Hi Jim:
Bear in mind that we Engineers are like Economists: ask any three of us the same question, and you'll get three different answers, each of them being the "best!"
Of course the competition's Engineers told you that Campy could have picked a better alloy - remember they were telling you this thirty years after Campy made that decision - more material options / tempers had been created in the interim!
Let me also guess that the sales of NR/SR cranks far, far exceeded the sales of Specialized cranks - so therefore the population of Campy cranks was much greater, as we've discussed recently relative to this exact issue of crank breakage. It's rate of failure, repeatability of failure (i.e. is it the always the same mode/location of failure, or are there more than one mode or location), and cycles to failure that really matter.
Don't misunderstand me - I don't for a moment think that Tullio's Engineers were infallible or even frequently brilliant, nor that Tullio himself wasn't probably as stubborn as a mule sometimes, but that's part of what made him a legend (and I'm sure a pain in the butt to many), just like Enzo Ferrari.... Let the others try all sorts of advanced designs, then only adopt the ones that have passed the test of time and offer a real advantage of some sort. Think of BMW cars of the same period - solid, but somewhat conservative, reliable Engineering Design and execution on the surface. But, oh, did they have souls underneath the surface when compared to the Detroit Iron of the same timeframe!!!
Cheers,
Greg Parker A2 MI USA
(Hopefully, this isn't sounding too much like something from rec.bicycles.tech. Apologies to all if it is...).
Jim M. wrote (in part):
> Greg,
>
> Sure modern cranks will break in time. But my comments earlier regarding
> the choice of alloy that Campi chose for the NR arms, and that this
> alloy was not the best available is I believe true. One reason I say
> this is that I had the chance to design cranks for Specialized during
> the 1980's. We worked with Sugino in Japan. Their engineering staff told
> me that the alloy Campi used was not the best for this application. I
> don't remember what the alloy was, but we used something else. I also
> asked Shimano engineers and they said the same thing. I personally
> turned in more broken NR arms for warrantee when I was building frames
> than I ever saw returned of the Specialized cranks.
>
>
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