The only thing Campy at my house is a front hub in a wheel in a gate that I slapped together ten years ago to keep Junior Junior from crawling and falling off the stairs on the deck. Here and now it’s still hanging on by a zip tie or two and keeping the dogs contained, more or less.
Recently I uncovered one more Campy item in my basement. The 1997 Campagnolo Spare Parts Catalogue. It’s full of simple elegant exploded view diagrams of various Campy components.
In the past week I have dismantled the catalog and I’m in the process of creating a series of postcards. I enjoy silkscreening and mishmashing stickers and images and recycled cardboard with glue sticks and paint.
But what really brings me joy is the fact that I know that you know that I know Campy chainrings have a 135mm bolt circle diameter. And the chainring I’m slapping over the top of those beautiful Campy crank diagrams is a Shimano big ring with a 130 bcd. Little things like that bring me joy.
The exploded view of a Campy Record headset is great on its own and doesn’t need much help or improvement.
The old Suntour derailleur I’m screening over the elegant Campy record derailleur is from another time, another category, but when they end up together on a scrap of cardboard new things appear. Toss in a few arrow stickers and call it art. With proper postage, call it a postcard.
Years ago while working in a small nonprofit bike shop sorting through endless piles of bike shit, trying to organize usable parts and differentiate the shit-shit from the good-shit, I saw some other bike shop had chainrings displayed on pegs spaced to their corresponding bcd. So I created a display totem of common size chainrings with nails spaced to their bcds.
It turned out to be a bust. Finicky and not user friendly for customers or employees. It’s much easier to paw through a milk crate full of 130 chainrings and toss in fresh incoming donations too. Trying to line up the bolt holes on a stack of rings was time consuming and frustrating and that display was eventually abandoned.
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