if you couldn't use any campagnolo or shimano...

[dash]

...what components would you choose?

this looks like a pretty nice crankset - http://www.benscycle.net/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=75_128_135&products_id=694

[ergott]

Then you have to go out and buy a Shimano Octalink BB. Sugino is nice, but not that bb standard.

[saab2000]

I guess then SRAM would be the logical choice. But there are ways to build up a bike these days around other component choices, though less than before.

Back when I first got into cycling I was not rolling in money and as a component on my Gitane broke it ended up being replaced with other things, usually something the bike shop had lying around.

DBRK is the king of mixing and matching components these days and has elegant bikes built with none of todays finicky and sometimes ugly components.

SRAM might work well, but it sho ain't purdy.

[stevep]

i would go back to my all mavic ssc bike sitting in crackpot mos basement,
that stuff shifted great. smooth, nice.

[Bill Bove]

I don't care what I ride, just as long as it's better than yours ;) :D :p


Or, the racers corrally. Just as long as it gets me to the finish line, first.


Or, anything,as long as it's made by Campagnolo :banana:

[weisan]

I would ride a fixed gear. :D

[zap]

Zap

Mavic Zap

Twelve years and still going strong.

[fiamme red]

I don't care what I ride, just as long as it's better than yours ;) :D :p


Or, the racers corrally. Just as long as it gets me to the finish line, first.


Or, anything,as long as it's made by Campagnolo :banana:Xenon? :rolleyes:

[gt6267a]

I would take a perfectly nice bike with the correct equipment and put white-out over everywhere it says Campagnolo. Then, once the white-out dried, I would write things on the white blobs like, "bike part formerly known as Campagnolo” or “My bike part claims to have been made in Italy, what about yours?” or “Biking is to Fishing like Drinking is to Driving” or “It would be so much easier if I could just write Campagnolo here”

[Grant McLean]

I'd get a track bike with Suzue hubs, Hoshi spokes, Araya rims. Sugino
cranks & ring, Izumi chain, Hatta BB and headset, Nitto bars, stem, post.
Mks pedals & toe clips. Kashimax straps. :)

g

[merckx]

I agree with puch. Mavic SSC was pretty square stuff, but it was solid and never held me back.

[soulspinner]

I would buy up all the Suntour Superbe I could find left. I road the snot out of that stuff and it was hard to kill with proper care.

[MartyE]

suntour cyclone or Superbe 1st generation.
Mavic SSC
and some Simplex retrofriction shifters.

Modolo morphos brifters if I had to go indexed.


marty

[alancw3]

those old zeus drilled cranksets were pretty neat looking as well as some of their other components.

[learlove]

7 Speed Suntour Sprint

My first real race bike in 1987 was a cannondale criterium with sugino/suntour/dia-compe and sun-minstrel?? wheels. Paid for on my 14th birthday in sept87 from a summer of mowing lawns. If i remember correctly i got it from PSS in willow grove, PA for about $450. I believe John Eustice (one of the first US pros to go to euro and US pro champ in 82/83?) sold it to me. He said it had a good frame for US style racing and decent wheels which were the 2 most important things and I could upgrade the components as needed. I'd stand by that advice today wrt ones first race/performance bike (of course as long as it fits first)

A year later I went to work in my LBS and we got a good deal on whole suntour sprint group(s) that the distributer was closing out. I bought 2 - and refitted the cannondale and built the sprint hubs up with campy tubular rims I'd won in a training race in Trenton, NJ. Tires were cont sprint with a giro spare folded nicely and toe strapped under the seat just like the pros I'd seen in winning mag.

I miss that bike - it was a solid race/crit/workhorse. I had the frame painted navy blue which matched the light grey of the sprint group. Rounded out the bike with a turbo saddle and cinelli 65-42 crit bars and stem along with first generation white/black look clipless pedals. I sold it for 500 my sophmore year in college to pay for my commercial pilot license - what i'd pay to have it back.

Anyway the Sprint group was great. Just lube the chain/replace the chain rings and chain when worn and nothing else needed. the seven speed acu-shift worked like clockwork always and the calipers stopped fine in all conditions. the freewheel (7) was alittle heavy but not a lick of wear could be seen after 2 seasons of training /racing on that bike. It was my primary bike until the team i was racing for, Guys in feasterville PA gave me a cannondale 3.0 frame which I built up with DA and used from late 91 to 93 when I stopped racing to go to college.

The second sprint group I bought went on a blue Pinnarello (colmbus cromor frame) that I rode/raced in the summer of 91 a few times but returned to the cannondle for the stiffness. I sold the pinnarello to a high school frien that summer for 500 to pay for a track bike. I wound up buying Art or Gibbys (can't remember which one) Spectrum (TK) steel track bike that they rode in the 82 or 83 track worlds.

[Too Tall]

Yeah but....I think the point is to move forward at the speed of technology or approximate it? SRAM works very well, I've got some time working on it and am impressed. Our own Matt Barkley and Senor' turned us all onto Tiso and a few other nice goodies that show we do not HAVE to use Shimagnolo if the mood strikes....but *** would you put together a 9/10 spd bike and fight city hall anyway? Just to make a point or what? These ergo and sti shifter are great stuff. I'm more than a little offended by the entire 10 spd. BS shoved down my modern bike loving throat however and do NOT see a way out AND keep up with current equipment...that is a sorry shame. Brevet riders feel this esp. so because of their need to not be different than folks they ride with for obvious reasons...wait I am rambling...oh cr@p. I'm out.