Rumors Next Generation Campagnolo Road?

[Hawkwood]

I've ridden Campag and Shimano for nearly 30 years and never had any shifting issues that couldn't be solved by the turn of a barrel adjuster

This, except with Campag I've rarely had to use a barrel adjuster, and only then for the brakes.

[RyanH]

From my experience, campy shifting becomes a problem per the above when you deviate from Campy parts (cassette, chain etc...). With that being said, no mechanical groupset comes close to the shifting perfection that is Shimano 9100. Not that it's to everyone's taste but it's the only groupset I've ridden that you can't nudge past a gear and cause the derailleur to go up the cogs without fully clicking. Shimano somehow figured out how to make mechanical nearly as precise as Di2.

And again, not to everyone's taste. I personally found that it lacked some of the charm of a mechanical groupset and felt that you might as well be riding Di2 at that point, but that's also because of how well it functioned.

[havana]

I've ridden Campag and Shimano for nearly 30 years and never had any shifting issues that couldn't be solved by the turn of a barrel adjuster

Well, worn out cables result in poor shifting. In which case you need to replace them. Which eventually always happens no matter the brand.

[graeme_f_k]

Campagnolo has priced me out. And at 57 years old, I have my highest networth ever but I just refuse to pay $5000 for a groupset. It's just not worth it to me because it feels ridiculous. Similarly, I won't pay $15,000 for a stainless Rolex because intrinsicly it's just not worth it when comparable stainless 5000M dive watches can be bought for $2500. If want Rolex on your wrist at that price, you care about the name.

Also I can afford Campag, but the issue isn't that the price is too high. The issue is that it simply doesn't work well. I used to think that the unrealiable shifting I experienced on Super Record mechanical over the years was a limitation of cables, then I ride EPS for six months and it has the same issues. I then rent Shimano bikes for several weeks and they work perfectly.

I don't know why electronics seem difficult and so expensive for Campagnolo.

Because that requires thinking outside of their 'heritage' box rather than looking for the best solution in an objective way. Same reason many companies miss generational shifts and fail to modernise.

Don't tell me that a $5 microchip and some wires attached justifies the price. It's $500 because they decided that it would be $500.

I don't know if you've ever worked in product/service development and/or marketing, but you only price relative to cost until you get to a profit (if you seek profit), and any increase beyond that is about balancing elasticity of demand for maximum profit. In a digital economy, there's plenty of things that people buy for hundreds of dollars that literally cost zero dollars to 'produce'.

If you are struggling to find a current Campagnolo system, mechanical or electronic, that shifts well, can I politely suggest that you go and find a competent mechanic / technician that assembles and sets it up correctly?

[graeme_f_k]

Well you might have access to whatever magical Italian accounting they're using but it's blindingly obvious the number of bikes running Campy has gone down a lot. I only run Campy on my bikes and I want them to have a greater market share, seems like they don't have the same goal.

Their balance sheet is available for public inspection - they are an SRL so it has to be - for those questioning whether they are long for this world, I simply suggest spending 10 minutes with Google to check theier financials. I run a constant credit check on all the companies that I extend credit to, which, since I am a contractor, not an employee, includes Campagnolo. I have done so for the last 14 years since they became a significant contributor to our company turnover. Their credit rating has not changed downward during that time.

The naysayers & doom-mongers may not like it - but it's true.

Profitability & financial viability bears no relation to market share. If it did - Rotor would not exist ...

It seems to be some weird viewpoint that all companies want to grow, all the time.

Whilst that may be true of public companies that are dependant on externally raised capital resource, it is not necessarily true of private companies. As an example, some will know the history of Eddy Merckx bicycles. When I worked with them in the early 2000s, they were making around 7000-8000 units (mixed frames and bicycles) a year, they sold practically all that they made and the business was comfortably viable. It was the "right size" - I remember discussing it with Eddy himself at the time. The new owners, after Eddy sold to Sobradis, tried to hothouse the business into a 30-40,000 unit a year production. The results were not pretty and the company effectively crashed and burned and was (eventually) acquired for a song, by the owners of Ridley. Why? Because Sobradis took a business that was the right size and tried to force it into a growth envelope that didn't suit the way that it was constituted.

Campagnolo may be in the same position. They're big enough to do what they (as in, the Campagnolo family who are still the sole ownership) want them to do, they fund all that they do from within the company - so why expand? I don't know, I can only guess, based on having worked with them, on and off, in varying ways, for almost all of my working life - for definitive answers, you'd need to ask Valentino or Davide ...

[havana]

The company also experiences significant wheel sales, potentially offsetting the decrease in groupset sales.

[AJS914]

They're big enough to do what they (as in, the Campagnolo family who are still the sole ownership) want them to do, they fund all that they do from within the company - so why expand? I don't know, I can only guess, based on having worked with them, on and off, in varying ways, for almost all of my working life - for definitive answers, you'd need to ask Valentino or Davide ...

