At the co-op I see things I never knew existed all the time.

Then someone donated a Nishiki frame/fork plus a box of black components, many Campagnolo.

As I picked up the Race Triple crank, I thought, damn, this is heavy!!

then I noticed the chainrings were steel

then I noticed the Campagnolo Race Triple logo was nothing but a cheap sticker.

dumb.

Not the nicest thing that Campagnolo has put their brand on, but there is some value in having a wide range of products.

An old analog might be their Valentino derailleur in the 70's. Cheap, made of stamped steel, and looked like it was designed 10 or 20 years earlier. I'm not sure if it was considered to be a way to get people introduced to Campy at a low price, or if it was to permit bike manufacturers to sell low cost bikes with the allure of the Campy brand.

Steve in Peoria

Naturally, you bought the box of parts for fifty bucks.

Except this appears to be a forgery. To my knowledge the Race Triple cranks were all aluminum.

The cranks themselves are aluminum. The chain rings are steel. There’s a little glimpse at the center of the crank. You can see the aluminum. And no, I did not buy these. The newest bike I own is the 82 specialized expedition and I’m happy with what it has.

Not a forgery. It’s hiding in plain sight in Campagnolo’s 2007 catalogue, right down to the very telling 882gm listed weight (just shy of 2lbs).

Campagnolo laboured under the misapprehension on and off for decades that the weight of their name offset the weight of using steel in their sub-entry level components. It didn’t.

I've nearly always been happy with the shifting quality and durability of steel chainrings, even as some of Shimano's lower-tier, early-90's steel middle rings (having chain-pickup features stamped instead of riveted) gave a rough transmission feel while JRA. Those particular steel rings were an unpleasant addition, but these Campagnolo steel rings look quite decent and probably work smoothly and shift very well.
This is the first I have seen of steel Campagnolo chainrings however.

Even Campy needs an entry level…

Stratos was the lowest at one point, ironically…not sure what it was in the 00s, and 10s…

Potenza? Xenon?

Even the 1970's-era three-arm Gran Sport crankset (or whatever it was called) had steel crank arms but aluminum rings (riveted together to form a single unit that then bolted to the crank arm).

was it these?





these were on Billy Ketchum's Holdsworth back in 2016.
I gotta admit.. the three-arm cranks have a certain aesthetic appeal, with the exception of the Sugino Maxy cranks of my youth. Perhaps I'm just too familiar with how marginal they were?

Steve in Peoria

Long after Shimano renamed 600 as Ultegra and settled on the naming consistency of that and 105 Campagnolo maintained a scatter gun approach with Veloce, Centaur, Stratos, Mirage, Xenon and Daytona all fighting for oxygen at the entry level, to the consternation of distributors and dealers alike.

Potenza was more mid-range, launched above Athena and intended to target Ultegra.

I love the Centaur/Daytona stuff from the early 2000’s. It didn’t have the cutting edge Record bits, like carbon levers. On the other hand, it didn’t have carbon levers. I don’t notice any difference in performance between Daytona/Centaur and Chorus from the same era.

I know you’re right that Campagnolo meant to target Ultegra with Potenza, but that relies heavily on the belief in Campagnolo being inherently better than Shimano. Potenza use Powershift, which works well enough, but I still much prefer my older Daytona with its proper Ultrashift levers.

I also love Campagnolo’s “Racing T” stuff, but it’s a shame what they did to it towards the end of its run. The “Comp Triple” stuff from the late aughts through, I think, 2010 was still very good, but this Race Triple stuff is a blemish on the product line.

Surprised to see this version. I guess there is Racing T and then there is Racing T

Racing T is a sexy beast.

Race Triple, not so much.

Tempted to remove the sticker but that might render it "generic" like a bike part from Harbor Freight.

I couldn't find my Record OR crank for some reason, but in my search I did come across this Centaur MTB crank. The middle and inner rings are steel. I have a few other Campy MTB cranks and all of those have alloy middle and inner rings.







As for Record OR, it also came with steel middle and inner rings. That's not surprising considering that they mounted in a very different manner than a typical chainring. This pic was "borrowed" from the web.