Originally Posted by
botty kayer
I've never had any problems with any square taper or Ultratorque cranks. Remind me how many millions of Shimano cranks have been recalled in the last few years?
And I feel a 'make Campagnolo beautiful again'' cap and t-shirt could be a nice little earner for them to help keep the lights on
The Shimano problems were with the two-metal bonded spiders, yeah I don't like that design either. But I didn't buy them also because those 4-arm asymm cranks were UGLY.
Having said that, Campag's hollow spindle crank using a hirth joint (sawtooth spline) is simply a more complicated and expensive means to accomplish the same goal as Hollowtech II, which is simply a hollow spindle with a left arm that clamps around splines. Patented I'm sure, but by now, there are generics (I have one) and Campag should go that route.
T-shirt: Great idea, seriously, and it should picture the last, best crank from Campag with a 5-arm spider and in polished silver.
Originally Posted by
Jughed
We've talked here about how C&V is dying a slow death...
People want new, latest and greatest. I would guess the majority of these people want a complete bike.
Campy needs to get itself into more off the shelf/complete bikes from the majors. How they do that, how they compete with the bigger two competitors - ?? I have no idea.
Similar to the boat industry - most people walk in a buy a boat +/- off the shelf. Very few do ground up custom builds... and these off the shelf boats come with Yamaha or Merc engines as they dominate the market and the builders. Other outboards are off to the side, struggling to get put on boats.
Latest and greatest can also look good. 4-arm asymm cranks save a few grams, and if people want to look TdF, they are welcome to. But I like 5-arm symm cranks in polished silver.
Yes, many boats come as a hull and engine package. This is not to save customers hassle, if a hull is rated for 50 hp, it's not hard to compare 50s for features and weight. This is all for greater profit. Boston Whaler AND Mercury Marine are both owned by Brunswick corp, and are "bundled" together the way Microsoft tried to force on consumers for browsers (you could not get an MS computer new with Netscape, MS forced that on hardware makers), and got successfully sued for it by the government, you may remember the video of Bill Gates being deposed under oath, nervously rhythmically rocking forward and back in his chair like an autistic person I know (Gates is a MUCH better human being now); By the time the smoke cleared, Netscape was out of business. So try to buy a 'Whaler with a Honda or Yamaha engine.