The Bikes
The Bike. It is the central tool in pursuit of our craft. A Velominatus meticulously maintains their bicycles and adorns them with the essential, yet minimal, accoutrement. The Rules specify the principles of good taste in configuration and setup of our machines, but within those principles lies almost infinite room for personal taste.
It seems in some ways like a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, the way we honor our machines. We love them to a point that lies well beyond obsession. Upon these machines upon we endure endless suffering, but also find an unending pleasure. The rhythm, the harmony between rider and machine, the outdoors, the wind in our faces and air in our lungs.
The Bikes is devoted entirely to our machines. Ours, The Keepers, and yours, the Community. It features articles devoted to our bikes, and proves a forum for uploading photos of your own machines for discussion. We will be harsh, but fair; this is a place to enforce and enhance our observation of The Rules.
If you’d like to submit an article about your own beloved bike, please feel free to send it to us and we’ll do our best to work with you to include it.
- Rule #12 and the Cascade Effect
That is a very reasonable opening salvo for the Rule about bike ownership. Three is good and certainly a minimum, and we are talking road bikes here, if there was any doubt. They naturally become ordered: the #1 is ichi-ban, top dog, go-to bike for every and all rides. #2 was the old #1, ... - Guest Article: Black Is Not The New Black@kogalover is singing my song here. Bikes are beautiful. ’nuff said. VLVV, Gianni With all those posts on riding in winter and being visible, either by putting Eyes of Sauron or other car melting devices on one’s steed, or by even considering a YJA instead of donning plain black kit, it was about time to finally get ...
- Dialing in the StableThis was going to be an article about Rule #45. It is amazing how much time is wasted and matches burned when professionals stop for that second bike change to get back on their #1. With all the jigs available to team mechanics it would seem they could set up five bikes exactly the same. And ...
- Matching the drapes to the rugAs a longtime titanium bike owner, I’ve always been jealous of a beautiful painted frame but Ti and carbon frames don’t need paint like a steel frame needs paint. But I want some painted beauty. It’s like buying a white car; I can’t do white, need some color. So between a Ti frame and a ...
- Festum Prophetae: Waiting for the HourEveryone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. – Mike Tyson The one thing everyone should always plan for is that however well-conceived a program might be, things will never go to plan. The high level plan for my Festum Prophetae Hour Ride was as follows: Have a custom Hour Bike built by Don Walker. Because reasons. Reasons like custom ...
@frank
I totally disagree with this advice. The cheap Campag stuff works superbly and in my experience is equally as reliable as lower-end Shimano or Sram, and arguably it’s more durable. The levers not being serviceable is the same as it is for Shimano and Sram also, so that quashes that criticism – have you ever tried to service an STI or DoubleTap lever Frank?
@frank
@Oli
I’m with Oli on this one. When I built up the Wilier I went with 09 Centaur Carbon because I wasn’t ready to go to 11, and bike 2 already had Campy 10sp. No regrets. As one of my sinseis said at the time. “09 Centaur is like 07 Record”. And while the internals are slightly different (mostly relating to bearings vs bushings), it’s held up great. Friends don’t let friends ride Shimano… and SRAM is a close second.
Gruppogate is the perfect followup to helmetgate from a few weeks ago.
I wish I had gone Shimano on my cross bike. The DoubleTap levers on SRAM Rival make it hard to shift into the outer ring from the hoods while your hands are muddy. I think Shimano would have been easier since you can use the whole hand to swing the STI lever.
And I find it hard to double shift on SRAM. I’m glad to be proven wrong if this is just due to my inexperience with SRAM.
@sgt
Haha, I disagree with you too, Sarge! I wasn’t trying to say Shimano was bad at all, just that Campag was good.
@Oli
You are one disagreeable cus!
Not saying Shimano is bad… just that I wouldn’t ride it or recommend the road gruppos, not when there’s Campy and SRAM out there. JMHO. The mtb stuff is a horse of a different color. Shimano XT / XTR is way better than SRAM X.7/9/0. Again JMHO.
And yes, I’ve ridden it, bike 3 has 105, and bike 2 had Ultegra until I tried Campy a few years ago and switched it out.
PS My next bike (in 2013 by my forecast) will be Campy EPS. Flame on!
@G’rilla
Wading into this (perhaps regrettably!), having used Centaur Carbon for several years on previous bike No.1 (Derosa Merak, why did I let you go?) I never had a problem. Was still performing flawlessly after 5 hard years.
105 is as durable as it gets IMO. Not as smooth as the higher end stuff but reliable.
@G’rilla
Having just installed Sram on bike No.2 I hear ya’. Still getting used to the double tap. Some days I love it and others, not so sure. Do you find you’re always listening for the second click? Still not instinctual as yet. Quality wise I can’t complain. Will have to wait for thoughts on the longevity
@il ciclista medio
I also have a habit of depressing the levers while I’m at the extremes to make sure I’m in the biggest cog, biggest ring, smallest ring, etc. without looking back at the wheel.
