Eurobike: Campagnolo make a date for Electronic launch

Italian components company Campagnolo is locked into a 'pre-Giro' launch date for its long-awaited electronically-controlled and actuated Super Record groupset.

A Campagnolo spokesman told road.cc yesterday how painstaking the route to market was for its electronic components. "When the boss has Campagnolo in his name you can be sure he's worried that the new groupset will be all that people expect with such a heritage in performance and reliability."

The Campagnolo-equipped Movistar pro team has been playing the role of guinea-pig in the development of the new 'Campy' gears and shifters which are likely to be launched as a Super Record groupset incorporating the existing brakes and crankset.

When we asked when the launch would be, expressing disappointment that Eurobike would have been convenient for us news-hungry facthounds and that next May's Giro d'Italia would be the next likely big event that Italian companies traditionally use for important launches, our man replied, "Mmm, before that."

Meanwhile, over on the Pinarello stand our Tony was shooting the new Dogma II fitted with more refined looking and finished versions of the gears, battery pack and 'brain' unit than hitherto snapped by eager press photographers of the Movistar bikes, despite still just sporting 'Campy Tech Labs' stickers. Note those tidy looking charging port plugs and the neat attachments of the battery pack to the frame.

Otherwise, the big news at Eurobike of product that you'll soon actually be able to buy from Campagnolo is the new Bullet premium wheelset which we previewed  last week and which our Dave will be featuring in his roundup of the veritable plethora of exotic wheels on show in Germany today. The new wheels accommodate standard clinchers or what Campag is calling 2-Way-Fit - in other words, tubeless tyres - but for the first time no option for old-school tubular racing tyres which led road.cc to speculate whether the end may be nigh to glued on 'tubs' even among the professional ranks.

The CX cyclo-cross version of the 2012 Bullet wheels; more bearing seals, basically.

When we expressed our disappointment at not finding new tubeless clincher tyres from manufacturers other than the limited number that already make them - Hutchinson, Maxxis and IRC for Mavic - our man at Campagnolo said he thought that the others were all waiting to see what the market asked for and that he'd been riding the Hutchinsons for two years very happily 'with no punctures.' And that, with an almost concealed look of horror, of course he wasn't using sealing goo.