Jerome & Elizabeth Moos <jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
I agree that the Victory/Triomphe levers were not identical to NR/SR. I believe they had different markings. But by "essentially the same as NR/SR", I meant these brakesets had the same design, shape, materials and operation as NR/SR, except for the QR on the calipers as I noted. I'm a little confused about Cobalto hoods, however. Were these aero hoods with no hole for the old non-aero cable routing? I've bought from an eBay "store" what were stated to be Cobalto hoods. These are white and look exactly like the hoods pictured. They appear to be the same shape as NR/SR/Victory/Triomphe. Either these are not in fact Cobalto hoods, or I am missing something as to the distinction between Cobalto and earlier hoods.
Toms reply is:
If there is no cable hole in the top, and no plastic plug, the hoods you bought are the C-record type, not Cobalto or NR/SR. If they look exactly like the hoods pictured, they really can't also appear to be the same shape as NR/SR/Victory/Triomphe. The two shapes aren't even close. This relates to your earlier statement:
The lever is C-Record, used with either Delta or Cobalto brakes. The hoods are from the same era. I think the white ones were usually found on C-Record, but essentially identical ones in black or gum were found on the lower-line Victory and Triomphe brakes, which were basically the old NR but with a cheaper QR.
So the "essentially identical" part was comparing hoods found on Victory and Triomphe levers to those hoods pictured, which is not correct. You were not comparing the NR/SR and Victory/Triomphe brakesets as you later said. Although you are absolutely right that the referenced brakesets are basically like the NR.
The lever picture is indeed C-Record (or Chorus, or Athena), like you said, and was used with the Delta brake, but not with the Cobalto. More accurately, it was not packaged as a set with Cobalto calipers, except possibly very late in the game, although people did use the C-record lever / Cobalto caliper from the earliest availability of the lever. The things that are certain are that the lever pictured is not the Cobalto lever and that the C-Record and Cobalto levers are not one and the same. All this aside, the statement that I found to be most confusing was the part about the essentially identical ones in black or gum were found on the lower-line Victory and Triomphe brakes. Hoods essentially identical to those in the posted images came in white and black only, no gum, and no matter what the color, they do not come close to fitting the Victory or Triopmphe levers. Victory came with white shield logo hoods that were the same as the gum NR/SR shield log hoods, other than the color. Triomphe came with gum shield logo hoods that were the same as those on NR/SR, though they often seemed more plasticy.
I think some of the trouble with keeping straight all the different OT Campy levers and calipers from 1984 onward lies in the fact that they all look the same. The Cobaltos are fairly similar to the rest, and the rest are extremely similar to one another. To confuse things, I think some OE bikes had combos like Cobalto levers and Victory calipers, which were never a standard boxed set. Ive also seen weird stuff that appeared to be in the factory box, such as plain SR calipers with Cobalto levers and, Ive head of late Cobalto calipers coming with C-record levers. Furthermore, many bikes ended up with the C-record lever combined with the Cobalto caliper or SR caliper when the rider got sick of the fuss of Deltas and went back to the earlier calipers.
So, as an expansion to my previous summary here are the different hoods and the levers they go with. The three shapes are in no way interchangeable.
The Classic Shape Hoods
Globe logo gum hoods came with NR, SR and 50th levers from their respective beginnings until the 1983 or 1984 intro of the script-logo calipers.
Globe logo black hoods came with GS from the beginning until 83/84.
Shield logo white came with Victory and a few very late SR levers that trickled through in 1986/87. (Yes, Im talking SR levers with the SR logo, not the Victory logo, in the box, from the factory)
Shield logo gum hoods came with script logo NR/SR and Triomphe, though I think the Triomphe hoods were usually more plasticy.... but that could just have been me.
Shield logo black hoods... not sure that these were made, but if they were it was for late GS calipers, or they were only available as spare parts, after GS were discontinued.
The Cobalto Shape
This hood came in white only*, and there was always a hole in the top for either the cable (if running non-aero) or a little plastic plug (for aero). All three subtly different versions of the Cobalto lever allowed both cable routings through the use of a small inserted cable guide. This lever was originally the C-record Delta lever for the first generation, recalled Delta brakes. *An extremely limited number of these hoods were made in black for the Bianchi Centenario.
The C-Record shape
These came in white, prior to 1992 and black from 1992 onward. They go with the many slightly different versions of the C-record Delta, Croce Delta, Chorus, Athena and later cheapie levers. Early versions of these levers were convertible from aero to non-aero and would use hoods with a removable plug. Later versions of the lever were aero-only (works better and cheaper to make) and they would have no hole in the top, just a vestigial depression. Since the no-hole version came out later, there may never have been one in white. I cant recall. Im pretty certain that Campy used a cheaper material on the white hoods that came with Athena levers, and possibly Chorus, and that this material was more plasticy and harder. I never seemed to be any difference in the material by the time all the hoods were black.
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