While mostly true, that article (countlessly referenced before) is from 2008. It is 2011 now. Many things have changed.
Good article, though.
Campagnolo 2012, Made in Romania?
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prendrefeu
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If you buy a product simply because of where it was or wasn't made then you are a nob!
I buy BRAND, not manufacturing location. You can get the same product designed and made any where and it can be the same as it being made some where else. This argument has been done to death in articles about Asian manufacture.
However the brand and its culture for design and quality is what is going to make the difference.
Campy is not going to put its name on anything unless it is to campy standards, so who cares if it was Romania or Italy?
In my mind the old classic Italian brands are trying to live off their names, and not paying attention to reducing costs enough, or delivering real products that actually perform (not just prance).
Campy is going to die a slow death because they aren't making gruppos in Asia where they can cheaply do OEM deals and get their volumes up. Their R&D costs per unit are going to get higher and higher as they try to match technology development with higher selling sram and shimano.
I buy BRAND, not manufacturing location. You can get the same product designed and made any where and it can be the same as it being made some where else. This argument has been done to death in articles about Asian manufacture.
However the brand and its culture for design and quality is what is going to make the difference.
Campy is not going to put its name on anything unless it is to campy standards, so who cares if it was Romania or Italy?
In my mind the old classic Italian brands are trying to live off their names, and not paying attention to reducing costs enough, or delivering real products that actually perform (not just prance).
Campy is going to die a slow death because they aren't making gruppos in Asia where they can cheaply do OEM deals and get their volumes up. Their R&D costs per unit are going to get higher and higher as they try to match technology development with higher selling sram and shimano.
Technical Director at www.TUFFcycle.com
I never said they are inferior (but adding an extra gear isn't very hard to do either really...)
What I was saying that if you take their development costs, and spread them over the number of units they sell, they have to spend more per unit which would leave less for profit. The whole point of being in business is profit, and there is a point when you either have to start spending less, or suck up the fact you are making little or no profit.
SRAM and Shimano make magnitudes more units, but yes they make finer margins on most of it for OEM. But in turn they get very high spares. Overall thier incomes are going to much larger, so they can spend more in the future on development, and marketing. I predict this will continue to put the pinch on Campy.
Look at the pro tour. What used to be dominated by Italian brand frames and equipment is being dominated by the new large volume brands. It shows who has the $$s to spend.
What I was saying that if you take their development costs, and spread them over the number of units they sell, they have to spend more per unit which would leave less for profit. The whole point of being in business is profit, and there is a point when you either have to start spending less, or suck up the fact you are making little or no profit.
SRAM and Shimano make magnitudes more units, but yes they make finer margins on most of it for OEM. But in turn they get very high spares. Overall thier incomes are going to much larger, so they can spend more in the future on development, and marketing. I predict this will continue to put the pinch on Campy.
Look at the pro tour. What used to be dominated by Italian brand frames and equipment is being dominated by the new large volume brands. It shows who has the $$s to spend.
Technical Director at www.TUFFcycle.com
Here is an interview with Valentino Campagnolo published in Cycling Weekly a little while back. He mentions the Romanian factory.
http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/lat ... rview.html
http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/lat ... rview.html
Yeah I'm sure Mavic have done a lot of talking about all their ground breaking world first technologies and how good they are as well....
Campy have had a wider cassette and durable chain for some time now, they just made the chain width the same as shimano's, and hence could fit an extra gear onto a campy compatible wheel/cassette body. The redesign of the ergos would have been more difficult, and possibly even the new CF RD links. All of this is evolutionary in my mind, not revolutionary.
Shimano in the mean time keeps raising the bench market for crank sets and front shifting (not saying they are the best crank, but they set a high standard). Their 7900 is a big design evolution over 7800, and the rings a big design revolution. They too redesigned their ergos, but overall shifting is a little worse from all accounts. They also redesigned their RD forgings which would have taken about as much effort as campy took.
At the same time they popped out a finished Di2 group, while campy had to postpone development, developed new pedals, a lot of new wheels (rims), changed leverage ratios to improve brake performance and new forging for the brakes, um am I missing anything?
Oh campy added hybrid bearings to their top of the line groups.
Campy have had and still have great products, but they just don't seem to be keeping up with the rate of development changes. With their shrinking volumes I don't see this changing.
Campy have had a wider cassette and durable chain for some time now, they just made the chain width the same as shimano's, and hence could fit an extra gear onto a campy compatible wheel/cassette body. The redesign of the ergos would have been more difficult, and possibly even the new CF RD links. All of this is evolutionary in my mind, not revolutionary.
Shimano in the mean time keeps raising the bench market for crank sets and front shifting (not saying they are the best crank, but they set a high standard). Their 7900 is a big design evolution over 7800, and the rings a big design revolution. They too redesigned their ergos, but overall shifting is a little worse from all accounts. They also redesigned their RD forgings which would have taken about as much effort as campy took.
At the same time they popped out a finished Di2 group, while campy had to postpone development, developed new pedals, a lot of new wheels (rims), changed leverage ratios to improve brake performance and new forging for the brakes, um am I missing anything?
Oh campy added hybrid bearings to their top of the line groups.
Campy have had and still have great products, but they just don't seem to be keeping up with the rate of development changes. With their shrinking volumes I don't see this changing.
Technical Director at www.TUFFcycle.com
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prendrefeu
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Can this thread be locked already?
Sheesh.
Sheesh.
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Well if I were to do it the campy way I'd just make the spacing narrower and nothing else. Evolution not revolution.
Technical Director at www.TUFFcycle.com
I work in the semi-conductor industry as an engineer and most if not all silicon is fabbed out in Taiwan and China. The facilities are simply the best in the world. The same goes for carbon fibre fabrication. Even in the notoriously conservation aerospace industry Boeing are outsourcing the manufacture of the 787 wing box and other parts to a Malaysian composites company.
Time for a lot of people to get over the romantic notion that manufacturing something in the US or Western Europe makes it better that the same thing done in Eastern Europe, Asia or South America.
Time for a lot of people to get over the romantic notion that manufacturing something in the US or Western Europe makes it better that the same thing done in Eastern Europe, Asia or South America.
Last edited by maquisard on Mon May 09, 2011 8:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
As a PrOud ROmanian i want to offer a little enlightment. Our culture has many similarities with Italy-language , great food , amazing gifted designers,architects and list can go on for very long.i had to say this to better show why they decided to build here. SO that was a clever decision on part of all this clothing companies+campagnolo to have their products made there.btw- mavic top of the line shorts are also made here ! AND i'm aware that there is a huge misinformation plus lack of education about the country due to mass-media or just plain ingnorance.. Comparing ROmania to CHina is like saying storck is same as giant... ok.also besides the many cycling companies with presence in RO there's World Hq for Microsoft +merceds benz/nokia/adidas has factories and many other companies.And also we are not in East europe but in CEntral europe !I Know the geography course was boring but educate yourself .
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HammerTime2
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When did Microsoft's world headquarters move from Redmond, Washington to Romania? I must have missed that press release.sorin wrote:... ok.also besides the many cycling companies with presence in RO there's World Hq for Microsoft +merceds benz/nokia/adidas has factories and many other companies.
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rustychain
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As an American I'm confussed, were in Italy is Romania? Sound like a charming town 
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