Categories: Reverence

Reverence: Campagnolo Tools

photo by italian_bicycles

Exposure to religion in my youth was by way of a brief dose of sunday school at the local Unitarian church. The point there, evidently, was to learn about other religions and turtles. If a point was being made, I missed it. When Catholic friends of mine came over for the weekend I would accompany them to the closest Catholic church and we would endure the mass together, the experience leaving us just as clueless as the moment before we walked in.

A girlfriend of @Rob briefly worked for the English bike company Raleigh in Boston, Massachusetts. These were the Jan Raas, Didi Thurau, Ti-Raleigh years, where Raleigh made beautiful bikes and their team was one of the dreadnaughts of professional cycling. I was visiting this friend at the Raleigh offices, which to my eyes seemed like any other office: fluorescent lighting, linoleum tiled floors, men in coats and ties. It was uncontaminated by bicycles or red and yellow  kits. This place was not cool. My friend ushered me into a nondescript room, pulled out an enormous sliding drawer and showed me something she knew was cool.

In this sliding drawer was a complete set of Campagnolo bike tools, all set in blue foam cut outs, each tool nestled in its perfectly shaped place. I didn’t fall to my knees but I must have gasped. Each tool was a work of art: form and function in unison. Each tool designed for a specific task in the wedding of components to frame. The tools had a uniform silver finish. There were facing and chasing tools with beautifully milled cutting teeth of high speed steel. I’m serious about reverence here. I had never seen anything like this. The seeds to my Italophile religion were sown. I was already a devout fan of the components but did the tools have to look this fantastic? What did this say about a company? To me it said-these tools are designed and made to make sure Campagnolo components work perfectly on any frame. What goes into the tools goes into everything else. The passion, the design, the tools and the components are one. Perhaps the intention was never there to make cool looking tools, maybe it was just a by-product of making cool looking components. What else could they do?

I had found my religion. I never needed the complete tool set, I was never a professional bike mechanic. I do own a few civilian Campa tools: some cone wrenches, the peanut butter wrench, a T-handle wrench, a 10-speed chain tool. These are beautiful tools. Park makes functional tools, no one would say they are beautiful. Why make a functional tool beautiful? Is a beautiful tool a better tool? It is when one is making a living wielding them. Pride in your tools reflects pride in your work.

I was going to write that those days are over, adding beauty adds cost and the bottom line is everything now. Then I remembered my Lezyne pedal wrench. It is functional as it removes pedals without impaling knuckles onto greasy chainrings (and opens beer bottles) but it is beautiful because it has a wide smooth machined aluminum handle bolted onto the body of the wrench. It lacks the refined industrial design of a Campagnolo tool but it is beautiful in its own way.

[dmalbum path=”/velominati.com/content/Photo Galleries/j.andrews3@comcast.net/campy tools/”/]

Gianni

Gianni has left the building.

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  • @Rob

    Gianni, you always cut to the essence of your subject and your choices in life, women, bikes, boats show that its about aesthetics. I have wrestled with the question of what beauty is all my working life and while it is hard to define and not always a nessecity you always know it when you see it.

    On a more prosaic topic... WTF I was never shown the "back room" at Raleigh HQ!!!

    I've been waiting for young Rob to weigh in here...Why weren't you shown the back room? She was your girlfriend!  She was showing you other things, more interesting perhaps but less useful for aligning rear drop-outs...

    @asyax

    Print #1 two tools for aligning rear drop-outs. Man, this is hard to explain but would make perfect sense if you saw them being used. I'll look for some video...

  • @Barracuda

    @Gianni

    Just the name evokes the smell of dusty wooden floorboards and grease soaked workshop aprons and the smell of a strong macchiato ....... old men sitting on wooden stools around an aged bench tinkering with steel steeds.

    Mmmm, now where was I ......

    Why are the words I wrote coming out of your mouth ??? Did I write such eloquent prose that you changed the posters name ??

    Not having a go .... just name on post has changed from mine to yours ........ or am i dreaming again ??

    This might all be a dream, or I might have plagiarized the hell out something you were thinking. I have to get my material from somewhere. I can't dream this up on my own.

  • @asyax

    @TBONE Those are beautiful prints and cool website - Thanks. Perhaps the more enlightened Velominati could tell us what some of those tools are actually for?

     
     
     

     
    1 / 5
     
     
     
     
     
    Slideshow:
    Fullscreen:
    Download:
     

    OK, stolen off the web from a What is this tool? contest. Print #1

    Michael Cummings: "Campagnolo dropout alignment tool.  It is used to align the dropouts so that they are even and parallel.  The handle parts are unscrewed partially from the cup shaped parts and each one is tightened to a dropout with the cups facing each other.  The handles and cups are pushed and pulled to bend (er, cold-set) the dropouts to align the two sides.   This is best done with two mechanics, and is really best for steel frames. When the alignment is correct, the two cups are directly apart from each other and the distance between the cups is the same all the way around.  There are spacers on the tool so that it can be used for the front or rear dropouts.  Park has made a similar tool for years, and there is now a Czech company making a one"

  • @freddy

    I like how you connected religion, beauty and tools. There is something almost liturgical about the use of sacred instruments on the hallowed steed. When the ritual is complete, they are cleaned and returned to their place. We are blessed. Joy is complete. A-Merckx.

    Aye Freddy. You are wise. Before I edited it out I was comparing the first sight of the sliding drawer of Campagnolo tools to:

    1) The baby jesus's original short pants

    2) The crown jewels

    3) Some religious artifacts-bones, teeth, nail clippings, box of Myrrh

    but all of those options went out. But yes, I agree, sacred tools for the job at hand.

  • re: Campy tool prints...... #4 is a fixed cup installer/remover. #5 is for cutting or cleaning up BB threads. #'s 2 & 3 sorta have me stumped. I think #2 is for reaming head tubes and #3 is for pressing in HS cups. Been a while since I've seen the real things.

    There's a bike shop in Portland that I've been to where upon asking the labor charge for something the answer was "it depends on whether you want me to do it with a tool from the Campy tool box or not". Good man....

  • @Carl #2 is indeed a head tube reamer. #3 is for facing BB shells. #4 is a headset press.

  • I have a pal who is strictly a utilitarian cyclist, with some impressive touring thrown in now & then. He cares very little about cycling stuff; if his bike moves, that's fine. Stuff that would drive me bonkers is fine with him. One day he borrowed my Lezyne multi-tool and said, "Wow, this is nice! Much nicer than mine." A beautiful, functional tool can impress even the uncaring!

    Ha, I've only eaten one Honey Stinger and I got it free when a new shop opened. Wasn't necessarily endorsing them, more just poking fun at the salesdude on the cover, who might be the reason they were on sale...

  • With the Italians it's not just about functionality it has to be aesthetically pleasing. It's the Italian way. All the classic Campy gruppos were things of beauty, the NR/SR gruppo was the aesthetic standard of the 70s/80s copied by every man and his dog. Delta brakes, C Record 'Sheriff Star' hubs were jewels, which still fetch stupid prices on Evil Bay. It's not surprisingthen  that the tools to fit them look the way the way they do. It's the Italian way.

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