Shifting Adjustment 101

Some good basic info on adjusting your Campagnolo derailleurs is online at BikeRadar.com. Check out their guide to adjustments here.

More Girth in their Hirth

VeloNews is reporting that the Specialized bicycle used by Frank Schleck to win the Palomar Mountain stage of the Tour of California was outfitted with Specialized cranks using the same "Hirth" joint in middle of a split bottom bracket spindle. The Specialized spindle, however, has a wider diameter than Campagnolo. More info here.

Learn more about the Hirth joint here.

11-Speed Warranty

Worried about the durability of the 11-speed gruppo?  Not to worry--Campagnolo has decided to increase the warranty period from three to four years.  More info here

Campagnolo has also started a new web site just for online registration of 11S gruppos:  www.11speedowner.campagnolo.com

Mancebo wins TOC Stage 1

Here's a shot of Mancebo winning in Santa Rosa.  Scroll down a bit to see Campy Only's video coverage of his first KOM of the day.

More ShimaNO Electronica

ShimaNO certainly beat Campagnolo to the punch by letting its electronic system see use in the Tour of California.  Here's an article from the Wall Street Journal

Tour of California

Campy Only went to the rain-swept summit of Howell Mountain near Napa, CA, to see the Tour of California crest the race's first KOM.  Here's video of the eventual stage winner, Francisco Mancebo.  (Mancebo, we note, is Campy equipped ...)

More video at www.youtube.com/campyonlyguy

Electronic Shifting

The New York Times today ran a story about electronic shifting, which is making a big debut this year ... under the ShimaNO name.  Campagnolo is mentioned, but only to say that their electronic system was not introduced due to the economic downturn (hard to afford a $3500 gruppo when they're repossessing the house ...)

The Times article raises the usual question about electronic shifting: What happens when the batteries run out.  (As the Times points out, that would depend on what gear you're in when the shifters stop working, at which point your 22-speed bike becomes a single-speed.)

It also raises a new issue, which is that a bicycle, even in today's world, is still entirely human-powered.  Even dynamo lighting systems derive their energy from energy the riders puts into the bike's forward motion.  Battery-powered shifting introduces outside energy--even if only a small amount--and that, for some riders, sullies the purity of the bike.

We here at Campy Only predict (once again) that Campagnolo will eventually bring out an electronic shifting system.  Also, regardless of how much it costs, they will sell every single one.  Regardless of how bad the economy gets, there will always be someone who wants to have the coolest bike on the block.

Tour of California is Coming to C-O World Headquarters

The Amgen Tour of California is coming to the home of Campy Only, and we'll be part of an projected throng of 40,000 people on hand to watch the start of Stage 1 in Davis, CA. We'll bring a camera and let you know if we see any cool Campy stuff.

Last night, several members of the Davis Bike Club stopped at the bike shop in Winters (sadly, a bike shop overgrown with ShimaNO-equipped bikes) to pick up race day cowbells. Video from that ride, including the infamous "cowbell scene," is right below this paragraph ...

Today's Video

Filmed by the CampyOnlyGuy:

Welcome to the Campy Only Blog!

Well, it's been about 15 years since Campy Only launched on the WWW.  Things were way different in those days--we accessed the internet with a 2400 baud modem and used some pretty primitive web editing software to start posting pages.

We've come a long way since then--Campy Only is still around and closing in on 2-million visits.  We've earned the respect of you, our readers, and of Campagnolo in Italy.  When the semi-official book of the company's first 75 years was released, our web site was prominently featured as an example of the loyalty of Campagnolo's fans.

But ... on to the subject of this post.  We've been blogging for a few years about some other topics (the Big Fix ride in 2006 and our upcoming Wheels North event this year).  It finally occurred to us to start a Campy Only blog.  This blog will be a companion to the web site, which we plan to keep around as long as we can still type.  Our goal for this blog is to be able to post information faster and easier, and to facilitate discussions among our readers about the subjects we write about.

We hope you like the new C-O Blog.  We welcome your comments.