Where next for Campagnolo?

[benb]

Couple thoughts:

1) Shimano and SRAM are doing a lot of "change all the things for the hell of it" basically massive engineering projects which don't necessarily make things any better at all and constantly break compatibility and make things confusing and/or get people to replace parts they don't need to because they had to replace something else. It would be perfectly OK for me if Campy is more traditional.

2) I've never actually bought Campagnolo, I think your fears that it would become an old guy/traditionalist/want to show off money thing already became the case a long time ago in the US. I'm 45, I can remember maybe one person from a team I was on riding Campy. It wasn't like we hated it but even 20-25 years ago Campy was not really OEM unless you went absolute crazy with the big spend, it was not available at as many shops, you needed different tools for it, maybe the bike needed to be different? Around where I lived you'd need to go find the shop with a European owner or something if you wanted it and/or needed a part and/or needed something tricky fixed. It was already reduced convenience. I think all that stuff has gotten worse. But again it's fine.

If there's a big overlap between people who like to show off their latest Rolex and who are big fans of Campy and not that many other people care I think that'd tell you Campy has already gone in that direction. And that is actually fine, even if Campy stays super traditional and actually disappears from the WT. It doesn't actually have to be "better" than SRAM or Shimano electro-whizbang-internet-connected whatever for people to like it or for the business to still be successful.

I'm not saying that Rolex/Campy connection is already there BTW.. you read stuff on this forum and you get that impression but out in the real world I never really have.. more practical stuff like someone liked a bike that had Campy so went with it or there was something specific and practical about it that they actually liked. (Like the thumb lever)

Not saying I'm about to buy a Campy group but the way Shimano/SRAM have been just radically changing everything so fast and for so little benefit (IMO) would tend to make me want to try Campy. A lot of times the stuff Shimano/SRAM has been doing seems like the big benefit is selling new tools, breaking compatibility and making extra work for shops. Somebody could go outfit a world tour team with 9-speed Dura Ace or Record and if they were going to win big races they would still win big races, my guess is even if they had to go back to alloy wheels because they were forced to use rim brakes. They'd still have no trouble making their bikes hit the minimum weight requirements and it would be up in the air whether the aero matters IMO versus their team tactics and fitness.

[peanutgallery]

Campagnolo is not a joking matter

You going to be around later, need some help nailing my new cleats onto my shoes. Probably get a tip on the twist of my binda toe strap...keeps sliding around

Originally Posted by charliedid

Get a sense of humor

[charliedid]

Originally Posted by peanutgallery

Campagnolo is not a joking matter

You going to be around later, need some help nailing my new cleats onto my shoes. Probably get a tip on the twist of my binda toe strap...keeps sliding around

Amen

With respect to Nick and all, one of the hallmarks of this place for me is the ability to be serious but not too serious about bike stuff.

Carry on.

PS I think Campagnolo is in the right spot and should keep their eye on the top prize. It suits them. People like it because their LBS always scratches their head a bit. Fine stuff not meant for everyone. Keep it real.

[zap]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

Why try and intentionally derail a thread that is very much on topic for a cycling forum with complete garbage like this?

The post did get me thinking that maybe Campagnolo should diversify.

Campagnolo might want to look at their past for inspiration. Automobile wheels.

Wheels and tires impact EV range so.....scale up their carbon composite expertise to develop and sell carbon composite wheels for EV's. Lighter wheels, more range.

Back to bicycles. Hopefully Campagnonlo sw is glitch free. Then of course introduce Record and Chorus groups.

For the record, Campagnolo parts have been on my bikes since 1988. If I ever get a disc road bike Campagnolo SR will be at the top of my list.

[makoti]

Originally Posted by callmeishmael

The generally lukewarm response to the new groupset and some thinking on my part got me thinking: what’s the future direction for Campagnolo?

Can someone go back and show me when a new product release for Campy, Sram, or Shimano (or Trek, Specialized for that matter) has been met with any response other than "That's really nice, but..."? Even the first real wireless system was met with skepticism, along with the excitement. Why didn't that signal the end for Sram?

This is normal. Ekar was praised and bashed when it came out. Brakes are great, shifting is meh. (Sound at all familiar?) Having used the stuff for a year+, I love it and don't see what the reviewers were on about.
If they sing nothing but praises, they are shills. If they do nothing but trash it, they are haters. So the walk the middle line. "The levers dig into my hands". Fine.

[callmeishmael]

Originally Posted by KonaSS

It is pretty clear that Campy is not Shimano or Sram. The good thing is they recognize this. They are allocating their capital towards what they can excel at, versus, as Old Spud says, pushing out some price point group for OEM sales.

(As an aside - I think they made the right call here, but wish we had more competition as opposed to just the big 2. I guess the competition will have to come from the Chinese groupsets we keep seeing popping up).

