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The Attic -
Attic What IZIT
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 #49
 Why we are still not running these gems I'll never know... If you know it could be worth a 10 spot in Bikeman credit. The winning answer will include the Make, Model and Functionality of the item. Personal experience is worth big bonus points. The winner will receive a $10 Bikeman Gift Certificate.
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Another great round of the Attic What IZIT has come to a close with some interesting and one very good but not printable answer. Sorry Joe! Here are the best and the rest.
WINNER - mtbr-0019: "Why, you ask, are you still not running these gems? Because they are made by Campagnolo, and because most Campagnolo off-road stuff, including this twist-grip shifter, is beautious but awful. In this case, making the whole grip in to a shifter means you shift gears accidentally while you ride. Clearly, Campagnolo did not actually TEST their MTB products before selling them to unsuspecting customers ... soon to be ex-customers. Like their sexy cantilevers ... with a thin self-wearing aluminum-on-aluminum thrust bearing; thumb shifters ... that bent while shifting; a crank that ran so far outboard when you shifted in the large sprocket in back the front would auto-shift from the middle chainring to the small unless you kept the derailleur rubbing on the chain. As I recall the Campagnolo OR brake levers were actually nice, and there was nothing compellingly bad about the front hub. Don't get me started on the rear hub, though."
RUNNER UP - Christian Seeley: "This edition taps into the wonderful world of Campagnolo's attempt at off road components. This What IZIT is the Campagnolo Bullet "grip" shifter. My first knowledge of Campy having an off road group was seeing Don Myrah and Cindy Whitehead (I know, anyone under the age 30 is saying "WHO?") sporting Campy's off road group in the early '90's. The cranks and derailleurs were as beautiful as any of their road offerings, but that is where the the beauty stops. The brakes, brake levers and shifters were ungodly huge, having a Frankenstein quality. Campy added this 8 speed twist shifter to their group in 1991 or '92. The shifters were spread across their groups (Record OR, Euclid, Olympus, Centaur, Icarus, and Themis) and were an option to the thumb shifter. The shifter was the entire grip, as opposed to what we all know of as twist shifters today. While I never owned any Campy off road parts, I can envision shifting these every time you tried to move your hand forward to reach the brake levers that could stop a freestyle motocrosser."
RUNNER UP - Peter Rhodes: "Campy Record OR twist shifter. This was Campy's attempt at a high end off-road group. Back when Gripshift was a foam wrapped piece of plastic used mostly be Tri-geeks and Shimano competed with Suntour for the mtn bike crowd, campy attempted to make a move on the market. While it had had all that campy ingenuity and beauty, it also had a huge price tag and a pretty heft weight compared to similar Shimano and Suntour shifters. But if you were a true campy afficionado this was the mtn group to have. While I never owned it myself, I did once work on a custom painted Fat Change with a full Record OR group, and as a huge campy fan, it was so cool."
RUNNER UP - Aki: "That grip thing is a Campy Themis "bullet shifter" from the early 90's. I think this was their "SUV" group, i.e. the group for hybrids and touring bikes (no caliper brakes so not really for "road" and not really a mountain bike group). You could get brake levers and shifters for drops or straight bars. As all Campy groups back then, the group was overbuilt and expensive. The only good thing was that everything interchanged shifting wise (or maybe that was later). My preference was the perpetually on-sale Croce D'Aune (between Chorus and Record) which never did well (ugly grey paint and all). I don't recall if the rear derailleurs were afflicted with the original very thick inner cage which were perfect for ripping your dropout off when you put it in the big/big during oxygen-debt moments. I still have 4 or 5 of the replacement thinner inner cages. What a great find."
RUNNER UP - Telford Crisco: "That would be a Campagnolo BS-02IC CG, Bullet Shifter, circa 1992-1995. These were found as an option to thumb shifters on the Icarus, Centaur, and Record OR off road groups. The one shown in the photo is for use with the front, presumably Campy, derailleur."
RUNNER UP - John Nigri: "I believe it is a Campy Record O.R. (for offroad) or a Campy Centar O.R. "Bullet" shifter for thier ill fated attempt to jump into the Moutain Bike market in the late 80's. They worked like a grip shift but you rotated the whole grip, which led to unplanned shifts when you thourqued on the bars. Don Myrah was the pro they signed to ride their stuff when they stole him from Ritchey and he rode their components on a Klein and also a Fat City Yo Eddy."
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