Chuck S. wrote:
Call me elitist (i don't mind in the least) but I've never understood why anyone would want to buy a copy of Campagnolo instead of the original? Was it just about price?
Anyone?
Chuck Schmidt South Pasadena, CA
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Yup. If you were as poor as I was in 1975, you bought the cheapest stuff you could. That said, I always tried to afford Campagnolo, although I put first-gen Dura-Ace brakes on one bike because the Campagnolo brakes were just outta my price range. I bought Suntour because it was lighter, and, I felt, worked better than Campagnolo, and for a lot less money. In 1975, 100 bucks was serious money for me.
Am I wrong in assuming that most SR stuff ended up as the OEM product for mid- to upper-line bikes on which Campagnolo would have been unreasonably costly? The nice thing about SR and Sugino and Suntour and Nitto and Sanshin stuff was that you could get a bike that worked as well, and was, in its essential function, arguably more refined than an all-campagnolo bike, but pay significantly less.
A Fuji Finest, or Newest, from the mid-1970s, with the latest Nitto and Suntour and Sanshin parts was as refined and spirited, maybe more so, than any Cinelli or Masi. And it cost less. A lot less. It just didn't say Cinelli, Masi, or Campagnolo on it, and therein was the marketing challenge.
Charles Andrews
Los Angeles