Garth wrote:
"The second fault was Campagnolo, who cast this particular seatpost unevenly. The width of the aluminum walls were so obviously uneven. One part of the wall was nearly double the width of another part 360 degrees around, and the crack happened at the thin part. This seatpost could never stand up to a strong twisting action. If it had been properly cast this post would be out now, in its entirety."
I would like to comment about a few items here. Campagnolo did not cast a "finished" seatpost. They cast a single solid seatpost and then turned them down both internally and externally to the seatpost size that they wanted. There was therefore no casting error. Furthermore, the seatpost was in no way defective, as it obviously accomplished what it was designed to do: namely to safely attach the saddle to the frame. The breakage was in no way linked to "normal" use conditions. It was misused as already pointed out by Jonathan, both due to the forces applied in the removal attempt, as well as due to the lack of lubrication.
I spent a few hours at Colnago's place in Cambiago earlier this week. He showed me some of the solid seatposts that he purchased from Campagnolo for the production of his 'custom' and pantographed seatposts. The 'custom' and pantographed seatposts were produced for Colnago by Rauler. (Rauler is a combination of the names of the two partners in the business: Raul and Ernesto.) I was also able to see the production facilities of the C50 and Master steel frames. I also got the tour of the Colnago bike collection that includes one of Eddy's Mexican hour record bikes, as well as Rominger's hour record bike, the Colnago given to the Pope, one of Saronni's Giro winning bikes, plus, plus, plus... For the real lug-lickers, Ernesto still has one of the Gloria Garibaldina bikes that he built during the 7 years that he worked there. I was also very fortunate to receive a custom super lightweight Colnago double chainset that was made out of solid billet. Ernesto told me that he had 5 of these chainsets made for him by the same people who make the gear-boxes for the Ferrari formula 1 team. I plan to bring this little bit of eye candy (NOT for sale), together with other items to le cirque.
--
Steven Maasland
Moorestown, NJ, USA