pedal, and then developed the Pro-Fit pedal which can still be found in some retailers though Campagnolo no longer seems to list it.
Shimano Sora brake/shift levers: beginners don’t need to shift from the drops
One of the most significant advances in the bike’s user interface in the last few decades was Shimano’s STI combined brake and gear lever design. With STI you never need to take your hands off the bars to change gears. In fact, it’s hard to imagine the road bike boom of the last decade or so without STI. Can you imagine the carnage in sportives as hundreds of us malco MAMILs fumble for down tube shifters?
But the mechanism of the classic STI design, with a pivoting brake lever and a second lever right behind it, is expensive to make. To make a cheaper version for the entry-level Sora group, Shimano moved one of the levers to the body and made it so small it was more like a button than a lever.
The problem was, the buttons could only be reached from the lever hoods. If you were in the drops going downhill, you couldn’t shift up the rear gears, which was a bit of a pain.
Almost every review of a Sora-equipped bike complained about this. As Dave Atkinson wrote when he reviewed the revamped Sora 3500 group in late 2013: “The old Sora lever featured the much-maligned Shimano thumb lever and a massive throw to change gear. They weren’t great, and these are masses better.”
To its credit, Shimano has now entirely dropped shift buttons from its road component range; even the eight-speed Claris group has proper STI levers with full-size levers for both shift directions.
Shimano Dual Control MTB brake/shift levers: making flippy-flappy
Here’s an added extra for the mountain bikers among you.
After great success with STI Dual Control road bike levers, Shimano tried to take the concept off road in 2003 and 2004 with these levers in which the brake lever did everything. Pull it toward you to brake, push it down or up to change gear.
Mountain bikers were sceptical about the idea until they tried it; then they usually became downright hostile.
The practical problem was that it was hard to shift and brake at the same time because if you were pulling a lever toward yourself it was almost impossible to move it up or down.
One quirk of mountain bike Dual Control that impeded acceptance was that the rear derailleur worked the wrong way. Pulling the cable moved it from larger to smaller sprockets, while the spring did the work to go to larger sprockets, feature Shimano called Rapid-Rise or ‘low normal’.
For anyone who’d been riding for a long time, this was hard to get used to. In a review of a Dual Control-equipped Klein Palomino I wrote at the time: “Re-educating reflexes conditioned by almost 20 years of mountain biking was a slow and sometimes painful process as I repeatedly went up a gear instead of down. The problem wasn’t that I had to push the brake lever up and down — I soon stopped groping for non-existent triggers — but that the tactile feedback wasn’t what I was used to. On every other bike I own, pushing against derailleur spring resistance gives a shift to larger sprockets. With the Palomino’s low normal set-up, resistance equals smaller sprockets. I struggled to adapt.”
I wasn’t the only one, but a bigger problem for Shimano was that the company’s near-monopoly on mountain bike components was breaking down, and locking together the shifting and braking systems with Dual Control looked like a desperate rearguard action to preserve it. Bike makers wanted to fit brakes from other companies alongside Shimano transmissions. Dual Control made that impossible.
Shimano quickly retreated, offering separate shifters again so bike makers could cook up their own choices of brake and gear systems.
Are these the biggest Shimano and Campag howlers of all time, or can you think of more? Let us know in the comments as always
92 thoughts on “10 of Shimano and Campagnolo’s worst ideas”
Deltas are tricky to set up
Deltas are tricky to set up if you don’t know what you are doing but I’ve never found the braking to be any worse than other models of the same era. The trick is to leave more clearance from the rim than usual. sure they weigh more, but LOOK AT THEM. C record is still the best look groupset of all time and the stuff lasts.
Campag’s pedals however, were pure lunacy. but they do make a lovely paper weight.
Simmo72 wrote:
Campy actually did some serous inovation in 1986-1988. Among the derailures the C180 was the only one without inovation. The Chorus was pretty special and advanced with both double springs (simplex) and a slant pralelogram (suntour) and a strikng visual appreance.
The Athena derailure looked simple and was disguised as a C180 and the well known old gransport design actually had a consealed slant paralelogram with a quite long praalellogram (The suntour patent had just expired).
Shifting the athena on a modern 10-11 cassette actually reveals that this design was 30 years ahead of its time and it works surprisingly consistent, ultrafast and reliable, even with non indexed shifters (i use classic Simplex retro-frictions though). It’s basicly the same design as used today on Shimano’s Shadow and SRAM’s type 1.x MTB deraillures. Capacity is impressive too – the ultra short 50mm cage can shift a 12-30t casette with a double compact in the front.
