Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 5,045
Likes: 16
From: Lancaster County, PA
Bikes: '39 Hobbs, '58 Marastoni, '73 Italian custom, '75 Wizard, '76 Wilier, '78 Tom Kellogg, '79 Colnago Super, '79 Sachs, '81 Masi Prestige, '82 Cuevas, '83 Picchio Special, '84 Murray-Serotta, '85 Trek 170, '89 Bianchi, '90 Bill Holland, '94 Grandis
Well, it was pretty easy to discover that the Nuovo Record group was in the '85 catalog. Since this discussion centers around arcana and terminology, I'll point out that technically, there were no "Nuovo Record" chainrings - they were "Record," just as the crankarms were. It seems pretty clear that both fluted Record arms and non-fluted arms were produced and sold simultaneously for at least a short period. (I would caution against assigning a "cutoff" between fluted and non-fluted cranks, as it's certainly possible, especially knowing Campagnolo, that they were both shipped with SR groups concurrently for a period of time). By '85, Campagnolo was probably already beginning to phase out NR to clear a market niche for its new mid-line gruppos, so just how much they were producing is an open question. As Frank Berto point out in "Dancing Chain," NR groups remained in the supply chain for years, and were appearing on new bikes as late as 1988. So the question remains as to whether they may have still been producing and shipping a small number of Nuovo Record groups and chainsets in 1986-87, and which crank arms they were including in those sets. That's a question that is likely to remain unresolved until someone opens a NOS box containing just such an item. Nevertheless, it has been common to refer to the unfluted cranks as "Super Record," which makes sense. They were clearly included in at least some SR groups and chainsets sold circa 1985-6, while not included with NR groups and Record chainsets. Also, the absence of flutes corresponds to the introduction of the non-fluted SR seatpost introduced around the same time, as pointed out in Chuck's timeline. Lastly, I'll point out that there is still some lingering disagreement in the vintage bike community as to the interpretation of the 11-squared code.