The Campagnolo Powermeter I didn't work on is a disappointment.
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- Опубліковано 9 лип 2024
- I spent years working on innovation to see my work replaced by a inaccurate first gen spider design without any real features.
High speed is useless without independent legs.
0:00 Intro
0:34 Background / Sadness
3:47 Announcement SNAFU
9:18 Last offer
10:30 Free Points - Наука та технологія
Thanks Keith for the thoughts, always interesting to hear your insight. I had wondered when I saw the announcement (the same time as everyone else), how much involvement you’d had. So good to get the clarity here.
As I said in my little snippet, happy to test and provide feedback like I do for any other power meter company. Just want more good/accurate units in the market, which is good for everyone.
Of course. I've seen how you work tirelessly to help all. Hope they get you something soon!
Thank you Keith 👍
Sadly, from my own observations over the last 10 years (aside from Campagnolo's fumbles in the late 1980's and 1990's) it appears that Campagnolo has lost interest in road cycling. I was a Campagnolo fan from the late 1980's when just about all road cyclists aspired to obtain a Record group set. Maybe that was part of the problem. Campagnolo seemed to have disdain for their lower sets. Their prices keep rising at crazy levels, their offerings are boring. I finally made the switch in 2023 to Shimano after years of Campagnolo loyalty. The last group I purchased was the HO, their first disc brake group set. I waited patiently for the wireless release and when it was finally announced, that was it. Enough. Shimano now. Maybe a Chinese group set in the future.
Campagnolo said something like this "we are a luxury sports brand".
Just horrible.
Not that I'm an expert at marketing -- maybe the opposite. It seems the old ideas still survived while I was there. Sponsor team, launch new product, it doesn't sell well. Repeat, wonder why. The head only looked at physical magazines or print offs of websites. That antiquated method wasn't giving the correct view. I have a cut section I'll post end of week that explains why.
Nearly the whole electronics teams had also taken new jobs, so when I resigned little did I know all but one person did as well in a 3 month span. OE contracts with big market place brands seemed to hold no interest even when Trek / Specialized just decided to randomly bump 10k bikes to 15k and sales increased. I invented new and familiar to Campagnolo loyalist style shifters while there unlike the new sad Shimano two button clone. Not even patented. Attempting intro's to Companies like BodyRocket fell on deaf ears. Now they don't even realize high speed data on a spider is totally 100% useless. High speed data in labs has only proved to have any use when left and right are separated -- and usually if they have vector and offset data. I've said that internally many times. You can only tell someone to stop punching themselves so many times before you walk away and let them do it.
What advantages are there nowadays to put powermeter in the cranks/spiders? The available pedal based options now seem to work flawless and provide basically all data you want. And i've used many of the available options in the last 13 years. power2max, quarq, pioneer, garmin vector 1,2,3, powertap p1, favero assioma ...
For most applications I agree. If I could have Shimano pedals with power, that work with track straps (without having to remove the straps to do a zero offset), and a Q factor no wider than long axle Dura Ace pedals, I’d happily switch to that from my SRM.
You're right.... none. I advocate pedals. I tried to get them to partner with BodyRocket on the pedals I designed for them even citing a better way. Spiders should be accurate. Quarq's got a great product. It's just not able to add features but also nobody is pushing the envelope for useful advanced data. There are reasons for this -- One being 80% of people who buy powermeters just now have a tool to watch them get slower and less powerful over the years. It's comical when you have large data.
Its a $2400 crankset, not really for people like us IMO.
Just put some wank in there about having 16 strain gauges and you're good.
656g for anyone wondering.
Intersting video, thanks for making it.
I can't imagine someone like Campagnolo sending a social media product reviewer, no matter how many follwers they have a prototype to test before launch, NDA or not. They sent some of their units to pro teams to test during the 22 23 24 seasons to test in pro races. I'm sure the 2 you mentioned may get one at some stage....?
They have a whole unit of R&D and testing to fall on. So I dont' quite get your arguement.
I worked there for over two years in Vicenza. I thought my point was fairly clear. "Magazines" don't know how to review powermeters. They at best psuedo copy DCR/GPlama badly at best -- and at worse... well no comment. Companies much more valuable than Campagnolo with bigger legal teams and more layers consistently send DCR/GPlama early units. I've been through this personally with my company and with other companies. They know their NDA / embargo stuff. Better than "magazines". I started gearing up the testing department but when I left it wasn't ready for full lab or ride testing. All the people I taught how to do it properly quit. Nobody hired after me has prior experience with strain gages that I know of for the electronics team as I tried to consult. To the point on Pro's, they can be hard on equipment BUT they have ZERO interest in messing with their training. You cannot effectively have a Pro do testing except "abuse" - I've seen this while working for so many companies and consulting. Pro's have a goal -- train and race. Testing stuff only works if it doesn't interfere. If they don't trust your numbers they'll ignore and train on feel - these are all experienced pro's that trained and some still do without power data, or just ignoring it -- usually ignoring what you want them to do and how to respond for testing. Pro's are great for durability, but you're not getting them riding with 3 powermeters, syncing GPS ever time, starting logging on all 3 head units unless you're going to supply pit-crew like experience which team leads / liaisons do not like. I've lived half my career in that area.
I am sad to hear your disappointment. Wasn’t SRM involved in lately released Powermeter?
No idea. But as I said in a much older video modern srm are just cloned quarqs. Sram has the valid patent on shear gages on spiders. Srm version 6 changed from bad design bending bridges to shear... After quarqs did it.
Hey Keith,
You raise excellent points.
I have a few "shared experiences "
It might be helpful to communicate with me in a non public setting.
Regards
Simon
Feel free to email me at my titanlab dot co email if you want.
Sameness between powermeter and non-powermeter versions is what SRAM somewhat achieved by selling powermeter cranks and hiding the functionality behind a paywall.
As per total integration, I totally see how it has not become economically viable: no matter how simple you can get to make an embedded sensor, not making a sensor is even simpler. Besides, carbon production is already a huge pain from quality assurance perspective, putting one element with high rejection rate in the making of another element with high rejection rate is straight up suiside.
And to add to a personal perspective, unfortunately fully agree about nonexistent dream jobs: take a) combination of all engineers and factory workers, b) finance and investors and c) buyers and customers - best one can have is not to piss off one of these. But usually pick two, because someone somewhere is eager to sacrifice one aspect fully.
One method we devised by limiting to only cheap strain gages and temperature sensors was if they failed in molding they became regular cranks without electronics. A few lost dollars didn't lose a whole crankset.
@@kwakeham good hack, although it works more like a measure to minimise damage than thought-through design. As in you still produce cranks definetely usefull as non-powermeter version only, but they are "befouled" with powermeter tech. Something Campy aficionados for what purists they are would not likely tolerate, I believe. And you have to constantly adjust production numbers of intended non-powermeter cranks to match this unfortunate surplus.
SRAM does it smarter as more appealing to buyers, must say. And even more so investors.
Nice to see you again Mr Cheater :D
People who embrace change are engaging in an iniquitous battle against status quo because people are inherently afraid of change and strongly resist against it.
With all due respect Mr. Wakeham, I clicked on the video expecting an unbiased comprehensive review, instead it was simply a 10 minute bickering and self-promotion that you can do better by integration - nothing else.
Fair point. I'm sorry you feel this way. This video got more traction than I expected. Since nobody has these for proper review I did think it opportune to express that I poured my heart and soul and every piece of engineering knowledge into this and bent over backwards after I tore my life apart and moved thousands of kilometers. I reference an older video that every spider pm is a quarq.... it's probably more what you were looking for.