Among the brakes the Chorus monplaners (with one caliper arm consealed in the other) are IMHO the most beutifull brake ever produced – The Athena ‘s were re-egineerd traditional sidepulswith massive super stiff calipers – stiffness (here provided by mass) really matters when it comes to braking. Im not sure if the stiffness was intentional by design or it was because they wanted to mimick the visual appearence of the Chorus monoplaners / aro-theme while keeping the cost down, but the Athena Calipers are proberbly the best braking sidepull rim brake ever produced. They are heavy though, similar in weight to Deltas but they work every time, modulation is excelent (even by 2016 standards they rival the best dulapivots out there) and due to the stiffness they really do keep provideing all power you can apply through the cable (and i mean all), and in an impressive consitant way – only downside is that with 198’x brakelevers and cables you’d have to use a lot of fingermuscle to utilize that kind of power.
Strangely, in the late 80’es the best perfoming Campy components where the Athena’s – and they also had that milk/mirror smooth polished anadonized surface of the C180 (a finish no one has ever attempted to out-do – the bling record stuff from the 199x and 200x cant match the drooling 1986-1989 finish)
Campagnolo Syncro – i think thats someting everyone should forget though, the doubler-shifter was the way to go but it was never as nice as the 197x Simplex’ retro-shifters.
Very interesting article –
Very interesting article – well worth a read.
I’ve never seen a Delta but
I’ve never seen a Delta but the cable ‘issue’ doesn’t sound any different to tririg omegas and the interweb isn’t full of complaints about that. Too long and the cable end rubs the tyre, too short and you can’t get the clamp onto it. Deltas look fab.
Having tried to remove my
Having tried to remove my Campagnolo Centaur Carbon Chainset at the weekend I can confirm what a sh!t design power torque is.
Im using the official park tool which has already snapped once when removing my older now sold veloce groupset. On this effort it chipped my carbon crank!!!! hence it is staying on and will be someone elses problem when the bike is sold at some point.
Paul Calf , Bag Of Shite springs to mind.
Still love campy……..Chorus groupo knocks spots off ultegra on my cross bike.
My Centaur BB has been in place for almost four years and, fingers crossed, it has required precisely no maintenance. But I have been planning for the day when the thing has to be removed and I bought a £4:99 puller from our local car accessory shop. A little careful slimming of the three ‘feet’ with a grinder and it seems to be a snug fit. All I need now is an excuse to use it.
I lusted after those Campag
I lusted after those Campag Deltas.
Sadly Campags weird accessories and non standard tools put me off buying the groupset and I’ve gone away from the brand – but man they look lovely.
My candidate: Shimano STI
My candidate: Shimano STI shifters.
Expensive consumables that you need to bin because a small single part snapped/wore out and you can’t replace it.
I’ve got the dual control mtb
I’ve got the dual control mtb levers. Really not that bad.
wycombewheeler wrote:
Agreed. I liked em.
If you want a MTB real fail, look no further than HAYES 9. Utter *****
wycombewheeler wrote:
Good grief, are you ok? I hope your Scrouge condition gets better. Dual control levers could only be liked by someone too tight to buy something that works.
Seems the new Potenza
Seems the new Potenza groupset finally has a self-extracting bolt to solve the PowerTorque problem… hope it is extended to the other low end groups.
PT has such a reputation I searched for ages for an older UltraTorque Athena 11 speed crank – 2009-10 only – to go with the rest of the 11 speed Athena group.
Even now it’s hard to
<cite>Even now it’s hard to imagine even Shimano forcing through a change to the pedal mount — it’s the last true standard in bike parts.</cite>
Not quite the last; there’s still the half-inch chain pitch, thank goodness! You didn’t include it but I seem to remember Shimano attempting to introduce a 10mm chain pitch in the late ’80s. That didn’t take off either…
I have 2007-vintage Campag
I have 2007-vintage Campag Centaur Ergo levers and the thumbie is fine for me, even with my small hands – probably got relatively shallow drops, perhaps. It is pleasing to see, however, that Campag have re-engineered it with the advent of the electronic changers.
As for the Sora levers – ugh – I purchased these for my winter bike and was blissfully unaware that they are clearly designed, as suggested already, by some sort of alien. I simply cannot change from the drops at all. They will probably find there way onto a Bonfire Night pyre at some stage.
John, you’re trying hard to
John, you’re trying hard to make the jump from MTB-er to roadie, but you lack basic knowledge.
The campag Ti axle broke on Fignon during minor French classis Bloise-Chaville. He had problems with helicopters in the Giro ….
Quite correct. Here is is
Quite correct. Here is is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeNU2HM6iOY
Blois-Chaville is effectively Paris-Tours. Just honestly named. An important minor classic.
