This evening I was finally able to do my first long ride on the Learco Guerra with Campy "Paris-Roubaix" shifter. The bike is leaning against the wall beside me now, all worn paint and flaking chrome (but now shod with beautiful baby blue brake cable casings - thanks again, Karen!).
Only nine months ago I had never seen a Campy sliding-hub shifter in person. Now there are two of each here at The Island of Misfit Bicycles. I already feel like an "old hand" at using these old mechs - they aren't too difficult to use, just slow and inconvenient compared to modern parts (i.e. anything post-1953).
Not easy. Not too difficult, but not easy. I'm glad for that. My last racing bike was too easy. I enjoy the new challenge, the skills involved, the feeling that I'm on another learning curve after such a long time on the table-top mesa made possible by Ergolevers and STI.
After riding both versions, I think that to fully appreciate the two-lever CC mech, you need to also have the single-lever PR version, and visa-versa. The cambio Corsa is pure simplicity-one lever operates the quick-release, the other pushes the chain left or right across the freewheel. That's all. So simple, anyone could probably build one from stuff found in their kitchen drawers (Providing their kitchen drawers look anything like MY kitchen drawers).
The Paris-Roubaix,on the other hand, is not a simple mechanism. At least eight different things are happening when you move the lever of a PR. There are hidden springs, angled slots, left-hand threads, fingers grabbing teeth, unseen parts, all made with such perfect design and absolute precision, it's almost impossible to see this as an "evolution"of the CC mech. This thing is really Engineered, and each part is about as perfect as it can be for it's designed function. I still shift in awe of all the things that this one lever can control.
The PR mech is a perfect execution of a dead-end design. We rarely get to see that in the real world today. Everything can get better and better over time. But practically nothing of the PR or CC mechs carried-over to later designs (unless you count the quick release "automatic wing nuts" that made it all possible. Even the final versions of the PR with the shifting fork below the chainstay where on a road to nowhere.
The book "Dancing Chain" shows a wide and varied assortments of copycat shifters from the 40s and 50s. None seem to have improved on the Campagnolo designs, and none evolved any further.
An extinct species. Completely extinct.
But it works,and it works reasonably well. I can even imagine riding a really long ride with either mech, unless it was too rolling, in which case I'd leave the CC at home, but I might be tempted to use the PR.
It wouldn't be easy.
But that's good. Maybe ease is overrated.
Aldo Ross
Middletown, Ohio