Campagnolo Out Of Tour De France | GCN Tech Show 319

Alex and Ollie discuss what Campagnolo being missing from this year’s Tour de France for the first time in around 75 years means for the prestige Italian brand, plus we have new wheels, bikes, AND see which of your bikes made it into the bike vault! (edited)

0:00 Welcome
0:26 No Campagnolo at the Tour de France
12:29 Hot & Spicy Tech
20:32 Precision Fuel and Hydration competition 🤝 #AD @precisionfandh
21:27 Comment of the week
27:04 Bike vault

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[gcntech]

🤔 What do you think of Campagnolo not being in the WorldTour this year? ⚙

[robertragon]

Coming of age in the 1970’s, I always wanted Campagnolo on my bike, but simply couldn’t afford a high-end bike. Instead of a Schwinn Paramount, I ended up with a Le Tour that had Suntour derailleurs. Turns out that Suntour actually invented the parallelogram derailleur and the quality was excellent. I finally got a Campy equipped Colnago as a senior citizen and love it. Hopefully, Campagnolo doesn’t end up like Suntour, just a footnote in history.

[mrrobinlund]

I’ve only ever ridden Campagnolo equipped bikes since ~1990. The first was 1st gen Chorus. Beautiful to look at but behind the times tech wise. Friction down tube levers and a freewheel rather than cassette. Then Croce D’Aune. Again beautiful but oh so crap. Now my winter bike has Veloce 10 speed from the early ‘paint it black’ era. Quite a few years old and still going strong. Shifting still spot on. Centaur carbon 10 speed on the summer bike. The last of the traditional looking group sets before massive mechs and cranks. I will keep this until it, or I fall to pieces.

[leitmotiph]

A lot of the shops local to me provide a free bike fit with the purchase of a bike. It's one of the ways to justify buying a bike in a shop rather than online and it's still foreign to me when shops don't offer it. Like a loose test fit, a stroll around the parking lot, and you're good to go?

[peterslater]

love hearing the love for Singer.... happy to see my two worlds colliding here. :)

[markkuviklund]

It's a shame, let's hope that Campa will be with us in coming years too. I've been riding with all three major brands, Shimano and Sram in winterbikes, but roadbike...always Campa. Nothing beats Campagnolos feeling and "sharpness".

[stihldavebergen]

I have a 2011 Bianchi Infinito with a Campagnolo Athena 11spd and it's the smoothest quietest grouset I've ever owned, absolutely love that bike and setup.

[henryheavisides]

Never heard of Huret! (Silent 't'). My first road bike had Huret gears, used it for riding to school, touring, time trials & cyclo cross. Always worked well.

[therevsroth]

Biggest issue I see is that they're pricing themselves out which is probably why they're on less bikes. Everything below chorus is heavy while still being pricey. Why do I want Athena or Centaur when 105 or Rival are cheaper and slightly lighter. When I built up my oldest kid's road bike I went Rival AXS, 1200 for a 2x12 groupset out the door at the LBS. Easy for her to shift and stop with. When it was passed down this winter and she stepped up her game it was 1500 at the LBS for a Force AXS groupset. Cheapest Campy is still another 300+ for Chorus and if you want wireless you're clearing 4k. My cross bike might be running 12sp chorus but the kids are growing up riding sram and loving the ease of use. Campy comes out with an $1800 wireless groupset I'd splurge on it if it was comparable in weight, otherwise they're not really something to look at.

[jeffreyb.]

Suntour. Mavic. Zeus. Gipiemme. I used to only have Campagnolo bikes. I went to Dura Ace after I crashed in Italy on a Campy equipped Kestrel in Bassano del Grappa in the early 2000's and the local shops had no campy parts but had shimano...and put my rear campy clicky record derailleur whole via taking parts off an old shimano rear derailleur. I asked them why and "in" Italy they said price of parts and function. Shifting and stopping were better - and as racers better mattered more than country to these folks. I was shocked. And slowly switched.

[WillPower]

Campag could massively open up their appeal to the mass market by changing to use the same cassette spacing as Shimano and SRAM. This is literally the only reason that has prevented me from buying Campag in the past and for my next bike.

[marceloiannini]

My 2 cents:
In the early 90s, there was Campagnolo available in most bike shops. They even introduced two low-end group sets. Before that, there was the glorious Campy small spare parts cabinet (have seem some of these in NYC in ‘94) which was the real business card of a reputable LBS.
By 2000, they were getting increasingly difficult to source. Only one or two bike shops carried them and they were also harder to buy online. Of course, price increased (their third tier group set was costing almost a Dura-Ace).
FF to the last 10 years and everybody is riding Shimano, even traditional Campy riders. Reason? They are AVAILABLE. Readily. Fast. Easy.
Ask any shop owner how difficult is to source a Campy and the answer is pretty straight.
The Campy business model is a dying recipe.
Dubious designs, poor electronics, bla-bla etc is just side effects of the Campy dwindling. Ask riders if they could actually choose a Campy and the answer is yes. However, to wait months, pay extra just to be different (in most cases for worse) and you get in reality realm. campy might change their 80 years old mindset and business model and made it widely available or they may just march to their tombstone.

[robertcatuara]

Ollie with the GCN halo logo behind him looks like a Jesus painting.

[권용대-bv]

I have a fantasy of riding a bike with Campagnolo mechanical groupset and wheelset. Still, I won’t be surprised even if they never come back to Tour de France.

[benjaminplant]

Love it when Ollie is patronising to Cuthbert

[BenjaminStone-sc]

Campagnolo has one electronic groupset which is the top of line. Imagine if SRAM didn't have Force AXS and Rival AXS or Shimano didn't have Ultegra Di2 or 105 Di2. Campagnolo should have come out with an electronic groupset of Chorus to make it current so they ruined themselves.

[pj]

I’m a big Shimano fan, however I do own a pair of Campag Zonda C17 wheels and they are epic 😎 sad about them not being in the tour. Let’s hope they come back, I’m sure they will… 🤞🤞🤞

[ThibaultTurpin-du]

For bike lovers ❤ nice tech explanation

[raymondchatt]

The tech team never mention the other groupsets chorus centaur and record . these are just like shimano all cheaper but never get a mention .

[ambotlakokabalo]

You should make a video about bike/component brands that are not in the worldtour.