The design of the Dura Ace AX
The design of the Dura Ace AX pedals has nothing at all to do with wanting to lower centre of gravity. The whole gruppo was designed for aerodynamics – hence the aero seatpin, concealed bolt stem and of course the AX parapull brakes.
Having a single large inboard bearing on the pedal not only reduced frontal area but also reduced to zero the axle to sole measurement, eliminating rocking torque, a goal many pedals have attempted since, and which you actually mention as the advantage of the SPD-R. With the AX pedal the sole of the shoe is actually on the centre of rotation.
Talking of pedal standards, in 1981 when the AX group came out lots of bikes were French, who of course had their own pedal thread standard. There was no standard then.
Re Campag SGR pedals – ask John Tanner about his during the 1989 Ras Tailtean. He was yellow jersey when his SGRs decided to stop rotating. I lost track of how many bike changes he had that day.
I have the Sora-style thumb
I have the Sora-style thumb shifters on my road bike and I love them. Especially for touring-style rides and commuting. I don’t spend a lot of time on the drops during those rides so I don’t miss being able to shift from there. And the thumb switches are easily accessible and work well with big gloves on in winter.
They only have a place on this list if you are being a snob about your shifting options.
kevinmorice wrote:
agreed. Sora-style STI shifters are the best for cold weather winter commuting, much easier to use than the newer style paddle shifters with bulky glives on. They have their place.
kevinmorice wrote:
I have to disagree there. I could never get my thickly gloved fingers onto the button without interference from the shift cable. They were comfortably shaped hoods though – nice and compact.
Power Torque is bonkers. But
Power Torque is bonkers. But Ultra Torque… wonderful!
othello wrote:
PT is indeed complete cack. Not looking forward to having to replace the bearings on mine.
UT much better – at least it’s easy to get the cranks on and off – but the bearings are also rubbish. Have replaced mine with Boca yellows and now need much, much less looking after
Huw Watkins wrote:
UT and their berrings are exelent, i’ve managed run my 1.gen UT Chorus for +8 years and +70000km in scandinavian weather without any maintence. Retired the crank last year for a new UT Chorus 2015. Right side bearing is fine and still without any play, it needs to be regreased though. Left side bearing has play and needs replacement. If had cleaned and regreased it a year before it would still have been rolling as new. (you’d need a wd40 like spray solvent + a simple greasegun to regrease UT bearings)
I only changed the cranset because a new bearring, a bearing puller/workshop cost + two new chainrings would cost me approx 1500 dkr and i found an ebay.de bargin at approx 2000 dkr for an almost unused 2015 crankset sold by a dude who had regretted his chose chainring /armlength choise.
UT just needs a 100% faced and alligned BB for the cups. If installed correctly and your frames BB tolerances is within specs UT stainless steel bearings will outlast any modern crank with external bearings.
reg BB tolerances a cheap china carbon frame might not be ideal – i have a custom handbuild Merlin Works TI CR3/2.5 from 2006 though, everything is dead straight and finished like no other TI manufacture expet Seven/Spectrum. Cost for a frame like that is high though, i think i payed3500€ incl VAT for the frame back in 2006. A similar frameset from Seven or Spectrum would cost 5000$ in 2016 mony… + overseas postage + EU VAT+import tax.
othello wrote:
Agree, Ultra Torque never give me problems if fitted correctly.
EM69 wrote:
B-b-b-b-but you need a bearing puller to… err… change the bearings! And a 10mm hex bit (as found in every socket set known to man) to remove the cranks! And it doesn’t work on frames with out of spec bottom brackets! Awful system!
</sarc>
I’d never use Power Torque
I’d never use Power Torque again after having to write off a Centaur Red crankset last year by literally beating the f*cker out of the frame with a hammer after shearing the ends off of the Park Tools puller.
If you only ever ride in the dry then it’s no problem, you can even just tap the crank out with a rubber mallet in that case but once a bit of moisture gets in there – no chance!
Stu Kerton wrote:
Quite, PT really is pants (and I’m a massive Campag fan, would normally support any design they come up with). First thing I did on my Rose when it was delivered was get the PT Athena chainset off and replaced with new press-fit BB cups that would take an Ultra-Torque chainset. One carbon Chorus chainset later and everything was as it should be 🙂
I agree with an earlier poster that the bearings in a UT chainset aren’t great, but they’re not expensive to replace and at least you can get at the bloody things.
Stu Kerton wrote:
[quote=Stu Kerton]
I’d never use Power Torque again after having to write off a Centaur Red crankset last year by literally beating the f*cker out of the frame with a hammer after shearing the ends off of the Park Tools puller.
If you only ever ride in the dry then it’s no problem, you can even just tap the crank out with a rubber mallet in that case but once a bit of moisture gets in there – no chance!
