Why do Campagnolo use terms that are alien to other than themselves ?

[TheCyclingRooster]

Hi to all of you.
I have just purchased a new Campagnolo Veloce Double front derailleur for use on my newly acquired 50cm Bianchi Via Nirone 7 Alu Carbon frame.
I intend to use it as a triple with my Campagnolo Veloce Flat bar Shifters - bought some 4 years ago but never commissioned.
Now I have always understood that the sprockets are on the cassette and that reference to 'High Gear' means the smallest sprocket on that cassette.
They refer to the chain being on the smallest gear - why don't the call it what it is - the smallest chairing ?
They talk about the derailleur 'fork' - what fork ? Again,why not what it has been known by/as since they were first developed - the front derailleur cage or chain guide rails.
Yes they do change terminology later in the fitting and adjustment booklet and then refer to it as the derailleur cage.
I find it strange that they are reliant upon the owner/user being able to understand their changes of reference rather than make it simple for even the newest to DIY cycle maintenance being able to cope with fitting their components.

 

[CanucksTraveller]

Well, they are Italian.

 

[winjim]

You do know you need a QS or FB mech to work with the flat bar shifters, right? And a double mech with a triple chainset?

 

[booze and cake]

Its all part of the charm, if you don't feel like Harry Potter trying to decipher an ancient book of spells you're missing out

 

[TheCyclingRooster]

You do know you need a QS or FB mech to work with the flat bar shifters, right? And a double mech with a triple chainset?

Hi winjim. What the heck is a QS mech or for that matter an FB mech ?

As far as the double front shifter goes I have used them before several times with regular Ergo shifters on a triple chain-set.
What is the problem when using the Campagnolo Flat-bar shifters (both sides) as they are brand new and never been used ever before ?

 

[TheCyclingRooster]

Its all part of the charm, if you don't feel like Harry Potter trying to decipher an ancient book of spells you're missing out

They only thing charming about the Italians is that most of their women are really really attractive until sadly - later life - when their menfolk have oftyen given up on them.
That said,the Italians have made/created some really beautiful bikes of which I have experienced several including both my earlier Bianchi models and a Benotto Modelo 850 which was the image in my previous Avatar.

 

[winjim]

Hi winjim. What the heck is a QS mech or for that matter an FB mech ?

As far as the double front shifter goes I have used them before several times with regular Ergo shifters on a triple chain-set.
What is the problem when using the Campagnolo Flat-bar shifters (both sides) as they are brand new and never been used ever before ?

As far as I am aware, and I have a set but have not yet got around to installing them, the flatbar shifters use a different front pull ratio to the regular ergos. So you need a dedicated flatbar (FB) mech, although the quickshift (QS) front mechs have the same pull ratio so you can use those as well.

A regular double ergo isn't indexed is it?

Be interested to see how you get on though.

 

[Salad Dodger]

Hi winjim. What the heck is a QS mech or for that matter an FB mech ?

QS = Quality Seconds, a discount store chain.

FB = Facebook, a meeja app fingy, innit?

 

[Flick of the Elbow]

If you don't understand the language of Campagnolo, you're not the sort of person who should be trying to use it.

 

[Graeme_FK]

Hi to all of you.
I have just purchased a new Campagnolo Veloce Double front derailleur for use on my newly acquired 50cm Bianchi Via Nirone 7 Alu Carbon frame.
I intend to use it as a triple with my Campagnolo Veloce Flat bar Shifters - bought some 4 years ago but never commissioned.
Now I have always understood that the sprockets are on the cassette and that reference to 'High Gear' means the smallest sprocket on that cassette.
They refer to the chain being on the smallest gear - why don't the call it what it is - the smallest chairing ?
They talk about the derailleur 'fork' - what fork ? Again,why not what it has been known by/as since they were first developed - the front derailleur cage or chain guide rails.
Yes they do change terminology later in the fitting and adjustment booklet and then refer to it as the derailleur cage.
I find it strange that they are reliant upon the owner/user being able to understand their changes of reference rather than make it simple for even the newest to DIY cycle maintenance being able to cope with fitting their components. View attachment 366186 View attachment 366187

In Italy, the cage of a FD is called the fork - it's a straight translation. Also a common term for it in France, where I worked for a number of years as a mechanic. And since the word "derailleur" is also French, maybe it's us that have it wrong :-D

We've done various updates for Campagnolo to manuals at various times but these oddities do creep in.

Gears "up" and "down", high" and "low" ... Many, many mechanics in this country as well as abroad talk of going "up" the cassette or "down" the cassette in the reverse of the way that say, the motor industry refers to going "up" or "down" the gears and a great many are not consistent about it either - we teach shop mechanics from all over, on all manufacturer's systems / technologies - and one of the sets of terms that we have to define right at the beginning of any course is what is meant by "up" and "down" in the context of the F & R derailleurs. It's not consistent, even between the UK and the US so you can't even make one translation of an instruction manual that works in both countries unless you put an explanation in the instruction manual.

Ultimately, if users are familiar with the (very basic) tasks in hand these oddities don't really cause too many problems.

No manufacturer can possibly produce a manual that will tell the neo-mechanic exactly what to do or how to do it in layman's terms without sending out something like the Park Big Blue Book with every component.

This is one of the main reasons they use variations on - "if you are not sure what you are doing ... take your bike to your LBS". Which would be our recommendation, too.

You are going to have compatibility problems with a double FD unless you are planning to only shift across 2/3 of your chainrings. A double FD is not deep enough, "top to bottom" to shift across all three rings, unless you have changed the rings on the triple so that you have less than a 16T total difference across the 3 (so, something like 30, 39, 46).

