Bryant wrote:
"If we are calling the highly milled and rounded cranks seen on Olmo, Colnago and a few others "Mexico" (never saw those words on them in the day) I can say with certainty that they were in fact modified by Campagnolo. I had always wondered about this and when visiting Campy on business in the mid 80's I had the opportunity to ask them directly. It turns out that for a few special and influential Italian builders, there were modifying cranks, shifters, brakes and seat posts. They specifically mentioned the Olmo, DeRosa & Colnago. There may have been others, but the brain cells are rusty now. Dale is right about Campy frowning on people modifying their products, but apparently that does not extend to their own work for Italian builders."
Bryant,
I believe that your post is highly confusing as it does not state with any degree of clarity as to what work Campagnolo was supposed to have carried out. Like Dirk Feeken, I too must put considerable doubt into your account if you intend to claim that all the milling and pantographing was done by Campagnolo.
Not only does this not jive with what I have seen in my many visits to Campagnolo, it also does not correspond to what De Rosa, Colnago and Omo have told me. Given that I used to work for a German direct importer of both De Rosa and Olmo in the late 80's and early 90's, I was offered the opportunity to visit both of these manufacturers. While I didn't see the production of Olmo, I did visit De Rosa many many times and remain in contact with them to this day. I have also worked with Colnago and had numerous one-on-one meetings with Ernesto and all of his staff, many who have worked for Colnago for over 20 years. I was also permitted free, unsupervised, access to all three factories. At Colnago, I was able to observe firsthand numerous semi-finished Campagnolo components. These included unturned solid SR seatposts, non-anodized C-Record hubs and cranks. Both Ernesto and his employees said that the seatpost (as well as other components) were then turned and pantographed by Rauler (the name Rauler is a contraction of the two partners names: Raul and ERnesto). The particular hubs and cranks I saw were used to produce the gold-plated 30th anniversary components. I was even told that the gold-plating was done by a company specializing in religious artifacts as they were the only ones with big enough vats and high enough quality to do the work. During my 4 years living and working just up the road from the Campagnolo factory, I was also able to make frequent after-hours visits. I was also afforded a rather free access to the whole factory and offices. My contact was the then Director of Production, a fellow who had previously been a colleague of mine at another company in the Veneto. Nothing in the factory ever intimated any possible custom production for any Italian builders.
My take on this whole discussion is that Campagnolo was indeed willing to have special editions of virtually any of their products made if there was an economic incentive to do so. This can be seen by such items as the Hi-Lo hubs and the Legnano-branded hubs. This does not however mean that any or all of the work was done internally. It also does not mean that they would be willing to further "refine" their products in any way (the Hi-Lo hubs are quite easily produced by combining two existing mould halves). Indeed, with regards to the semi-finished products observed at Colnago, as well as discussed with De Rosa, all of the special personalized products that they received from Campagnolo and spoke of were actually less refined. All of the additional refinement was almost certainly added by outsiders, perhaps with complicity of Campagnolo. For the "Mexico" cranks this might therefore have involved sending Rauler non-anodized semi-finished cranks for completion. After completion of the milling, they were then initially polished before use by Colnago. Perhaps successively, given the, by then, demonstrated resilience of the milled cranks, the "refiners" may have been permitted to send them back to Campagnolo to be anodized, but I cannot state this to be true.
Steven Maasland
Moorestown, NJ