-----Original Message----- From: Moos, Jerry Sent: Monday, March 26, 2001 5:02 PM To: 'Bingham, Wayne' Subject: RE: [CR]One man's pinnacle is another man's pothole
Well, Dale somewhere on the CR site talks about classic bikes as being at least 15 years old, so now in 2001, C-Record has sneaked into "classic" by that definition. I have a hard time calling C-Record the pinnacle when it still lacked the slant parallelogram rear derailleur which SunTour had introduced at least 15 years earlier, said derailleurs working better than anything else from the classic era. Maybe C-Record was the pinnacle as an overall gruppo, but I'm not sure I'd consider any individual C-Record component the pinnacle, except maybe the Cobalto brakes. I'd probably rank SunTour derailleurs, Simplex Retrofriction shifters and badged seatposts, Phil Wood hubs and BBs, Stronglight roller bearing headsets, and TA Cyclotourist (for touring) or Mavic (for racing) cranks as the pinnacle in preference to C-Record.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
-----Original Message----- From: Bingham, Wayne [mailto:WBINGHAM@imf.org] Sent: Monday, March 26, 2001 4:22 PM To: 'CR' Subject: [CR]One man's pinnacle is another man's pothole
Man, of course, is used in the human context, not the gender context. :)
I believe most on this list would probably agree that the pinnacle of the vintage lightweight era frame-wise is the hand-crafted, lugged frame (despite the fact that the nuances of that can also be debated, probably forever). So that leaves the components. Of course, in this area, there are probably a lot of opinions that are influenced more by individual bias, preference and taste than other factors. That said, I have to agree with Wes and Tom (sorry Chuck) that the original C-Record components are the pinnacle (described by Webster as the highest point of development or achievement) of the lightweight era, component-wise. I've always wondered why so many discussions end with Super Record. Is it the Campy time-line thing? Or the ethereal 1985 cut-off date (sorry Dale)? C-Record was the evolution of Campy's then-current component development, just prior to what might be described as the RE-development era, which sort of started the process all over again with somewhat new and different directions (indexing et al). Of course, Campy didn't really get serious about indexing until they made the move to the slant-parallelogram derailleur design sometime later. The C-Record "Doppler" shifters were definitely the pinnacle of friction shifter development. The C-Record component group, as a whole, with Cobalto brakes, those great shifters (were they a year later?), that beautiful shield-engraved rear derailleur, aero or non-aero cable routing and integrated crankarm/chainring mounting bolt, was simply the high point - pinnacle - of that development phase. Yes, there were some flaws - I'm talking about the group as a coordinated, functional entity. It was the best all-around group of components (functionally, ergonomically, visually) I had experienced at the time (and I don't think I'm alone). Indeed, I played with Campy's indexing system, as well as Shimano's (theirs worked, Campy's didn't, at least not to my satisfaction), and lots of other bits and pieces (many small gems there too), but I primarily rode that early Campy C-Record stuff through all that. Worked great, looked great, was easy to service and was reliable, at least for me (and a lot of others, it seems). Didn't really make any change until I finally tried Campy's Ergo system (that's right, blasphemy, but I'm never going back, not on what I ride everyday). Anyway, I have to go with the early C-Record-as-pinnacle flow, and I'll try and bring something so-equipped to the Cirque for contemplation.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
I guess that's more then two cents worth.....
Wayne Bingham