Grame, I thank you for your always thoughtful posts.

Do you have any info on why Campagnolo seems to have abandoned the middle tier? I mean, they have nothing to compete with Rival/Force AXS, or Ultegra/105 di2.

I bought my first disc frame and it requires electronic. $5000 for WRL was just too much of an ask from Campagnolo when I could pick up a Force group and Sram crank based power meter for $1500 all in. WRL + an equivalent power meter would have been $6500+.

This is the first time I haven't had a Campagnolo groupset on my road bike in 40 years. I've always been willing to pay a bit extra for Campagnolo but now the differential is beyond sanity IMO.

[octav]

Same for me, I would always pay a premium for Campy. But just went on a ride with my gf new bike with Ultegra DI2, and to be honest I wouldn't pay 3x times the price for a SR Wireless; but a 20-30% for a Chorus WRL for sure. Or at least a Chorus EPS , wouldn't bother me that much to have the cables.

[usr]

One challenge for making Chorus WRL is that they have painted themselves into a corner a little with the SR pricing of the batteries: would Chorus be just as expensive? Be encased in more plastic, to keep an SR weight advantage? Be higher capacity to maintain that weight advantage? Lower capacity to create an endurance disadvantage? Be painted with more racing stripes on the case? Be deliberately incompatible? SRAM avoided a serious footgun in keeping the price gradient from Red to Rival away from the batteries.

[solarider]

You are right Graeme, there is a morbid fascination with the financial health of the company. Despite some appearances to the contrary it does seem to come from a good place however, a place or concern. The thoughts are expressed largely by riders who have grown up with Campagnolo and have a certain nostalgia and brand loyalty who now find themselves with no choice but to shop elsewhere.

They are a business that used to innovate, used to be visible at the heart of the sport and that used to have a broad offer in all of the good, better, best categories of groupsets but now seemingly only has best, with no real way of recruiting new customers. Any way you look at it, that's a risky model. Very few brands exist in the long term without actively recruiting new customers, particularly whilst simultaneously alienating their existing customers with a product offer that is irrelevant to their needs and desires.

Nobody has mentioned the 'weird' concept that Campagnolo has to grow (but in business it is less of a 'weird' concept and more of a commercial reality that you need to fuel your future through healthy sales value and volume). However, a decline as a result of having less of a range to sell does represent an existential threat ultimately. That's just basic economics.

As ever, you do have a great insight from within the company, and there might be something else going on in terms of non cycling groupset revenues that compensate for the 1 dimensional impression that they must be in trouble. It would therefore be good to see a link to the balance sheet that you mention. Every search that I have made since your post seems to lead to a paid firewall but if there is something in the public domain that would be great. There is clearly something missing in the conversation since at face value, having less to sell would lead to less sales, yet seemingly Campagnolo have different goals and a different source of revenue to that which made them famous.

[norman99]

This could very well just be coincidence, but I noticed two interesting things in the last week.

Merlin Cycles have just removed all Campy road groupsets from their online shop, and stated in an email they will no longer be stocking them in the future.

Secondly, Bike24 now have significant shipping restrictions (ie undeliverable to numerous locations), on a host of Campy groupsets that were restriction free only a couple weeks ago.

I'm not sure what this means, but for some who was close to purchasing a Campy groupset from one of these stores, it's given me pause for thought. Am I over reading into the situation, or is something else going on in the background here?

[JensNL]

No restrictions at bike24 for the Netherlands. There are some restrictions for batteries. “ These can be ordered separately. Also the battery, which is needed for this group, is not included because it cannot be shipped by air freight. For deliveries to EU, Lichtenstein, Switzerland and Norway, the battery can be ordered separately.”

[HiFi]

SR WRL at Sigma, Swinnerton, Condor, Fred Williams and others; all also long-standing UK retailers offering competitive pricing. Must be something Merlin specific.

[c60rider]

My experience of Merlin was all the parts they supplied came devoid of all Campagnolo labels, bar codes, qr codes and the hologram labels that you could use as confirmation of a genuine Campagnolo product. They'd pulled all of them off, you could still see some of the sticky residue left behind. They clearly did not want anyone to know where they'd come from or if they were even genuine Campagnolo product. I had quite a game contacting them and challenging them about it. I had to send multiple emails to several different email addresses and eventually suggest I would be contacting my credit card company before they sent a vague email via a courier of collecting the parts for refund.

[norman99]

SR WRL at Sigma, Swinnerton, Condor, Fred Williams and others; all also long-standing UK retailers offering competitive pricing. Must be something Merlin specific.

When I view the Sigma Sports, and the Swinnerton Cycles sites, there's no Campy groupsets avaliable on these either.