[/quoteAgree on this, had to replace mine after one winter. Worst Campag system ever…]
Great article by the way
Great article by the way 🙂
Campag Delta’s………
Campag Delta’s……… Sexier than that Scully from X-Files and she was fit!
Anyone else had the annoyance of grinding down a 4mm Allen key?
SPD-R pedals: Had a pair of Dura-Ace ones, bought after Shimano stopped paying for the Look patent. used them once and gave them away, along with the carbon Dura-Ace level shoes I had to buy .
Biopace: Well it worked (sort of), if you moved the chainring one bolt forward on the chainset.
Early STI’s: Cheers Shimano for having to throw away a pair of Dura-Ace 9-speed ones as Madison didn’t bring in the tiny part that broke. Still have a pair from 1993 that work.
No mention of Shimano 10-speed STI’s where the gear cable goes under the bartape. This was rushed into production due to Campag and never really worked well unless you were prepared to run the gear outers ‘behind’ the bar and cross them on the down-tube stops. Bugger, giving away trade secrets.
Suprised the Shimano RSX groupset isn’t mentioned along with the MJ groupset. RSX featured a ‘compact’ chainset (which flopped) and the MJ groupset was intended for kids bikes. It was way ahead of it’s time.
MTB STI levers went down well in Europe where cross-country racing is massive. The ‘rapid-rise’ rear mech was OK until the spring weakened. It was a total pain to set gears up if you were not used to it.
Positron not mentioned, it actually worked pretty well for a cheap version of indexing. Finding a place that sold piano wire was interesting.
Campag TI B/B: OK a pile of crap, but not as bad as the creaky Hope one of old that was impossible to silence.
Actually, on the subject of Campag brakes: Could anyone actually brake from the hoods on ’80’s brake lever unless they had the hands and finger muscles of Geoff Capes?
Campag did have a go at BMX as well as MTB stuff. Shame they stopped making rims as I have got a few pairs of wheels built with Lamda and Omega rims.
NoOneSpecial wrote:
1980’s brakes – i doubt it, levers where really bad and ergonomics was shitty which was why servo brakes like CLB2 centerpuls had a decent market – you could use them to stop from the hoods but you’d have to be really carefull not to lock up your wheel.
If you open the 1988 Campy levers quickrelease ypu could use the athena to to brake controlled from the hoods – but they do need a lot of power which is dificult to apply from the hoods.
Shinanos 600Ultegra & DureAce 7400 levers was a huge improvent. I Used the 600 Ultegras with a pair of Mavic 440’s (modolo OEM), you could brake those from the of of the lever, however modulation was not nearly as good as the Athena’s, neither was max brake power. But they worked ok without applying huge amount of power throug the levers ‘funny’.
I actually decended from vesuvio in october with those Athena 1988 brakes with original 27years old brake rubber. Very confident….
Rim’s…. those Campy V-profile rims are still some of the best rims out there i you can find the NOS with the correct number of holes. I had a pair of Omega-V clinchers in 1988 and build a pair of Seoul tubulars a 2-3 years ago on a set of shiny Chorus OS hubs from 1999 – they are lovely – lightweight, stiff, strong and very easy to build on with Sapim Race spokes and polyax brass nipples. Weigth endned up at sub 1500g and the y ride like nothing else when paired with a 27mm Pave tub – and quite decent on a sprinter gatorskins. I actually toured the Pyranees in 2014 and the Dolomites in 2015 on that wheelset.
Campagnolo Powertorque
Campagnolo Powertorque deinstallation is show in this official campagnolo video on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1_3smRyk-w&feature=youtu.be&t=132
iv got the Sora shifters, one
iv got the Sora shifters, one each side of my drop handlebars theyre pretty good.
Campagnolo Powertorque
Campagnolo Powertorque deinstallation is shown in this official campagnolo video on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1_3smRyk-w&feature=youtu.be&t=132
Nice article, especially the
Nice article, especially the Hotel Califoria reference!
I have bikes with both Biospace and Sora trigger shifters and they are not too bad. Also once it becomes ‘retro’ you can get away with all kinds of crap. It becomes ‘character’! 🙂
Captain Vimes wrote:
That excuses the Austin Allegro and the Morris Marina too!
Nice article, especially the
Nice article, especially the Hotel Califoria reference!
I have bikes with both Biospace and Sora trigger shifters and they are not too bad. Also once it becomes ‘retro’ you can get away with all kinds of crap. It becomes ‘character’! 🙂
Great article. Did anyone
Great article. Did anyone ever use the Suntour self energising canti brakes on their early 90s MTB? Brake included a helix within it so once pad made contact it pulled it in tighter. I always suspected they’d be a bit grabby! Mate at uni achieved a similar effect with some ‘tandem’ brake pads someone sold him. They included a wedge so the pad moved with rotation of wheel and pulled in tighter – he took them off after he ended up in Leicester Hospital.