If I do that on SRAM, it shifts me into a different gear. There’s no free check…a shift is a shift.
Need quick help:
I wanna get me a late christmas present as a marinoni lugged bike with campy stuff and i found two:
Marinoni 1st this one has supposedly compact gearing up front (guessing 51-39) but is the cheapest
Marinoni 2nd This one is nicer , normal hardman gearing but pricier.
Both of them are in the range of top tube that fit me. Its just a matter of choosing. SO which one would you get ?
@sgt
No I’m not!
@Oli
That’s not disagreement, it’s just contradiction.
@G’rilla
Personally ( with all 2 seasons racing experience, mind you) I find sram for cross preferable BECAUSE of that specific shifting. I very rarely change my front ring, but am going up and down in the back all the time. the sustained push to downshift (which can get a couple gears at once) is quite quick; the upshift is very responsive to a quick smack while focusing on maneuvering through some tricky part. Trimming has very little place in a cross race- SRAM shifter gives feedback every time, and usually not wandering and skipping (usually). I find even in cold, wet, mud covered full finger gloves that I can feel the clicking well with each shift, no second guessing if I actuated.
For on road racing, shimano FTW! (Albeit I have no campy experience and make no claim comparatively). The front shifting reliability/ precision of shimano plus the ability to trim are huge benefits. Not as big a fan of the shifter ergonomics of shimano, but its about function not comfort in a race.
@Frank and @Oli’s disagreement over details aside, I gotta say this whole Campa vs. Shimano vs. SRAM thing is akin to Ford vs. Chevy vs. Dodge. It’s a rabbit hole of a debate which will never end or be won, albeit it can be fun to see who among your friends can piss furthest. It comes down to personal preference. At the highest levels, all three gruppos work superly when tuned right and maintained well. I’ve got two Ultegra gruppos and both are excellent, I’ve got one Red gruppo which I like just the same, and my current build will have 10s Record which is also fantastic. Carry one with the musings, just don’t piss into the wind.
@Marko
Nipple Lube!!
@gaswepass
That’s a solid assessment of SRAM and is actually comforting to me. I’ll give it another go before I start saving up for another gruppo. I do really like the rear derailleur shifting on SRAM. It’s so quick and only requires a tiny tap to send it up into a harder gear.
Sven Nys says that he spends 80 or 90% of a race in the big ring, so maybe I should try that and I’ll have less need to shift the front derailleur. Speaking of whom, what a race on Monday! Such drama!
I didn’t know about the Shimano front derailleur trim until someone showed it to me last summer. It’s nice to have the option of being in the small ring all the way to the 13 or 14 cog.
@Marko
I agree that this debate can become a pissing contest, but I think we’ve proven on this site that we can split hairs with facts and respect without getting personal.
@Marko
A+1.
@paolo
No it isn’t!
@Oli
An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
@All
Do you want to have the full argument, or were you thinking of taking a course?
@sgt
Shut your festering gob, you tit!
@sgt
@sgt
@G’rilla
And that is why I keep coming around here. Some Flying Circus. Gold (as Frank would say).
@Marko
…except that Ford, Chevy, and Dodge are all shite. Better to compare BMW, Merc, and Volvo.
Check me out! Every time I diss a Keeper, I get relegated””that’s some fine software engineering, Fronk. Very impressed. But I can beat it: I’m already a Level 3 jerk.
@Steampunk
No way BMW and Volvo are as good as Mercury!
@marko
You keep telling yourself that.
@marko
Yes they are.
@G’rilla
Silly bunt
@Steampunk
It’s more like comparing Ferrari, Toyota and GM, innit?
Im a Shimano guy. love their stuff because I like the way shifting is done. The owner of the shop I would go to in Italy loved SRAM. he is running RED on his newest race bike, he ran RED on his previous bike. here is a picture, please excuse the saddle.
point is it all works and its more about personal preference.
Have to weigh in a bit on this one. Always have run Shimano and have loved it, and still do. But now, after hanging out on this site for the last few years, I have a huge yearning to switch it all out to campa 11. Kind of like needing the ambrosia nemesis wheel set. What I have is perfect, nothing wrong with it at all, but now if just feels wrong. Thanks A LOT Fronk!
@RedRanger
Heh, those are the saddles my LBS uses as test saddles – I guess they figure no one would want to steal and keep a purple saddle. I felt pretty awesome rocking one for a week when I was picking out a new saddle to purchase.
@Buck Rogers
Bear with me here – this is a hard admission to make, and it’s not done to be provocative. Leave the frame pumps crossed on the wall over the mantlepiece; no need to wield them this day.
