Originally Posted by
DaveSSS
Your memeory is fuzzy. Campy had ergo levers only a couple of years after Shimano and did a better job of it. I bought into Ultegra STI the first year it was offered (1992), but switched to Campy in 1995 and never looked back. Campy only after that.
Shimano is the one who lagged with 10 speed drivetrains, four years after Campy, and now they are poised to do the same with 11 speed which just started it's third season. Di2 does not appear to be a huge success. A number of large online dealers don't even offer it for sale, or offer it at a price that's close to twice that of a Campy Record group.
Nope, memory is not fuzzy, and I'm not talking about integrated shifting, I'm talking about indexing itself. Shimano had very good index, albeit downtube shifting in the late 80's. At that time Campy's attempts at indexing were terrible.
Prior to 1989, I rode a bike with Campy Neuvo Record. Got a new Paramount OS in 1989, wanted to stay with Campy, and put on Campy Athena, which although downscale from Record was a new release that alledgedly was the first Campy group that actually index shifted well. It was joke. No one including the Campy rep could make it work.
It was the early 90's and the advent of integrated shifting before Campy got a gorup that would index well. They were definitely behind the curve for 4-5 years and it cost tehm a lot of life long campy customers such as myself.
And lagging going form 9 to 0 speed just wasn't that big of deal. Selling groups that allegedly index shifted that din't was almost a killer.