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were transformed: from lumpen machines that had barely moved on since the invention of the safety bike, they became jewel-like, finely crafted pieces of lightweight engineering. The company remains highly secretive: for example, no one outside its factory knows what goes into its legendary off-white grease.
    â€œWhen we saw a good-looking girl at the roadside, we’d say she was Campag,” recalled the 1950s champion Raphael Geminiani. “Why is the name the most mythical in cycling? It’s simple: Tullio changed the lives of cycling greats by producing cutting-edge components, and ordinary cyclists want to be like the greats.”
    All this dates back to one day, and one snow-hit race. Campagnolo was an amateur racing cyclist who was riding the Gran Premio della Vittoria over the Croce d’Aune pass in the Dolomites on November 4, 1924, when he had to change gears. This involved undoing the wingnuts on his back wheel and moving the chain to a different sprocket. The wingnuts had frozen up and his hands were too cold to turn them; he was unable to change gear and was deprived of the win.

    Tullio’s father owned an ironmonger’s in Vicenza, northern Italy, where Campagnolo began experimenting. Over the next six years, he came up with the quick release mechanism, in which a hinged lever is turned inward against the wheel drop-out to hold the wheel spindle. The spindle is hollow, and when the lever is undone, springs on either side push the holding mechanism outward so the spindle remains centerd.
    Next Tullio came up with various DERAILLEUR mechanisms, culminating in the radical Gran Sport (see time line on page 60). After the Second World War Campagnolo was carried along by the massive industrial growth that transformed Italy from a nation devastated by war to a dynamic modern society based on specialist manufacturing. The company worked with sports car makers Alfa, Ferrari, and Maserati at various times; the company’s rapid expansion—from 1 employee in 1940 to 123 by 1950—and constant innovation was a key element in Italian cycling’s golden years, when the rivalry between FAUSTO COPPI and GINO BARTALI was at its height. Both men raced on Campagnolo products, and Tullio was in constant contact with them and their mechanics to use their experience in the field to drive the manufacturing process forward. “The key one was the saddle fixing,” said Geminiani. “Tullio brought in a two-pin cradle which meant everything, how far back the saddle was, how it sloped, could be adjusted to the millimeter.” The Gran Sport derailleur, and the 1956 racing pedal and seatpost, all became classic designs copied by many other manufacturers.

    By the start of the 1970s, Campagnolo had diversified into motor parts, mainly wheels and brakes. In cycling, thanks to the constant consultation with the best racers and their mechanics—whose comments were recorded in Tullio’s notebook—Campagnolo had become preeminent, constantly pushing forward with greats such as EDDY MERCKX using the components. “When I raced, 15 was the smallest sprocket,” recalled Geminiani. “Tullio brought out the 13 for Anquetil, and the 12 for Merckx.” In a similar vein, in 1996 Tullio’s son Valentino traveled to the TOUR DE FRANCE with the first nine-speed gear for eventual winner Bjarne Riis.
    In the 1970s, however, serious competition emerged in the form of Japanese companies SunTour and SHIMANO, leading to battles on the road between Merckx and Shimano-sponsored rivals. Tullio Campagnolo died in 1983 just as his company was celebrating its 50th anniversary; a groupset specially produced for the occasion was presented to the pope. By then, the company’s range was becoming unwieldy, and the advent of MOUNTAIN-BIKING in the US meant that road racing was no longer the cutting edge of componentry: progress was now driven by mountain-bike makers, and production of all but