Jan makes very succint points. In my years of looking at these defects, many were really manufacturing mistakes, too soon on market, without enough testing, cashflow problems vs. competition, or maybe a laissaiz faire tactic from another transportation industry that lets the public discover or suffer the R&D and they'll pay a few claims and maybe correct as they go along or change models. Other perceived defects, like the Campy cranks were more, in my estimation consumer inexperience. Others who are not as tolerant as I in suffering fools, called it misguided macho or stupidity. Any self respecting rider occasionally wiped off his/her bike. When you do, you look for problems. Preventive medicine. DUH. When we saw a hairline crack in a Campy crank crook on a customers bike, we took a rattail file, made a few strokes and problem cured. NEVER had a crank break on us of all we touched up. Whenever we had a Campy crank come in we checked acordingly. If a problem, filed for free, and often didn't even tell rider and no one EVER complained or had a defect. Most of the times the difficulty was that the riders bought sophisticate bikes in amateur shops that should never have been sold or been seling professional bikes to begin with, (blame greedy and irresponsible distributors and reps) and the customer had no clue as to how to ride except push on pedals. In general, the powerhouse Neanderthals had a # 68 chest, a # 2 hat, and a cranial vacuum. But they got the bike on a blow-out el cheapo price 'cause the ?dealer needed bucks, had no advanced cycling clientele, but the rep assured him easy money, which didn't happen and the ?shop unloaded. It was a fun time. Garage hangars, go get 'em. Ride a 52x13 all the time, come to a lght to stop, put on brakes. Use gear shift for mechanical advantage? Don't even know what shifting means. Start from standing at signal in 13t cog. . 200 pounds of dynamite, 2" fuse. We did sell lots of high gear cogs and chains on bikes we didn't sell originally. Funny how the clods seemed to find us when they had a problem. Campy definitely had a weak spot, but racers would have busted them left and right. NO ONE could have kept that quiet, and Campy would have been up the hill without a crank. I had a first generation Campy equipped Rickert road bike in '59. Road the old square shaped cranks so long, the aluminum oxidised and was flaking off. I know, I should have cleaned it more, but at that time I was working 60 -80 hours a week in shop, fixed everybody else's bike but my own. The cranks were over twenty years old and ridden year round, over cobbles, dirt roads, up hill and down. The cranks never failed. So much for quality. Ted Ernst Palos Verdes Estates, CA
> >A crank failure is much less dangerous than a fork failure. You can
>>still control your bike if the crank fails, and bring it to a safe stop.
>
> John,
>
> I like your optimism. If your cranks, bottom bracket or pedals fail while
> you are out of the saddle, it is hard to avoid a crash, as shown by many
> amateur and pro racers, including Laurent Fignon (wasn't it him?), who
> broke collarbones and other body parts when their cranks (or early SR Ti
> BBs with hollow spindles) failed.
>
> Fork failure needn't be associated with injury either - I once was very
> lucky that my fork (highly regarded American custom frame, silver-brazed
> and all, not some junky Viscount) failed after a screaming downhill, just
> as I was spinning up the other side... ;-)
>
> I think that failure of any essential part of the bike, whether seatpost
> (Campy carbon death seatposts anybody? I once saw five failed seatposts
> lined up at a local dealer), handlebars, stem, crank, wheels or forks, can
> cause great harm or be harmless, depending on luck and circumstances.
>
> I think what is overlooked in Campagnolo's defense is that these cranks
> were designed for racing. A lot of people will not like this statement,
> but racing is not very stressful for many components: Not only are most
> racers lightweight and smooth pedalers (at high cadences and thus low
> torque), but the torque involved in a race situation is much less than
> what occurs during a fast start from a traffic light. (Proof: With
> horizontal dropouts, you never pull the wheel sideways in an all-out
> sprint, but it does happen occasionally when you start from a light.)
>
> The same applies to breaking rear axles - I raced on Campy Record wheels
> for more than 10 years, potholes and all, with not a single broken axle.
> My clincher wheelset, on the same bike, same axles on Campy early Chorus
> hubs, used for commuting, went through axles regularly. That is also why
> tandems can be so devastating for equipment, even with not extremely
> strong teams. (I believe the same applies to cars - a 1000 hp Formula 1
> race car of the 1980s can get away with a much smaller clutch than a 350
> hp truck with huge amounts of torque.)
>
> Of course, in a race, you don't start from a standstill very often,
> whereas American commuters do.
>
> In Italy, few people would even consider commuting on a Campy-equipped
> race bike... I believe that American cycling habits stress bikes more than
> what they were designed to do.
>
> Of course, that does not mean that it would not have been better if Campy
> had got rid of that stress riser in the spider a little early than the
> 1980s... According to Daniel Rebour, Campy cranks started failing as they
> went from the first model with the thicker arm to the thinner arms in an
> effort to reduce Q factor, around 1962 (for the source, check the CR
> archives).
>
> But when a true problem appeared, like with the early Ti BBs, they did
> redesign them rather quickly...
>
> Just for the record, does anybody know whether Fignon went down because of
> a crank or a BB failure? Most failures in races in Germany that I remember
> were BBs, not cranks...
> --
> Jan Heine, Seattle
> Editor/Publisher
> Vintage Bicycle Quarterly
> c/o Il Vecchio Bicycles
> 140 Lakeside Ave, Ste. C
> Seattle WA 98122
> http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com