Suntour Superb Pro groupset..
Suntour Superb Pro groupset……….
Dribbles…….
NoOneSpecial wrote:
I have that groupset including headset and seatpost, the only part that isn’t the Pro is the rear derailleur and that is Superbe Tech, those components have over 160,000 miles on it and they still work like new. I was a bit fanatical about keeping the grease clean in the hubs which was easy to do with the grease port, I also made sure the components stayed clean and pivot places got lubed. I opted for the Tech rear derailleur because I was training and racing in the mountains of Calfornia and that derailleur would shift under load! The odd thing about the Tech rear derailleur was that according to Disraeli Gears, and I had heard of this problem long time ago, was that it was unreliable and had a irreplaceable guide pulley, so I bought an extra one for when first one breaks…after 160,000 miles I’m still waiting for the first one to break!! I have retired that bike with the Superbe stuff but it’s still very much rideable, in fact I would blink an eye to ride it across country if I had to. We can’t buy reliability like the Suntour stuff had anymore; anyway it served me well when I raced.
I’ll admit I didn’t read all
I’ll admit I didn’t read all of the comments but one the article misses which was a much bigger mistake for Shimano than Sora and it’s poor thumb levers.
Dura Ace reusable chain link (the ‘replacement’ for the pin to match SRAM and KMC). Looked great, was reusable, all lovely. Wore out after about 1,000 miles so you had a chain with one long link (ballsing up your shifting) and if you ignored the shifting not long after a chain lying in the road while you searched for your teeth…
Yes my Sora 3400 aren’t very
Yes my Sora 3400 aren’t very usefull when on drops (I can change but it requires a little distraction), but for my commuting/touring duties they are great.
I love Shimano because it makes components cheap enough to fit in a super-market bicycle up to tour-de-France winners. But they do have to start making cheaper brifters.
I have ten year old eight
I have ten year old eight speed SORA STIs on my old Klein and they work fine. If you don’t spend much time on the drops the thumb button isn’t an issue.
I had those Sora shifters on
I had those Sora shifters on my first CX bike, they were actually really good. CX is different though, there’s no really need to shift from the drops since you ride on the hoods far more (excpet when braking on descents). Also, they were so cheap that filling them full of mud or pranging them off a tree wasn’t really a problem!
At the risk of turning this into another Shimano vs Campagnolo bore-fest, it’s interesting to note that Shimano’s cock ups tend to come from attempts to innovate whereas Campag’s cock ups come from the need to make it look nice without worrying about how it actually works!
“kevinmorice …….
“kevinmorice …….
I have the Sora-style thumb shifters on my road bike and I love them. Especially for touring-style rides and commuting”
another vote here – I only tend to ride on the drops into a headwind – a couple of years ago borrowed my old bike back from a guy I’d sold it to so could ride the Dales TDF route – I was sort of dreading the Sora’s – but no problem switching back and actually liked them for some riding styles they function well
looking forward to seeing press fit BB’s on the list
antigee wrote:
Campag’s solution for PF BB’s works well if you’re using Ultra Torque: Metal cups fit snugly into shell and then insert cranks with centre bolt in usual way. No creaking.
Requires an accurately manufactured frame though I suppose, and granted I’m not looking forward to removing them (then again I’m not planning to!)
You’ve got to get it wrong
You’ve got to get it wrong before you get it right.
Can’t be afraid of making mistakes otherwise you’ll never innovate.
Really interesting article!!
Really interesting article!!
Gotta disagree about the Sora thumb shifters though – I could change from the drops ok and overall they weren’t too bad, if not as good as the normal type.
Re Sora shifters. Nearly
Re Sora shifters. Nearly everyone i know who rides with drops are up on the hoods a good 90% plus. The rest are racers and they would’nt have looked at them in the first place. As i once read “good utilitarian gear shifters”.
Had 2 bikes (early 90s) with
Had 2 bikes (early 90s) with Biopace chainrings at one time and I have to say they really were not that bad.
Shimao positron derailleurs on the other hand…
I suspect that the old Sora
I suspect that the old Sora shifters even with the hard to reach button would outlast Campag Veloce shifters by many miles.
