The Campagnolo Victory was a tidy looking object, created to replace the legendary Campagnolo Nuovo Record with a derailleur with a more 1980s style.

But somehow it did not quite have the quality of finish required to succeed in that role. Perhaps the expectation was impossibly high - for some years the Nuovo Record had not really justified its stellar reputation - but even that doesn't excuse some of the Victory's more cynical weaknesses. The inside parallelogram plate was often poorly polished - as were the inside surfaces of the pulley cage. And then there was the over-complex system for adjusting the swing at the b-pivot. SunTour had been showing how this should be done since the 1960s - but Campagnolo had to reinvent the wheel with something just slightly worse.

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This elegant example, with its Campagnolo script logo, is the fourth iteration of the long cage Victory design. It is sometimes given the names 'Nuovo Victory LX', 'Victory LX' or simply 'LX' as a result of its appearance in Campagnolo's Nuovo Victory Nuovo Triomphe leaflet. It is also sometimes referred to as 'Victory LX S3' as Campagnolo issued a rather strange leaflet using this name in 1987. I have also seen this model given the part number G010-LG, although I don't have any literature that shows this. How many names can one derailleur need?

Some key features of this fourth style of Victory are:

• The Campagnolo script logo on the outer parallelogram plate.
• Main Allen bolts with 'Brev. Int. Campagnolo' engraved in the heads.
• Adjustment screws with large-ish (5.5mm diameter) Phillips heads.
• A cable clamp nut with a semi-domed top.

If you carefully examine the photos in the tab on this page you may notice a crack in the small grey, metal, toothed, insert that restricts the swing at the b-pivot. This is despite the fact that this example is a little used take-off. I think this cracking is an endemic problem as I have seen any number of these pieces with fractures in them. On this example, after photgraphing it, I replaced this part - which in one way now makes this derailleur slightly less authentically original, but in another way makes it slightly less annoying!

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• Derailleur brands: Campagnolo
• Categories: Campagnolo - defeat snatched from the jaws of Victory
• Country: Italy
• Date of introduction: 1987?
• Date of this example: unknown
• Model no.: G010-LG?
• Weight: 201g
• Maximum cog: 32 teeth (Source: Campagnolo)
• Total capacity: 38 teeth (Source: Campagnolo)
• Pulley centre to centre: 71mm
• Index compatibility: friction
• Chain width: 3/32”
• Logic: top normal
• B pivot: unsprung
• P pivot: sprung
• Materials: aluminium

Ref. 1527