Campagnolo

Campagnolo
legal form	Società a responsabilità limitata
founding	1933
Seat	Vicenza , Italy
Number of employees	about 800
Branch	Bicycle components
Website	www.campagnolo.com

Campagnolo is an Italian company based in Vicenza that mainly produces high quality bicycle components. The brand name is often abbreviated with "Campa". The company was founded in 1933 by Tullio Campagnolo and is now run by his son Valentino Campagnolo. The managing directors are Renzo Romagnosi and Michele Cardi. Campagnolo is said to have invented derailleur gears, but it is not. In the mid-1930s, the Nieddu brothers invented a working circuit that was used by professionals. Tullio Campagnolo did not invent the derailleur system, but in 1946 he was the first to introduce a derailleur system that has proven itself in everyday use, the linkage system. All derailleur gears in use up to this point still caused problems such as excessive soiling and frequent chipping of the chain.

History and technology

Tullio Campagnolo was a cyclist and had a small workshop in Vicenza, Italy. In a cycle race on November 11, 1927 at the Croce d'Aune pass in the Dolomites , he lost a lot of time trying to unscrew and turn the rear wheel in the snow (at that time the only way to change the gear ratio on the way). He then devised a solution to simplify and speed up wheel changes : He invented the quick release for bicycle hubs.

Super record rear derailleur from 1979–1982 / 1984

Campagnolo dropouts on an Italian racing bike

The parallelogram articulated circuit followed as a further development of the linkage circuit. This type of circuit is still the basis of all derailleur gears today . Tullio withdrew from active cycling in order to devote himself entirely to the construction of bicycle components.

In 1940 he hired his first employee; In 1950 Campagnolo had 123 employees. In 1955 the first complete group of components for bicycles was presented. As early as the 1940s, the name Campagnolo began to be used on equipment and clothing for racing cyclists. Famous racing drivers such as the legendary Fausto Coppi wore Campagnolo. However, Campagnolo did not produce these items of clothing and equipment such as jerseys, hats and drinking bottles itself, but obtained them from suppliers.

At the beginning of 2000 the company started producing and selling clothing itself. For this purpose, the company Abacus 2000 was first established in 2000 , which was later renamed Campagnolo Sportswear Srl . In August 2012, Valentino Campagnolo announced the discontinuation of the clothing line. In 2004 the company Fulcrum Wheels Srl was added to the range of high quality wheels and cranks with Campagnolo technology without Campagnolo lettering for racing bikes. Since 2008 Fulcrum Wheels has also offered a full range of wheels for mountain bikes.

Campagnolo employs around 690 people worldwide and achieved sales of around 110 million euros in the 2012/2013 financial year. The company is located in Vicenza, Italy. Production takes place in Italy, Romania, China and Taiwan. After Campagnolo in the 1990s, BMX, tandem, ATB and mountain bike components (groups Euclid, Chorus ATB, Olympus, Centaur, Icarus and Record OR), motors for racing, helicopter components, satellites and armaments projects, and earlier also rims and other components for Formula 1, Campa has withdrawn from this market and currently only produces components for racing bikes .

In the late 1950s, Campagnolo began manufacturing magnesium parts such as wheels for sports cars such as Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati, and in 1969 built chassis for NASA satellites. In 1963 Campagnolo produced a disc brake for the Innocenti Lambretta TV scooter - the first two-wheel production vehicle with such a brake. In the 1970s they also supplied wheels for Ferrari's Formula 1 cars.

Campagnolo worked with the manufacturer Colnago and the racing driver Eddy Merckx and produced lightweight components for the track bike, with which he set the world record in 1972.