Done about 5000 miles on Campag Veloce. Chainrings good, bottom bracket good, derailleurs good, cassette good, shifters rubbish. Using a plastic ratchet and plastic pawl is never going to last very long. About 1500 miles each in my case. Luckily I managed to get some new old stock Veloce Ultrashift shifters with metal pawls and ratchets. Hopefully this will be the last set of shifters I need on this bike before the rest of the stuff wears out and it all gets replaced with 105. Fingers crossed.
what about Shimano Rapid-ride
what about Shimano Rapid-rise rear mech 🙂
AX was a great groupset-way
AX was a great groupset-way ahead of its time re aerodynamics and bio metrics. One actually pedalled circles with the AX pedals/crankarms (rather than elipses-as we do with standard pedals and round chainrings). Agree with bearing stress and wear though.
It is amazing that people harp about BioPace-The ONLY watt output research I have seen done on them shows to rotate them FORWARD/clockwise and the rider gets more watt output; and I for one was never /am not ever bothered by the sensation; and never ever shy awy from free or nearly free NOS/”taken off when brand new” chainrings for my commuter bikes!!!
Re Ti bottom brackets-on wide BBs no thanks. But on 103mm track bike BBs and 109mm doubles they are fine. anything over 109mm and you get too much shearing force for Ti.
Shimano Capreo 9 tooth (late 1990s)developed primarily for 20″ travel bikes proved to wear out quickly AND be poorly inefficent due to the severe chain wrap butI realize you can’t risk offending major advertizers who are still marketing these fundamentally flawed but amazingly expensive 9 tooth low cassettes.
Ha ha! Hey, the Deore dual
Ha ha! Hey, the Deore dual-control MTB shifters. I love em! Maybe on a real mountain bike over rough terrain you could have problems but on my Surly touring bike with flat bars and bar ends they’re great. The main advantage is that you can actually change gear from the bar ends by just flicking out a finger, as opposed to moving your hands back to the centre of the bars every time. You can also shift down a chainring while braking by gently pulling up with the fingers of your left hand as you brake. Feels very natural. Finally changing down the cassette from the main handlebar grips doesn’t rquire you hook your fingers over the lever and pull up. Instead you just flick a couple of fingers up and hit the underside of the lever. Very quick. Alas thanks to features like this Shimano have stopped making the buggers. So I won’t be able to get any more when this lot finally break. Hrumph!
Simon Pitchforth wrote:
Yes, and they leave enough space that you can fit ski bar-ends inboard of the levers, for tooling along in an aero position. You get some funny looks from the fundamentalists though.
Me too. I have them on a
Me too. I have them on a touring bike and a mountain bike, and they are brilliant.
Did you know that if you have
Did you know that if you have a 14mm hex key in a 3/8″ square drive socket, you can access the crank bolt on a power torque axle from the drive side. Only takes a simpl box unit over the left hand crank to take it off quite easily.
Did you know that if you have
Did you know that if you have a 14mm hex key in a 3/8″ square drive socket, you can access the crank bolt on a power torque axle from the drive side. Only takes a simpl box unit over the left hand crank to take it off quite easily.
For those with older
For those with older PowerTorque cranks without the self-extracting bolt, the easiest way to get the NDS crank arm off is to carefully unscrew the NDS bearing cup using an open-ended BB wrench. As the bearing cup unscrews from the frame’s BB shell, it will pull the crank arm off with it.
Of course, if you have a press fit bottom bracket, you’re screwed (no pun intended).
there is a sort of logic
there is a sort of logic behind the madness of biopace…
picture the scene: you’re riding quickly along the flat, your cadence is high, your speed is constant. round chainrings mean the chain-speed is also constant, and so is your foot-speed (the speed at which your feet rotate around the BB).
the idea is that it’s physiologically (a bit) harder to move your feet through top-dead-centre, because your joints are bunched-up, or something.
the biopace oval slows your feet down for their movement through t-d-c (the axis of the oval is longer at tdc, you need to move the cranks less to pull the same amount of chain – so your feet slow down at top and bottom of the pedal stroke – in theory at least making life a bit more comfortable)
where this completely falls over is climbing a steep hill, where every pedal stroke means a surge in speed – your speed, chain speed, foot speed, are all changing anyway . and your problem is more likely to be the sheer effort of moving your feet through tdc, than the minor problem of it happening too quickly…
like i said, it’s only a sort of (mad) logic, and it only applies in some circumstances, and addresses a problem that no-one has ever complained about.
good for a bike bore like me to waffle on about though…
bumble wrote:
That is mad logic… especially when you consider that cadence is dictated by your leg speed, not the chainset. So you will either slow and accelerate at the top of the stroke, but that has nothing to do with comfort, just the force required to maintain effort.
Modern (and previous) ovalised rings work on the opposite principle; that changing the chain pull will make it easier to maintain a leg speed. The theory being, as mentioned that leverage at the top of the pedal stroke is less than ideal. Infact much muscle fatigue is generated by going over the top.