I’m not so sure we have consensus on groupset preference. I could be wrong, but the Campa guys on here may be just louder than the guys who ride and like Shimano and SRAM. Like I said, I could be wrong.
So on to the confession:
I’ve always ridden Shimano and love it. Really, I just don’t like the look of Campa (gasp!). Comes down to the chainset, mainly, and the STI (hah!) units. The Campa stuff is a bit spindly looking in the spider/crankarm and I dig the flowing look of the hollowtech gear. The Campa shifters just looked and felt too chunky back when I was weighing up my options with my first road bike. Decision was made. Riding Shimano on all of my MTBs for years before that helped (Gripshift? WTF?).
So for the past ten years or so I’ve been listening to Campa fans speak in reverential tones about the Campagnolo aesthetic and I’ve just not really seen it. I feel like I’m listening to a bunch of art critics discuss an abstract painting that I just don’t get. In that analogy, they know their stuff, so I wouldn’t contradict them. Clearly, Campy stuff must be good-looking, but…
Do I dislike Campa? Meh. Why would I do that? I just don’t get why it’s held in such esteem.
Speaking as an avowed Campagnolo-phile, I’m quite happy to admit that Shimano is also great stuff. In fact, I would go so far as to say that they are about equal in quality and function. I will add that I believe that without Shimano Campag wouldn’t be nearly as good, as it was the arms race of the 90s that really made Campag step up.
Us fans of Campagnolo prefer the function of the levers with their separation of braking from shifting and the thumb lever, plus the ability to dump or shift many cogs at one push of a lever. The look of the kit is a big deal too, of course, although I have to admit I prefer the look of the 10v kit myself. The Italian factor is a big one too, for those of us caught up in the romance of the history of Continental pro cycling.
None of these factors mean that one is better than the other inherently, just that we all have our preferences and some of us like to wage Us v. Them wars about such things.
I’d be truly happy with either gruppo on a bike, but if I was speccing a dream bike I’d go with my heart and choose Campagnolo every time.
@Oli
My 10sp 105 allows me to move up to three cogs lower with one lever push if I wish by moving the lever as far over as I can. Does Campa allow you to go both directions multiple cogs at a time, or just in the lower gear direction as with Shimano?
I’ve never used Campa so I’m just curious.
@Oli
This is the sort of response I would hope we’d get when discussing. Very well expressed.
Too often we get the “friends don’t let friends ride Shimano, lolz” dogma that perpetuates the Campy aura. The aura’s fine, as I get that people feel strongly about their gear, but the commonly put-forth view that Shimano somehow lacks something is annoying.
@Blah
Lighten up. I ride Campy for all the reasons Oli enumerates, and a little good natured needling never hurt anyone who isn’t insecure in the first place. Ride Shimano, ride SRAM, I couldn’t really care less. It’s all good stuff, especially compared to what came before. Vive le difference. But if a friend (or Velominatus) asks, I’ll always recommend Campy.
@mcsqueak
Yes. In fact, that is a major feature for me. I ride a lot of hills, and being able to go Sur La Plaque and dump the rear cassette over the top, or accomplish a flawless double shift to the little ring and up the rear cassette at an uphill transition is a huge benefit. Plus I find the latest hood shape to be both beautiful and really comfortable.
@Oli
Wow – Oli just nailed it completely here. I would add, though, that one of my major reasons for loving Campa is the silence. A well-tuned Record 10spd set just runs silently and to my thinking, noise is loss in energy that could be going into going mo’ fasta.
I’m also one of the folks who loves the 10spd look and am not at all a fan of the bulbous look of the 11spd groups.
For me, there are two factors that make Shimano’s design less favorable to both SRAM and Campa – the fact that the brake levers move in two directions; if you squeeze at all while shifting, you could hit the brakes by accident and it just makes the system feel squishy. With all the urban riding I do, I’ll often find myself in a pretty big gear coming down a steep hill right into a stop sign; being able to
shift updownshift while hitting the brakes hard is something I can’t do on Shimano.Secondly, the length of the lever is significant enough that the amount of sweep it takes to shift is very different when pushing near the top vs. the bottom, causing this flawed rider to miss shifts more often on Shimano than on Campa.
SRAM is a group I’ve not ridden with much, but from what I have ridden, it works much better than you’d expect, and I like that the brake lever is fixed like Campa. But again, having one lever do two things is a design flaw if you ask me (which no one has or does).
@mcsqueak
We can go up a mess at a time, and we can go a bigger mess on the way down – which is awesome.
Going back to something I said earlier, by the way – just a point of clarification. I wasn’t trying to suggest that Veloce is a poor choice; simply that my experience with lower-end Shimano has been exemplary. My 8-speed kit has never needed to be touched in 20 years of service; I haven’t heard of Veloce surviving that long… Given the $500 it probably cost me (if that), that is some serious value.