QS = Quick Shift, a change in pull ratio on the FD so that the LH lever needs only one "sweep" to shift between small and middle, then one sweep to shift middle to big (in the case of a triple) or one sweep only to go small to big in the case of a double.

The design was originally used on the flat bar (FB) levers and migrated across to 9 & 10s drop bar systems in model year 2006/7. It was the only real mechanical change Campagnolo made to the 10s system between 1999/2000 (launch) and 2008/2009, when UltraShift (and later, PowerShift) was introduced.

 

[TheCyclingRooster]

Hi Graeme. now that is as confusingly clear as a bowl of Spaghetti Bolognese. Thank you.

With regard to the double FD and the tooth count difference between the rings - I am currently running a 46:36:26 on a 107mm bottom bracket spindle because after trying a 113mm and then going down to a 107mm I realised that the total span was insufficient to clear the rings and the slight additional difference inside and outside of the chain.
The action of the triple shift lever is a very definite two movements and lacks the ability to 'trim'/fine tune the position as does the regular 10spd Centaur Ergo levers that are on my 50cm Steve Goff - again on a triple but a 46:36:24 on a 113mm Bottom bracket spindle - again on a 10spd Campagnolo cassette. This leaves the gear selection quite specific for the time being as it is limited to the 'cross-over tolerance' on each ring in relation to the sprockets at the rear. The two plates on the FD shifter are just 11mm apart as with the triple on the Steve Goff they are a full 13mm - this gives a noiseless operation across the full cassette on both the inner and outer of the triple.
The position of the adjustment screws on the triple differ from those on the double being that the triple has them fully visible and on the top as well as a longer parallelogram as opposed to the double having them recessed and with a shorter parallelogram.
The only amendment that I am now awaiting is a new 10spd chain. I am still searching for a Campagnolo triple without forfeiting my next years pension monies.
A tight pension and a will not to be defeated along with my late father being chauffeur mechanic with the REME during WW2 in Palestine,Egypt,Baghdad and the Middle East in general and linked with the 170th Field Ambulance and a Tank Water Company.

 

[MichaelW2]

This is an issue of translation of Italian technical terms. They do use some phrases which sound odd to us Brits but their engineering culture is different to ours, just as the German and French ones are different.

 

[Graeme_FK]

Hi Graeme. now that is as confusingly clear as a bowl of Spaghetti Bolognese. Thank you.

With regard to the double FD and the tooth count difference between the rings - I am currently running a 46:36:26 on a 107mm bottom bracket spindle because after trying a 113mm and then going down to a 107mm I realised that the total span was insufficient to clear the rings and the slight additional difference inside and outside of the chain.
The action of the triple shift lever is a very definite two movements and lacks the ability to 'trim'/fine tune the position as does the regular 10spd Centaur Ergo levers that are on my 50cm Steve Goff - again on a triple but a 46:36:24 on a 113mm Bottom bracket spindle - again on a 10spd Campagnolo cassette. This leaves the gear selection quite specific for the time being as it is limited to the 'cross-over tolerance' on each ring in relation to the sprockets at the rear. The two plates on the FD shifter are just 11mm apart as with the triple on the Steve Goff they are a full 13mm - this gives a noiseless operation across the full cassette on both the inner and outer of the triple.
The position of the adjustment screws on the triple differ from those on the double being that the triple has them fully visible and on the top as well as a longer parallelogram as opposed to the double having them recessed and with a shorter parallelogram.
The only amendment that I am now awaiting is a new 10spd chain. I am still searching for a Campagnolo triple without forfeiting my next years pension monies.
A tight pension and a will not to be defeated along with my late father being chauffeur mechanic with the REME during WW2 in Palestine,Egypt,Baghdad and the Middle East in general and linked with the 170th Field Ambulance and a Tank Water Company.

The problem area will be the "fork" or cage of the derailleur. If you look at where the chain passes it when you are in "small to small" and then where the chain passes it in "big to big", depending on the size of smallest and biggest sprocket you have at the back, you may find (not saying you "will" find because there are other variables at play) that to get the chain to "not" hit the rear bridge between the plates of the cage in "small to small", it hits inside the top in "big to big" ... notwithstanding the other places the chain will scrape anyway because the shaping and what is known as the "gate width" are not designed for a triple.

10s kit (from all makers) continued down a trend that really started with 8s, of systems being very much engineered as systems and groupset manufacturers starting to make some quite specific recommendations to frame makers about frame geometry and the like - as the frame the parts are hanging on can all affect smoothness of shift, noise or in some system's cases, the ability to reach certain gears at all. A lot of things changed with the introduction of indexing, one of them being the freedom to mix and match components and get anything like the intended performance from them.

 

[Graeme_FK]

This is an issue of translation of Italian technical terms. They do use some phrases which sound odd to us Brits but their engineering culture is different to ours, just as the German and French ones are different.

Yes, the best literal translation I had to make from Italian was "turn himself around until he are facing you" ...
What they meant was, "turn *it* around until *it* is facing you" - use of the masculine pronoun for both "it" and "him" makes for some things that look a bit odd to our eyes.

The "up" and "down" gears thing is natural enough in the context of a derailleur gear - a lot of people refer to "up" being the (vertical) direction the chain is travelling as you shift in what at the rear, is in fact a "lower" gear in the automotive sense of "up" and "down" the gears. This becomes confusing when going from the small ring to the big is also referred to as "up" the gears, because it is then, of course, in the automotive sense, correct.

We sometimes just use "easier" and "harder" gears as a description, rather than "lower" and "higher" ... most people have zero problem with that ...

 

[TheCyclingRooster]

Hi Graeme and Michael. If the worst comes to the worst I can revert to Fixed Wheel or God forgive even a single gear freewheel sprocket - if you believe that then you will believe anything