It seems that bike parts are constantly being denounced due to a few bad experiences.
Peter you make a good point re: Campagnolo. My thoughts are that most often racing bikes with Campy or Zeus or whatever usually get damaged earlier, then eventually break, to the surprise of their rider and pronounced as a Just Riding Along failure. Whatever the cause, the frequency of failure is really very small.
The most recurring example of this phenomenon in our local cycling community has been tires; one or two riders has a flat with a particular brand X model and suddenly all X tires suck. I saw Wolber, then Clement, then Vittoria, etc., etc., be condemned over the last 35+ years. It's almost funny, as if that piece of glass or flint had a particular make of tire it was waiting for to inflict it's wound.
Dale Brown Greensboro, North Carolina USA
-----Original Message----- From: Peter Brueggeman <4peebee@peterbrueggeman.com> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Sent: Sun, Jan 30, 2011 2:45 pm Subject: [CR] re Zeus Quality ?
Michael Levy said " You want Proof ...I got Proof... My team was sponsored by Zeus in the early, mid 80's. I put a Zeus crank set (Campy look alike) on a Colnago Super.....While climbing "Trash Truck" hill the right side crank arm snapped off ! I almost lost my you no whats....."
Searching the CR Archives will retrieve stories/instances of Campaganolo crank arms breaking. So you would be well advised by the experience of others to avoid using Campagnolo cranks as well? Your Zeus experience is a datapoint and doesn't provide definitive "proof" whether Zeus cranks break more or less than Campagnolo cranks.
It's good that the boys survived....
Peter Brueggeman
La Jolla California USA
4peebee(at)peterbrueggeman.com