Taking Pleasure In Things

Campagnolo Super Record Brake Levers


Campagnolo Super Record Brake Calipers

Campagnolo Nuovo Record Crankset, 1974

The Old (brev. 1972)

All the old shit is nice and beautiful but it's not made any longer because it costs more and doesn’t work like the new shit. The new shit is ugly and cheap and made by zips. But the new shit works really well without any of the old frustrations. So this beautiful old thing can’t handle 28t? So I’d have to pull off a Rally long cage and attach it to make this fucker work with the 13t-28t? Could pulling the axle far back in the dropout get this fucker to take 28? Even then it is said not to shift all that smoothly.

Or do I just say fuck it with the old Italian and go old French--they say the Huret Duopar will do everything I am looking for and still be old and exclusive and get some old bike-head worked into a lather over. But they’re fragile--as most French are--and they can lose this little irreplaceable washer that renders them useless.

I want to go up that mountain and if I need 28t to do it I want the 28t smooth and without frustration. The 28t needs to be there for me when I need it most. Getting caught up in this old thing may have been a mistake. I’m too caught up in it already and I only just started. I want modifications to the old that improve its performance, yet remain faithful to the old and what the old represents. The old is the hand-made, the careful, the simply elegant, the substantial, and when it is broken it can be repaired. The new, the cheap throwaway, that shatters into pieces and is made by the zipperhead’s machine is not the way to go. Even if it functions smoothly it cannot be the way to go.