But I think the question around the SR WL group is what is the differentiator, or what makes it special enough to the consumer to be a premium choice? It offers nothing new that isn't already in the marketplace other than the name and price. So why is it even considered a premium over other offerings? It is heavier than other groups. It doesn't have a power meter. Brakes get good marks all around. Shifting seems comparable.

So why buy? Could be looks. Could be status (I would argue that the perceived status is only perceived in a very small niche of riders over 50). Let's hope the trickle down is coming. Cause right now, even as a flagship product, I just don't think it is compelling.

I agree with this.

I also think - picking up on your point about perceived status - that the Campagnolo=Rolex (or similar) analogy falls rather flat under any remotely detailed examination. That brand is aspirational for plenty of people under 50. Ditto Ducati, which is well represented at the highest echelons of sport.

I'd gently quibble with the idea that getting into OEM groupsets somehow cheapens the brand - potentially quite the opposite. They don't need to start churning out hundreds of thousands of kits to put on sub 2k bikes, but a healthy presence in the premium sector (which, putting snobbery aside, the higher end Specialized, Trek and Cannondale offerings very definitely are) would, to my mind, enhance their status. Certainly to suggest that a Campagnolo OEM presence is like LV or similar trying to sell out of Target is way off the mark. There is hardly a company in existence that doesn't need to hit a price point somewhere.

I look at this through the lens of my job, part of which involves dealing with a number of (often very) wealthy individuals, typically aged between 35-50. I'd observe that almost all the heritage, luxury brands that successfully engage these individuals have spent huge amounts of time and money in the last 5-10 years working out how to stay relevant/appeal to a younger generation/modernise without losing their essential character. A very large part of that is marketing, sure, but the other element is subtly shifting their offering(s) to satisfy evolving market demand and new or emerging customer bases.

Some have done this very well; others less so; some have seemingly refused even to try. Those in the last camp always fall back on perceived historic notions of quality, and/or a (often undefined) 'premium' nature to their product that somehow sells itself, even when it is clear to outsiders that competitors are now making offerings that are more compelling to most HNW buyers, and/or that their demographic is shrinking and ageing. That latter point is a potential red flag to any business analyst, and there are many, many case studies.

In short, knowing that what you offer is very good (and saying so) simply isn't anywhere near enough in 2023. That is a necessary but not sufficient condition. You also have to appeal to new buyers, and you have to create a very compelling narrative and a relevant identity which will persuade them to pay a premium.

To come full circle, does SR WL do that? Time and the market will tell.

[nighthawk]

Originally Posted by makoti

Can someone go back and show me when a new product release for Campy, Sram, or Shimano (or Trek, Specialized for that matter) has been met with any response other than "That's really nice, but..."? Even the first real wireless system was met with skepticism, along with the excitement. Why didn't that signal the end for Sram?

This is normal. Ekar was praised and bashed when it came out. Brakes are great, shifting is meh. (Sound at all familiar?) Having used the stuff for a year+, I love it and don't see what the reviewers were on about.
If they sing nothing but praises, they are shills. If they do nothing but trash it, they are haters. So the walk the middle line. "The levers dig into my hands". Fine.

Agreed all around. Those early reviews of SR WRL that I read all hinted at only taking the group for a short test ride. I read these write-ups as mostly surface level impressions. Not that there isn’t any value in those, but only worth what they are.

Similarly have been riding with ekar since it came out. Had to resolve a stuck pad in the front caliper after install, but other than that has been trouble free and suits my needs.

[benb]

Bikes are super functional though unless you're just treating it as wall jewelry. But it's super hard to actually argue there's any performance difference between AXS/Di2 and a mechanical Campy group that's working perfectly. If you love the way the Campy group feels then it's just as good.

Ducati isn't really luxury at all. It's expensive cause it's made in the EU but they generally are pretty reasonable and can be pretty price competitive and have some nice features at given price points that differentiate them from the Japanese bikes. It's been a while since I rode one but the biggie was always really nice suspension tune out of the box for the street. They might have been slower once an expert went through them but it didn't really matter all since rider skill differences are like 10,000x the difference between a Ducati and a Big-4 Japanese bike, the Ducati felt awesome right off the showroom floor at street speeds. They were less bananas and weird than a BMW, way better built than anything but a Japanese bike, and every time I helped work on one they were full of very nice details that made working on them pleasant compared to Japanese bikes. They attract some luxury/show-off urban buyers but not because of anything to do with the actual product, more just a knee-jerk "it's Italian" thing.