@frank
Veloce didn’t actually exist 20 years ago, but the cheaper Campag that did (Athena, Xenon) is still around and running fine all over the place. Shimano just seems to have survived better because there was so much more of it.
@Oli
Makes sense.
@Oli @frank
You guys aren’t allowed to agree with each other!
@Blah
I think you’re making a bigger deal out of this than you should. This is Velominai; by definition, this is a place where we have strongly held opinions based in the subtle and not the obvious. Groupos are like restaurants in Seattle: bad ones don’t survive and everything available is good enough to satisfy most comers.
But to those who pay attention to the little differences, there are huge distinguishing factors that create loyalty, and that’s what we’re about. If you love Shimano, I suggest you stop worrying about people who love Campa and start yelling as loudly as us about why you prefer it. Mostly because you have a case that deserves to be heard. Even though I prefer Campa.
@sgt
@frank
Sorry if I’m coming off as heavy on this one, not my intention, really (sgt, maybe don’t tell someone they’re insecure if you want them to lighten up).
So anyway…
The 2012 season starts this Sunday.
Here in Australia we have the Bay Criteriums from Jan 1-4, the National Champs from Jan 5-10, the Tour Down Under from Jan 17-22. The Classic on the 16th, just before the TDU, is a Kermesse/Crit held on a 2km circuit that just rocks in Adelaide. Atmosphere is pretty much like a TdF stage finish that goes for an hour rather than seconds. Sweeeeeeeet.
Not that I’ll be here. I’m off home to Singapore on the 5th so I’ll just catch a day or two of the crits, most likely at Williamstown on Wednesday.
Be exciting to see top guys on new bikes riding hard. The crits are great fun as the Aussies pros are there getting ready for the nationals and the TDU so they’re going pretty hard. Get to see new bikes and kit for the season ahead, too, unless they’re keen to keep the kit under wraps for the TDU (Greenedge may want a grand unveiling, I’m thinking).
Exciting times ahead.
@Blah
I was hoping to make it to Adelaide myself but will have to settle for TV coverage (again).
Pretty excited about the Greenedge launch too. A pretty dangerous roster for sprints, the classics and stage hunting. No real GC contender until Cam Meyer wins some gold at London and switches his focus to the road… Robbie McEwen, Gerro, Gossy, Stuey, Jacky Bobby, Pieter Weening, Beppu, Langeveld, Alby Davis, Durbo the Turbo. Can’t wait to see them laying it down…
Unfortunately they signed a Kiwi but if Julian Dean wins a stage he might get Aussie citizenship…
On the whole groupset theme, has anyone tried the new Ultegra digital stuff yet? I rode a friends Di2 equipped bike last year and was blown away by the shifting (and the self trimming front mech that made me grin like a 10 year old). Sadly I don’t have £2000 to spend right now (i’m saving for an Addict ltd frame) and wondered if Ui2 might be the answer to my prayers.
@Spearfish
I know a couple guys on Di2. They love it, and it sure seems to work well. I’ll go out on a limb and predict that electronic shifting is here to stay. Campy EPS is out there, and SRAM can’t be far behind. My next bike will likely be built with EPS.
@sgt
I had a look at the EPS kit but i’ve been riding Shimano for 18 years and all other discussions of relative merit aside, i’m simply too stubborn to change! Also, although there is no definite price here in the UK yet, rumour suggests cost will be on a par with the Dura Ace. As for the future, I recently read an article about some boffins who have built a bike where electronic shifts are made by thought alone, no shifters! Could bring new meaning to the phrase “mental toughness”.
@Spearfish
I’ve been a bit ambivalent/doubtful about electronic shifting, but this from RKP makes a great case:
It was easy to look at it as not really an option when it was just Di2, priced above Dura Ace, but the Ultegra level means I’ll likely have it within a few years and, as all reports point to, love it.
The article then goes on to discuss discs in cyclocross in pretty much the same vein.
I spent an hour chatting with a guy at an LBS as he showed me the Di2 stuff awhile ago. I started out appalled by the absence of romance but absolutely fascinated with the technology. More onside with the idea after having looked at it””didn’t try it mind, short of clicking it around in the shop””than I was beforehand. The LBS was excited that they thought it would help to move a lot of bikes in the $5-7000 range, but weren’t sure it would have a significant bearing on the diehards who were either willing to pay more for the Dura Ace stuff or insist on the high end non-electronic gruppos, or couldn’t afford any of this stuff to start with.
Crap! Crap! Crap! Crashed the LOOK today trying to cross some ice on the road. I was only going about 5kph but I’ll need a new helmet and I scuffed up the left RED lever and the Selle SLR Carbino saddle. My wrist is hurting a little too. My riding buddy consoled me by saying that it looks like a proper race bike now instead of one that hangs on the wall.
@Cyclops
Oh man, I’m sorry. I hope you beat your riding buddy senseless with his frame pump.