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Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Campagnolo Rally Derailleur

I've torn down my Peter Mooney bike for refurbishing this winter, cleaning and polishing all the components. The earlier Campagnolo derailleurs had a certain sculptural feel to them, as if they had to be beautiful as well as functional.
This particular rear derailleur is one of those things that theorically doesn't exist. Campy boxes are quite nice. There people who buy, sell and collect the boxes. Weird. I bought this a few years ago from a reputable European dealer. The box this came in was a classic blue Campagnolo box, labeled, to the best of my recollection, simply as "Rally Derailleur".






The rollers have been replaced by sealed bearing rollers and the Campagnolo lettering buffed off (both of which, the purests would kill me for). The Rally derailleurs were designed to wrap a lot of chain for triple chainring touring bikes. As I said, theoretically Rally derailleurs had been discontinued by the late 80s. The closest thing I have found to this in the Campagnolo catalogs is the 1990 Euclid mountain bike derailleur, with only a slight variance in the bottom roller guard.
That's all, folks. More than you wanted to know.

Addendum:
Chuck Schmidt has advised me that it is indeed a late 1980's third generation Campagnolo Rally.

4 comments:

Dylan said...

I may have tagged you.

http://www.dylanreed.com/2009/01/29/7-things/

Unknown said...

"The closest thing I have found to this in the Campagnolo catalogs is the 1990 Euclid" that was the same for me. I also asked to official campagnolo crew and no one knew about that derailleur. some old mechanic here in Italy told me Campagnolo was not in good waters in late 80's and was use to send only requested pages of it's catlogue (and for sure rally derailleur was not a common requested pieces)

Gaben said...

Hi,
Old post, I know, but hope this question finds you.
Just wonder whether you used this dérailleur in index or friction mode, and if indexed, than for what speed (6/7 or 8 perhaps)?
Thanks,
Gabor

Gunnar Berg said...

I am relatively certain it will not index. My thought is you should just buy a newer derailleur if you want indexing. As rare as these are it is probably worth more than a new "modern" one anyway.