Looking at the MTB Shifters… I liked the reverse pull mechs, They make sense. You force the mech to close the parallelogram, the spring opens the paralleogram. Where this works is in muddy conditions, where mechs used to get clogged.
Good times.
After a solid 15 years on reverse pull, I finally relented last year… it did take nearly 3 rides to train my brain.
Shimano Dual Control can be
Shimano Dual Control can be used with low-normal too and so installed is very pleasant on a flat-bar bike that’s not used on gnarly offroad. It’s rather sensitive to correct cable set-up though.
I still use dual control
I still use dual control shifters on my mountain bike and I’ve always got on with them.
Shimano MTB dual control
Shimano MTB dual control levers were great – on your mate’s bike.
Creep up on the right, reach over and tap them a couple of times and ride off laughing 😀
Can we consign all shimano
Can we consign all shimano manual gears to the bin, where the brake is also the shifter?!
Great to have that uncalled-for dab on the brakes just as you’re on the limit, shifting to an easier cog on a climb ffs!!!
I’ve used Delta’s and Biopace
I’ve used Delta’s and Biopace (still have some of the latter rings in the “can’t throw that sort of thing away) tool box. The Delta’s worked fine, and if you claimed to be a bike mechanic and couldn’t set them up, you were undermining yourself. Would be interesting to ride the same bike with some Biopace rings on and some modern ovoidialzagnoal ones and see how much difference there is..
I have SPD-R on my (fixed)
I have SPD-R on my (fixed) commuter bike and it’s nice to be secure. Also, unlike SPD-SL (that I have on my other bikes) the cleats aren’t made of soft cheese
I also have SPD-R and have no
I also have SPD-R and have no issues unclipping. I have read a heel twist towards the bike is the answer, but the regular method works just fine for me. And yes, solid material construction. Shoes found on ebaygum!
Still got sora on my winter
Still got sora on my winter bike and works fine. Different but fine. How is sora different to campag that also has thumb shifters?
redspear999 wrote:
The Campag thumb shifters are ergonically in a differt place. They can be reached whilst in the drops really easily,
2 years have passed so
2 years have passed so somebody has probably answered you with campagnolo thumb shifters you can change gear from the drops and hoods wheras with the thumb shifter version of Sora you can only reach the lever from the hoods. As long as you understand the difference and don’t mind it Sora of the era was a perfectly useable gearset 😉
It might just be the angle,
It might just be the angle, but that Shimano BioPace chainring looks distinctly round to me; the elliptical one had a filled in bit of chainring where it bolted to the spider with ‘BioPace’ in futuristic type. I could be wrong, but I was convinced that the rings were very obviously elliptical:
http://imgs.inkfrog.com/pix/coronadelmar/Shimano_600EX_Biopace_Chainring_52T_Brown_01.JPG
I also think the picture of the Campagnolo Super Record titanium bottom bracket may well be a Nuovo Record 1046A steel axle version. The titanium version didn’t have crank bolts that screwed into the axle, but rather nuts that screwed onto a thread on the axle end. This was considered the unit’s weak point, and the reason for Fignon’s broken axle causing him to crash in the 1982 Blois-Chaville race … not the Giro d’Italia. OK, I might have got the first two wrong, but this last one is defo a mistake on your part 😉
https://youtu.be/YeNU2HM6iOY
http://inrng.com/2012/08/1982-fignon/
However, there are conflicting articles everywhere about which is the revised MkII improved Campagnolo BB, so this bit of received wisdom I’ve guarded for 35 years may be wrong. I thought for all this time that the ‘threaded stub with nut version’ was the weak failure-prone unit, and that the bolt-threaded-into-axle in the more traditional style was the replacement. Is there anyone from Campagnolo who is also sufficiently long-in-the tooth like me who can can confirm?
curdins wrote:
The ‘filled in bit’ on biopace rings is only a sticker ( I’m still using some 🙂 )
curdins wrote:
Inability to pull PowerTorque
Inability to pull PowerTorque cranks … what???
Campagnolo have, since the introduction of PT, advised the use of a Facom U.301 flywheel puller and Campagnolo tools UT-FC090 and UT-FC095. We’ve pulled literally 100s of PT cranks that way since 2011 when we saw the 1st development units, no problem … with a 10mm spanner turning the puller, so they can’t be *that* hard to extract …
The Cyclus tools work fine as do the various incarnations that VAR have produced (used both many times without a serious problem).
Campagnolo have never sanctioned the Part Tool for PowerTorque removal. It’s not a great design.
This is a bit of an urban myth … seemingly got up by those that prefer the HT2 design with it’s wide Q factor …
velotech_cycling wrote:
I’ve pulled them using nothing more than an open-ended bottom bracket wrench. Unscrew the cup and the crank arm comes with it.
