You are reading a single comment by @absurdbird and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
absurdbird
I don't think you read my post quite carefully enough. My point was that the pros would have chosen Campag if they could have done, but they were committed by their contracts to use whatever rubbish their sponsor chose. Nationalism was a strong factor, so if you were French you would have a huge struggle to use non French kit. If you look at that list you will see how effective this was before the Japanese kit arrived.
One notable exception was Coppi, who caused a big stir in 1949 by insisting on using Simplex for the 1949 TdF, which he won. Tullio was very annoyed with him because he thought Coppi should use his Cambio Corsa which Bartali had won with the previous year - of course, Coppi did not have the same power of prayer behind him that Bartali had enjoyed!