I am with you, but Campag is neither Rolex nor Lamborghini. They may think it, but then they dont understand luxury goods like watches and cars.raggedtrousers wrote:This might be a long post, so TL/DR - I don't get what Campagnolo are thinking and I'm frustrated with their fanboys.
I'm actually a Campag fan and really, really liked Record 11. I think Chorus 12 ticked a lot of boxes but was pretty finicky and there were problems with inconsistent spring tension out of the factory. Anyway, I was quite excited for this, in the hope it would trickle down to Chorus level in a year or 2. Now... well, it would have to be at less than UDi2 price, which ain't going to happen.
My issues are these:
- the death of the thumbshifter, the bulky derailleurs, disc only and the new ratios won't appeal to the traditional Campag buyers
- there's nothing obvious that will turn DADi2 and Red AXS buyers to Campag
- Campag stubbornly refuse to make Ekar electronic despite obvious demand
- Campag (at least for the moment) stubbornly refuse to make an electronic level groupset below SR (despite the very obvious way the market is going)
- they are now making very lukewarm noises about continuing with high level mech groups, again alienating their core market.
The way things are going, they are likely to turn off their existing buyers (generally over 50, traditional, affluent) and not attract many new ones. I'm worried they are trying to move themselves to a niche luxury brand without the product to back that up.
In fact, exactly that argument is tiresomely trotted out on other forums to excuse Campag's failure to listen and their high prices. Campag=Rolex, or Lamborghini: I hear it again and again. Except no-one who isn't already a die-hard fan thinks that. Most people think it's a bit dated, very expensive, and that Shimano and SRAM actually work better. They're not Lamborghini; they are Maserati, in the 1970s or 80s. And that the pros all choose Shimano instead says it all about performance.
I've never said this before but they need to get their act in gear soon or they'll become an irrelevance within 5 years.
To me it looks like the R&D Department had no clue what their goal was and just "produced something". You know, a bit of Sram here, a bit of Shimano there, a bit of everything. But since the good parts are patented they kind of got it really wrong.
I have an 11s Record on a bike which i really like but if it needs to be replaced for whatever reason, there is nothing like that in the current campag portfolio so why should i go campa...