ThinLine

Walk into any LBS or on line bike store and you will be faced with almost every bike spec'd with shimano.
In my category, everything is Ultegra. Ultegra this, ultegra that, grey ultegra, silver ultegra....
What happened?

I know campy is too pricy for manufacturers to build with, but give us a choice...stock a few with chorus or centaur. SRAM is making progress with rival and force but still not spec'd from the majority.

What happened to Superb Pro and Mavic, which in my opinion were better than shimano in their day.

I remember walking into my LBS in the early 90's and seeing a vast number of campy equipped bikes, Ofmega, Sachs, Mavic.

Shimano went cheap on us by completely dominating the market and resting on their laurals.
Did you ever look into the brifter mechanism of ultegra...looks like cheap mattel plastic everywhere.

botto 

.STI ftw.

polara426sh

SunTour went under, so unfortunately no more Superbe.

celerystalksme

my lbs has plenty of SRAM and Campy equipped bikes...but yeah, it seems to be a three horse race with Shimano way out in front of sram and campy...

patentcad

Does Shimano dominate the fishing gear market too?

botto 

There's probably plenty of posters in the 50 plus forum who can answer that for you.

Namenda

Zebco ftw

riverrider

Zebco is owned by The Bradley Company based in Columbus, GA not Shimano

late

Ultegra is good stuff. When I first got it 4 or 5 years ago I was concerned how long it would last. After a crash that scratched up my right brifter I got a replacement off ebay for when it died.

It ain't died.

My complaint with shimano is that they are chasing a nonexistent improvement.
I want brifters designed for touring. I could care less if they were 7, 8 or 9 speed.
I want a broad range of gears starting with a really low bailout gear, not zillions of tiny cogs that wear out quickly.

Namenda

When did I say Shimano owned Zebco?

botto 

as a matter of fact, you did not.

Namenda

thank you

Retro Grouch 

So turn the question around.

Suppose you were a product manager. If you equipe a bike model with Shimano you know for sure that it's going to sell. Why would you choose something else that you might have to defend to the merchants?

ChunkyB

Pretty much the same problem as with Windows. It's what most people are familiar with, and it's cheap. Most people don't want to make the effort to switch. The way I see it, it's like this:

Shimano = Windows: it's just what most people use. Not really by choice, but by default.
SRAM = Mac: It's different, and nice, but becoming more popular.
Campy = Linux: Users swear by it, and no one else can understand why.

Of course I'm a mac user, and I have only shimano stuff, so it's not a perfect analogy.

zzzwillzzz

superbe pro was good stuff, but mavic group were complete sh¡t.

Trevor98

The dollar has been weak for a while (now it is weaker yet) which makes campy really expensive to import. Shimano is cheaper to buy and is well known. SRAM is the new comer and not widely enough known to trust is selling potential.

Shimano pulled two brilliant marketing coups a number of years ago: first they began selling cheap but reliable groups on every level of bike (really low end to über bikes) and secondly by patenting the MTB front dérailleurs and dominating that market. The trust they built up by being reliable and the market exposure still serves them extremely well for the entire bike market (of which road bikes are only a segment). Basically, Shimano sells and the other groups have more risk for the sellers.

ThinLine

AAahh...and their lies the problem...we are socially inclined to avoid change and venture to understanding and accepting alternatives.
Not that thats a bad thing...shimano ultegra is well accepted and functional. Our mentality tends to stay on whats proven and reliable. Ultegra has that rapped up in a boring for the masses kinda a way.

Some of us just take a road less traveled and embrace variety of a better nature.

patentcad

I hate fish.

operator

If by ftw you mean, not the lightest then yes.

barba

Because clearly that bit of weight has prevented anyone from winning races using Shimano.

BikeWise1

The main thing, in my opinion, that prevents wider adoption of Campy by many, especially OE for bikes is their steadfast refusal to align their cassette spacing and freehub spline pattern, as well as their goofy 135mm BCD chainrings with the rest of the industry. For bike companies it opens up a big can of worms when dealing with warranties. As for end users, a Campy wheelset is generally harder to sell because it only works with Campy, unless you're willing to adapt it.

Also, as an aside, Campy is virtually invisible when it comes to the cycling community in this country. You rarely see them at any cycling events, they never bother with a presence at the Bike Summit. Shimano, as a company, seems to be willing to spend a lot more time and money helping to put more people on bikes and to use its weight to push for legislation that will give bike commuters the same tax breaks as people who use public transportation.

Lastly, since Campy apparently doesn't think the MTB crowd matters, why should an OE forgo a better discount for using more Shimano or Sram parts on their bikes and instead take a chance with a brand virtually unknown to MTBers crossing over to road?

operator

False. I neither implied or stated any such thing. You can learn to read now.

botto 

That's not what I mean.

I meant: Shimano introduced 'brifter' technology, which helped put the others to rest.

It's the main reason why I switched from Campagnolo, 14 years ago.

PhatRoadie

The Dura Ace 7400 groupset was great. Cutting edge and reliable at the same time.

FlashBazbo

Back to the original subject.

What happened? Your LBS owner is smart. Every bike he stocks costs him money. If he's going to do well (and survive), he has to stock what sells. Shimano sells in volume and at a decent profit. It performs for him.

He can put $1,000 into a Shimano-equipped bike and turn that money into profit five or six (or more) times a year. Or he can put $1,500 into a Campy-equipped bike and turn that money into profit once a year (maybe). It's an I.Q. test.

Remember that the primary goal of an LBS is NOT entertaining you with cool stuff. If they've got cool stuff there all year and end up inventorying it at the start of the next year, and the next year, and the next year, they're dead. The primary goal of an LBS is making a living -- turning a profit. Clearly, your LBS doesn't think Campy and SRAM will do that for him. (He is almost certainly right.)