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Campagnolo was the manufacturer that invented derailleurs, and Shimano
is the company that nowadays dominates the bicycle market with iron hand.
This results in a war where each little movement of the enemy requires
an inmediate response. And as always happens in wars, everybody has to
take party. We will try to be impartial, and stablish a true comparative
between the flag ships of both contenders.
This war started in the mid eighties, when Shimano developed their SIS,
the first indexed system that became really successful. This made Campagnolo
lose an important part of their market share in the earlier nineties.
That age was not easy for Campagnolo: The bicycle world was shaken by
the quick evolution of MtB, Shimano and SunTour introduced novelties almost
every six months and the Italian company seemed not to be able to compete
the Japanese brands.
Finally, Campagnolo decided to leave the MtB market, and focus theirselves
on what they knew the best: The road field. By 1995, the Campagnolo range
was a truly alternative to Shimano products, and that was too the year
that Maeda sold the SunTour brand to Sakae Ringyo, what, in fact, meant
a competitor less.
For 2000, and after some years of constant successes, the Italians introduced
what a year after has proved to be a revolution that has put Shimano against
the wall: The first ten speed rear shifting system. It is not that the
Japanese company has lost much of their sales, but lots of road bikers
think today that Campagnolo builds the most advanced groupos avalaible.
That stands for prestige.
To clear up which one is the best componentry that can be achieved nowadays,
we have tested the more expensive each one offers: Shimano Dura Ace and
Campagnolo Record.
The best groupos ever?
First of all, it is needed to clear up that both products can suit
any road cyclist in the world. Both them are reliable, offer a perfect
function of any of their parts, and both them feature the latest technologies
to insure a very light weight. So, from the beginning, it is needed to
say that, in most cases, there are very slightly differences.
What we will try to explain in this article is which one comes closer
to the utopic idea of Perfection. The people that buys these groupos spends
lots of money on bikes, so a good shifting or braking action is not enough
for them. Furthermore, the pros that use these products need something
that, at least, have no influence in the final result of each race. So,
a mechanical failure in the middle of a competition is something unacceptable,
and so is too any disadvantage due to any componentry’s characteristic.
A general view
Before describing and comparing each component, we will have a look
at what Dura Ace and Record offer as a whole. Today´s groupos are a set
where each piece is designed to work in synchrony with some others, instead
of being just a mix of pieces manufactured by the same company as happened
15 years ago. Indexed systems, the struggle for weight saving and other
technical advances make that sometimes only the front hub, the seat post
or the head set has not influence on how the rest of the components work.
There are a lot of independent manufacturers that build products that
are compatible with Campy or Shimano groupos, and sometimes they improve
the function of the original component in some way, or save a few grams;
but my personal experience tells me that you should be very careful when
choosing a substitute for an original piece. The most extreme example
are Campagnolo brakes: They are suppossed to be compatible with any wheel,
and they are, but their pads work best with Campy rims.
It is really pleasant for a bicycle devotee as I am to handle these components.
The materials they are made of, and the way how that materials have been
worked have almost no comparison with any other product from a different
field. Only Formula 1 cars have so much technology hidden in every little
piece. Maybe you think this is an exaggeration, but it is not. The way
Campagnolo and Shimano (and some other bicycle manufacturers) forge aluminum,
and the way Campagnolo works carbon fiber allows both companies to be
among the best mechanical componetry manufacturers of the world. And that
is why sometimes Ferrari and NASA rely on Campagnolo to build some pieces.
The Japanese components use cold forged aluminum. This procces insures
the best possible molecular cohesion, the way each component is extremely
strong. But forging cold aluminum is very difficult, because aluminum´s
plasticity is low at low temperatures, so extremely high forces are needed
to accurately shape it. There are only a few companies in the world that
can build cold forged aluminum pieces with the tolerances that Shimano
uses.
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