Shimano Tourney 7 speed road groupset does comes with that dreaded shift button.
Yet again utter piffle about
Yet again utter piffle about Deltas being rubbish. Best brakes I’ve ever user used. Run cable through, adjust pads, drop wheel slightly, clip cable level with bottom of housing. No rub, fabulous braking. Great stopping power, great modulation, beautiful looks. Yes, they’re heavier than most, they’re also more rigid than pretty much everythig else rim brake wise. I’d buy them for every bike I owned if I could afford them! Mine are 25 years old and still work perfectly, better than the Shi*mano crap I replaced with them. Bought them of their looks, kept them for their ability.
Shimano Biopace chainrings
Shimano Biopace chainrings wobbly? I have those on a Miyata and I never experienced anything I considered odd. It’s funny that Shimano dropped this and then recently this idea resurfaced by the likes of Osymetric and others.
The problem was, the buttons
The problem was, the buttons could only be reached from the lever hoods.
This is just plain false. The thumb buttons on these old Sora shifters can be whacked quite readily from the hooks of the bars. If anything, they’re easier to miss from the hoods. I still have a pair on my daily driver. The hoods themselves are awfully uncomfortable compared to what we now enjoy, though.
Retro: this article
Retro: this article
And now we are waiting a
And now we are waiting a massive re call for Glued Shimano Ultegra-Dura Ace Cranksets…..Shimano must change all Ultegra 6800 cranks & Dura Ace 9000 cranks like FC-CT 90 during nineties.
Nice article couple of
Nice article couple of comments
i have read so many criticisms of delta brakes over the years but dont believe the authors have ever actually owned a set. I have two sets of c-record and one croce d’aune set and when correctly set up work extremely well, comparable with modern equipment and far far better than the competitionat the time, campag super record or chorus monoplanar were dreadful.
Shimano ax was a very clever groupset far ahead of its time, it actually had basic indexing on the rear mech (not many people realise that) and again, delta brakes, but not anything like as good as the campag offerings.
the reason the pedals were dropped with a crank bearing wasnt to pedal circles, normal pedals do that already, it was to drop the height of the rider by a centimetre and improve their aero! Similarly those bike came with narrow 40cm handlebars and aero brake levers, well ahead of its time.
Softride on your TT bike,
Softride on your TT bike, anyone?
I had the thumb shift Sora on
I had the thumb shift Sora on my first road bike (bianchi via nirone) and I could just about change from the drops…but it wasn’t ideal tbf. Was quite nice to use from the hoods though 🙂
Hollow-bonded cranks?
Hollow-bonded cranks?
hawkinspeter wrote:
Cracking suggestion!
I have never used Rotor oval
I have never used Rotor oval gear rings, but they seem to be a bit more of an extreme of what the Shimano BioPace was. I have a bike with the BioPace gears and I never had any issues with knee pain, in fact I think they’re easier on the knees. The problem with BioPace was the actual setup being placed on the crank and getting the ring in the right spot for the most power. Some have said that not even Shimano got gear aligned right originally!
Another bad product was Shimano XT of the mid 90’s, the rear derailleur was junk. I tried many times to get mine to shift correctly to no avail, then I found out that no bike shop could either! I had one bike shop replace the shifters to twist shift which did absolutely nothing. The only thing that worked, was to replace the derailleur. This problem was common for XT in the mid 90’s.
Should we add “no longer
Should we add “no longer supporting rim brakes or mechanical shifting in mid and high end groupsets” to Shimano’s biggest fails?
The worst thing about Sora
The worst thing about Sora was if you got the cable tension wrong, the front derailleur could be impossible to change without slicing your thumb off with the force referred on the tiny, uncomfortable lever.
About that infamous prototype
About that infamous prototype titanium axle failure, Campagnolo had already asked the team to send those bottom brackets back … but one was left by mistake on Fignon’s bike.
I have a bike with progressive rate caliper brakes (not Delta, a more recent product) and find that they perform supremely well. The problem with fiddly systems in general is not the system itself but rather the required standard of wrenching. Boutique components often perform better than standard components – if you are fortunate enough to befriend a good mechanic.
Mass market components are designed with average skills in mind, as they should. Manufacturers of boutique components on te other hand may reasonably assume that their products will be installed by competent mechanics – would you entrust your expensive parts to a hack? In the wrong hands, boutique products easily acquire a bad reputation.
I never really had an issue
I never really had an issue with the old style Sora shifters, and had no real problem shifting from the drops. I covered may thousands of km with them between 2010 and 2015 when I upgraded to 105, and while I’m certainly not going to claim they were better than 105, they arguably had the edge for shifting in heavy winter gloves