Actually I kind of feel like the Ducati -> Japanese difference is a lot like some of the things that rub me the wrong ways on bike maintenance. There were some jobs I did on my Honda and then did them on a friend's Ducati. Neither bike was an actual race replica or race bike and the Honda had design elements that were like 1% better on a pro race bike but made it 100x harder to do a maintenance job. And either bike could have been turned into an amateur race bike and the difference would never have been large enough to determine a race outcome but the Honda would always take longer to do the maintenance on. A lot of bike stuff reminds me of that, particularly on newer groups and brakes.

[Old School]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

Why try and intentionally derail a thread that is very much on topic for a cycling forum with complete garbage like this?

^ found the guy who collects vintage Kalimbas.

[Old School]

But....back on track. Hopefully there is trickle down. It seems as though Campagnolo has decided to recoup their wireless investment in one fell swoop.

It must not have been cheap. Hiring lawyers to work around Srams patents cost more than software programmers.

[flying]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

I bet they will continue to offer a Centaur level (or some other name) rim brake group for far into the future

This is my hope also & same for nice med/light all use wheels like Zonda rim brake

[Elefantino]

I hope Vicenza isn't moving into the Ferrari/Lamborghini neighborhood of high-priced exclusivity, but I would not at all be surprised.

Let the plebians and the great unwashed use Shimano and SRAM. They can also drive Corvettes and BMWs.

[bikinchris]

Where is that "like" button?

No company in ANY industry is ever going to make a new product that everyone loves.
Nor can they afford to make all of the different versions everyone asks for.
As for the thumb levers, as soon as satellite buttons are produced, that problem will be solved.
Hopefully, Campy will make down market gruppos that can fit into price points, but they're going yo have to sell lots of these Super Record groups first.
Now, I need to see the first all steel retro style build to include this new SR Gruppo.

[jimoots]

Yeah, I had initial feelings of the same when reading through the release and Escape review. Not even a where next, but what are these guys trying to achieve? I wrote something similar to what I'm about to say in the thread but it kinda got drowned out by the machinations of gear ratios.

I think we'd all agree that Campy is not ever going to be Shimano or SRAM, and that's fine... and probably good.

But like OP identifies, with this release, it kind of feels like they are veering toward trying to be more to more people.

(And of course that is a disingenuous thing to say when we're talking about a $5000 groupset, but you imagine there's going to be trickle down of the changes we've seen.)

The problem with that strategy is that, again as OP identifies, you begin to erode your own DNA and what made you likeable in the first place.

And to kind of add to the curiosity, at the same time, they are ignoring the literal screaming masses, who are keen with wallets open for an EPS/WL version of Ekar.

I guess we wait and see what happens with future releases, but gosh, no electronic version of Ekar for *several years* sure feels like a swing and a miss.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by KonaSS

It is pretty clear that Campy is not Shimano or Sram. The good thing is they recognize this. They are allocating their capital towards what they can excel at, versus, as Old Spud says, pushing out some price point group for OEM sales.

(As an aside - I think they made the right call here, but wish we had more competition as opposed to just the big 2. I guess the competition will have to come from the Chinese groupsets we keep seeing popping up).

But I think the question around the SR WL group is what is the differentiator, or what makes it special enough to the consumer to be a premium choice? It offers nothing new that isn't already in the marketplace other than the name and price. So why is it even considered a premium over other offerings? It is heavier than other groups. It doesn't have a power meter. Brakes get good marks all around. Shifting seems comparable.

So why buy? Could be looks. Could be status (I would argue that the perceived status is only perceived in a very small niche of riders over 50). Let's hope the trickle down is coming. Cause right now, even as a flagship product, I just don't think it is compelling.

That's easy, because it 'wireless', as if that really makes any difference at all.
Aesthetics, ease of install(which most don't do anyway), but certainly no better at moving a chain around in front or back. People got all weak-kneed when sram came out with eTap, and swooned..altho it did the same as mechanical, just with 2 levers per der vs one. But it was WIRELESS, OMG, that's AMAZING...righto...and I won't buy shimano cuz, ya know, it's got wires..and even the new one..geez, it's got wires..yagottabekiddinme...wires, yuck...

BUT, like people who are looking for something as simple as tell to ya what time it is..and buy a Rolex, because it's Campagnolo. The same people that want an SUV but buy a Porsche or Lamborghini instead of a Toyota or Honda. Again, back to Rolex..they ONLY make mechanical watches..in a watch world where everything is electronic, even w/o a battery(charges thru the face, I have Citizen one that does this,..yawn)...yet, Rolex sells all they make..and my Rolex from 1978, that I paid $645 for is not worth low 5 figures so.......

In comparison, Campagnolo is tiny..BUT, unlike sram or shimano, they will sell everything they make. And when ya DO ride next to that guy with SR wireless, and you have Di2 or(shudder) eTap..the people will want to look at THEIR bike at the coffee shop, not yours.