bikeradar announced a sale on a UK housebrand bike, the Tifosi Rostra, from Chicken CycleKit. This latter seems to be a large parts distributor, nothing that has ever come across my USA centric view. There is nothing new here about such an outfit sourcing frames of no particularly exciting design from the usual factories and selling bikes for a bargain price.
The interesting part is that this bike can be optioned with Campagnolo Centaur 11 speed. This latter is not currently listed on the USA-facing Campy site as one of their road groups. Campy has been famously declaring itself a luxury brand in recent years and has consequently gradually disappeared from being specified on any bike a person might purchase off the rack.
Campy also was rumored to be contemplating a 40% reduction in workforce, only to declare negotiations with labor unions has headed off the layoffs.
So, does this Tifosi Rostra Centaur offering mean perhaps that keeping the employees at work has triggered a reversal of course? To have their factories generate lower cost product? Or perhaps this was a demand of whatever money sources were tapped to help with Campagnoloâs recovery from financial woes?
Or, alternately, maybe this is just pushing out the last of a limited amount of warehoused Centaur 11 stock and is nothing more signficant than, well, a death spasm?
The enthusiast press and podcast folks routinely bemoan the refusal of Campy to service the entry level market and suggest exactly this strategy- getting an entry level product into position to compete with Shimano 105 on price. One would think they would be all over this development.
IIRC that groupset did not come with a disc option. Therefore this is probably what could be considered NOS in terms of current groupset offerings.
Once Shimano had offered 105 as a 12 speed mechanical groupset, an 11 speed would have been increasingly difficult to shift.
Either this distributor was sitting on a container full of this stock or got it at a bargain price to match some older frames they had in stock.
Following Brexit many uk retailers whoâd previously successfully sold into EU found themselves cut off so my guess is surplus stock
Either way, to the man on the street looking at âentry levelâ road bikes having 11 speeds vs 12 and rim vs disc the decision goes one way. The only way this is attractive is if thereâs some nostalgia factor attracting the buyer to the rim brake option.
11sp campy was good but Iâm not sure the Centaur was rated highly?
Chicken no longer are a stockist of Tifosi, so this will just be them selling off their old stock. As for Centaur, while you may not see it as an option in the US, it has existed here in the UK for a long time. It is just old stock they are selling off, I wouldnât look to much into it personally.
Edit: I should also add that Chicken is the UK distributor of Campag, so not strange they would have old stock of Centaur.
The most recent article on Campy at Escape Collective quoted Campy as saying they reversed course on layoffs.
The Centaur are likely groups that some distributor or manufacturer had purchased, maybe when someone went out of business.
Death spasm? I donât think so. Everyone thinks it is dead simple to jump into the entry level market. I donât think itâs so simple. SRAM and Shimano are much bigger companies, have much more money to spend, and can afford to make less profit on lower end stuff or even to offer loss leader products.
A small clarification - from my understanding Campag have chosen to decrease the work hours across their work force rather than lay people off. So thereâs definitely some financial problems that need solving. Theyâve just decided to do it without laying anyone off.
Yep, I remember that from the article. I think that shows Campyâs commitment to their employees and/or their willingness to listen criticism. Either way it seems Campy is breaking with old, stale thinking that crept into the company. Either way that they opted to keep employees but reduce hours for the next year makes me more optimistic for where theyâll be at the end of that year.
This is just Chickens using up some old stock of an old groupset and frameset to make a value oriented build - theyve done similar things recently with a load of old 11-speed SRAM Apex too. I wouldnât say you can read anything into it too deeply. They sometimes have an odd approach to discounting and stock clearance, but theyll be clearing some space for new groupsets coming this year.
Chicken CycleKit are a large distributor in the UK. They donât do much direct-to-consumer sales so the average consumer probably hasnât heard of them, but many/most local bike shops will have an account with them.
As far as I can tell, this is just CCK selling off ânew old stockâ cheap - frames and groupsets they had lying around in a warehouse somewhere and want to get rid of.
I wouldnât read too deeply into it with regards to Campagnoloâs fortunes (or lack thereof).
Ive just looked on the CCK trade site and there are some small parts listed for Tifosi but no frames or complete bikes.
Iâve worked on a few Tifosi bikes but find it hard to recommend them after I found it impossible to source a replacement derailleur hanger for a frame. It looked like a normal hanger but was slightly different from anything available from my go-to hanger suppliers. I had to modify the closest available hanger to fit, which I consider to be less than ideal.