After Campagnolo's success in the 1970s and 1980s, innovation lagged as rival Shimano developed shift levers and combined shift / brake levers (Shimano Total Integration). An unsuccessful foray into mountain biking, the overbuilt and heavy Euclid, Centaur and Olympus groups contributed to the company's decline in those years. When the expensive Record OR (Offroad) and Icarus MTB groups came on the market, Campagnolo's reputation as a racing bike brand was firmly anchored. As a result, Campagnolo withdrew from the mountain bike market in 1994. Despite its difficulties, Campagnolo presented the combined shift / brake lever ErgoPower and once again concentrated on high-quality racing bike components.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Campagnolo increasingly built parts made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic and titanium in group sets and developed wheel sets. In 2004, Campagnolo introduced a complete compact drivetrain with smaller chainrings to achieve lower gears than conventional drivetrains. Other innovations included an ultra-torque crank with outer bearing developed by Hirth and a G3 spoke lacing for racing bikes. In 2008 Campagnolo introduced 11-speed drivetrains with Super Record, Record and Chorus groupsets. Campagnolo has released an electronic version of its powertrain. In April 2018, the company launched 12-speed Record and Super Record groups.

Campagnolo has focused on racing and track cycling. As part of the UCI ProTour, teams such as Astana, Movistar, Lotto-Soudal, Cofidis, Quick Step-Innergetic (Tom Boonen, Paolo Bettini) and Lampre were sponsored. Campagnolo is linked to the victories of Eddy Merckx, who used Campagnolo exclusively and was friends with Tullio Campagnolo.

technology

Technical innovations in the recent past included the 11-speed drive (mathematically up to 22 gears possible), the manufacture of more and more components from carbon fiber reinforced plastic ("carbon") and the G3 spoke system for wheels. As early as the mid-1990s, Campagnolo tried out an electrical circuit that had already been tested on bikes by professionals from GS1 and ProTour teams during major competitions (for example the Tour de France , Paris-Roubaix , Paris-Nice ). Electronic 11-speed gears were mass-produced by Campagnolo from model year 2013. The abbreviation EPS after the group name indicates this. Since 2009 Campagnolo has been producing the first component group with mechanical 11-speed gears weighing less than 2 kg. In 2018, the company presented the first racing bike group with a 12-speed cassette (theoretically 24 gears possible).

After the racing bike groups, the wheels make up the second large part of the company's business. Campagnolo has also been offering its wheels with HG-compatible freewheels ex works since 1999.

Competitors and Compatibility

Direct competitors are the Japanese company Shimano and the American bicycle component manufacturer SRAM .

Until the mid-1990s, many Campagnolo groupsets were manufactured so that they were compatible with components from, for example, Shimano, after which this was changed. The distances between the sprockets on the cassettes differ from those of the Shimano or SRAM systems, which results in different switching distances. However, all Campagnolo eleven parts up to model year 2014 are compatible with each other, regardless of which group they belong to. The same goes for all ten components from Campagnolo. In contrast, the eleven and ten-fold components cannot be combined due to different switching distances.

From 2015, the gear ratio of the shift / brake lever, rear derailleur and front derailleur for the Chorus, Record and Super Record groups was changed, so that these components are no longer compatible with other Campagnolo 11-speed groupsets until 2014, with the exception of the cassette, crank and chains and brakes.

Products

Campagnolo Victory brakes from 1986

Ergopower of the Veloce Group until 2008

Ergopower of the Veloce Group from 2009 to 2010

Current racing bike groups from model year 2017

(in qualitatively descending order)

Super Record / 11-fold, (aluminum, carbon and titanium), also known as electronic circuit (EPS) available
Record / 11-speed, (aluminum, carbon), also available as electronic gearshift (EPS) and with disc brakes
Chorus / 11-speed, (aluminum, carbon), also available as electronic gearshift (EPS) and with disc brakes
Potenza / 11-speed (aluminum), also available with disc brakes
Centaur / 11-speed, (aluminum) (until 2002: Daytona, until 2000: Athena)

Components not tied to a group from the 2009 season

Cyclocross: Cranksets for cyclocross use in different versions (CX 10S, CX 10S Carbon, CX 11S, CX 11S Carbon each in 36-46 or 34-50 gear ratios)
Pista: For track bikes with rigid hubs and single chain rings
Time Trial: For time trial bikes with handlebar end shift levers, brake levers without shifting mechanism and larger chainrings (up to 55 teeth)
Triple: Triple chainring with associated front derailleur, rear derailleur, bottom bracket