>>1934139>However that's mostly due to the glut of japanese bikes too. 2/3ds the bikes I see from that vintage are japanese so of course they have japanese parts.Even classic European bikes from the mid 80s onwards, for example, pic rel, are mostly specced with shimano because by then it was better for the money and you're still at a time when people, framebuilders, and shops, would chose what equipment to use. Campagnolo never really did what shimano does now and force their equipment, although they could have leveraged market/race dominance from earlier eras to do so.
>If I am going old school I want something weird to ride when I can.I certainly see the appeal of that however I think the peak era of classic bikes is when they had indexed downtube shifters.
There are really functionally two campagnolo eras to consider on vintage bikes, one is the vintage vintage freewheels friction shifting and absolute garbage brakes era, eroica REALLY old bikes, and these are extremely rare and difficult and make almost no sense for a beginner. Then there are the late-steel early brifter era ergopower 8 speed campagnolo Indurain Pantani type bikes and these are also rare and expensive and old ergopower shifters are almost all shot and expensive/difficult to repair or replace especially the lower tier campagnolo stuff like veloce and mirage which is really not good or special enough to bother with. Like those bottom brackets are almost $100 each and the cassettes are fast becoming unobtanium.
Indexed shimano downtube shifters and 7 speed cassette systems on the other hand are extremely practical. Downtube shifters alone aren't 'wierd' enough to ride? Is there actually any charm to shit brakes?
