DISRAELI DOCUMENTS
in 2009, to promote the launch of its new, and at the time unique, 11-speed groupsets, Campagnolo dreamed up a PR event. It got a 'Dream Team' of 11 celebrity athletes to ride the demanding Maratona dles Dolomites using bikes equipped with Campagnolo 11-speed groupsets.
These films are a record of this event - and what they show is quite interesting.
Firstly, the athletes were:
Yup, me neither!
Even though this crew have won an truck-load of of Olympic medals and World Championships, I have never heard of a single one of them. Perhaps that's because they are famous in Italy, but, possibly, not so much elsewhere. It's interesting, and even heart-warming, that Campagnolo saw the launch of their 11-speed groupsets as mainly an Italian event aimed at Italian consumers. Marketing madness, but culturally impressive.
Maybe Shimano has spectacular Japanese launch events featuring Japanese domestic stars. And maybe we just never get to hear of them. But then maybe not.
Secondly, although this series of films is clearly intended as a coherent set, very little is consistent:
This level of variation kind-of speaks of a pleasant lack of obsessive planning and of an admirable willingness to relax control and see where it takes you.
But, again, it's difficult to imagine Shimano producing a video series as inconsistent as this. It all reminds me, worryingly, of a friend of mine who is a plumber. He once brusquely told his young trainee 'plumbing is not Art College - there are wrong answers...'.
