Old brands turned 'niche'.. I love em..
Pentax. This may ring a bell with some people - it was a huge camera brand. It's a brand which I'm still fiercely loyal to ever since I got my first Pentax in about 1985. That was a P30 with a 35-70mm zoom upon which I added a Sigma 70-210mm telephoto, a 50mm f2 fixed and a flash gun. When it went faulty after a LOT of use, Chester Camera Centre (no longer trading) loaned me a lovely Pentax ME Super during the repair. They'd come to (easily) learn I was a Pentax fan and even asked the Pentax rep to give me a Pentax t-shirt, waaay to big for me initially, which I proudly wore for about 10years. Maybe longer. Surprised I don't still have it actually (surprising no-one I used to work with).
In about 1991 I then added a completely manual (and even then considered retro despite being made til 1997) Pentax K1000, no automatic modes at all. With this & my P30, I continued taking photos & slides (remember them?) of landscapes, holidays & trains on both cameras, sometimes black & white film in one, colour in the other. Part of my degree involved photography too, and these workhorses were just such great tools. Then one day, I decided to go autofocus, traded in the lot and got a secondhand Pentax Z1 - despite the Jessops salesman pointing a lot at all the Canon EOS' they had in. Canon, so, I dunno, soulless - and not Pentax. I was a Pentax man you see, loyal to "my brand". At this point, Canon was huge, their EOS range of SLR cameras had taken a gigantic march over Pentax by virtue of their almost silent & faster autofocus. Nikon, a bit more tempted, but deffo not Canon, the market leader. Just too clinical, didn't like the feel. Not a nice, compact Pentax. Another thing, Pentax' focusing ring turned the other way to Canon & Nikon, and I was (and still am) programmed for Pentax. How could I get used to focusing the 'wrong' way..?
My photographic interests waivered but I still support Pentax, a lower end Pentax K-X with 18-200mm zoom now my 'best' camera, albeit an ancient 10yrs old in a digital age. I've recently obtained my mum's old film based Pentax P30n too, a later variant of my original P30. Pentax as a brand has withered away though, barely ever stocked by the remaining High St. retailers in the UK. Annual - yet unfounded - rumours of collapse abound. So Pentax, once a household name, has become a niche brand nowadays, something only those in the know may look out for or ask about.
However, niche or not, people are missing a great brand. Pentax have won many awards for many cameras over the past 10yrs, yet I suspect most people under 40 will never have heard of them. In a shrinking camera market (see; camera phones) hopes that Pentax could ever return to play alongside Canon & Nikon are dwindling. A shame. They're worthy of more recognition.
The Pentax loyalty says a lot about me and others the with the same thoughts I suspect. My refusal to go with a market leader has always been there. Like supporting the under-dog, being different (even if illogical to be so), or some deep socialist desire to share the wealth. I've also been/am fiercely loyal to:
Fujifilm (from camera days)
Android-based phones (when they were fledgling against the Apple monster, I got the T-Mobile G1, the first ever Android)
Garmin (when it was just Garmin vs TomTom before Garmin became huge & ruled the sports GPS world too)
Peugeot Partners (yes, looks like a Postman Pat car but the second anyone wants to move anything big it's "oooh, your car is brill for that")
My old employers (all of them)
Wales.
On an unrelated note, I also support Everton FC.
What's this mean in the cycling world? Not Shimano (mainly gears & brakes to those non-bikey reading this). Shimano, the ubiquitous Shimano. From £200 "mtb" to TdF winning* superbike, flippin' Shimano. It's everywhere - cos it works alright. To be clear, I've used Shimano a lot, my son's current cx bike is Shimano, my first 3 serious bikes had it, my current winter bike has 2 Shimano bits on it (chainset & brake calipers). But do I like it? Yeah, it's fine, it's alright, I'd certainly not be disappointed if gifted a Shimano equipped bike, far from. It rarely disappoints, it's cheapish, & every bike shop has the tools for it & is used to working on it. The top stuff is also ok, fine, nice. Only it is, to my eyes & hands alone it seems, a bit bland, and dare I say it, boring. "Here's yet another bike with Shimano 1-oh-5 on it..". In a market full of 1-oh-5 equipped bikes from about £1k to £2k (depending on disc or non-disc, alloy or carbon frames), then the brands have to work hard to differentiate. I'm lucky I work in a shop selling a bike brand with a strong, proven name that people know & trust, but for less well known and historied brands, setting themselves apart must be tricky.
So, my desire of smaller brands.. In the cycling world, my own heart & money goes to Campagnolo (and a wee bit SRAM). The Italian brand of Campagnolo was like Pentax in the 80s-90s. Loads of 'users', loads of loyalty, loads of world firsts like quick release wheels, 11 & 12 spd road groupsets. All the best riders had Campag (or Campy as the Americans call it, which is clearly wrong). Until 1998, Shimano had never even won the Tour de France, Campag ruled, but much like Canon getting ahead because of better autofocus, Shimano took the lead with their 'brake/gear Shimano Total Integration' levers in the early 90s, and then belted ahead with Lance Armstrong winning** his first TdF upon a Shimano equipped bike too. Campagnolo never really caught up with the lost market share after that, plus SRAM entered the competitive road bike component market.
Campag hung on through the noughties as still being a standard option on new bikes from a variety of manufacturers, often with their entry-level "Veloce 9spd" groupset, a groupset which simply wouldn't wear out. I tweeted as much some 15 years after getting it and having subjecting it to principally awful weather routines in an attempt to finish it off so I could move all my bikes to 10spd. Crashing on it heavily once on a slick roundabout still had it jumping up & shouting for "more" so I eventually made sure by crashing in the Co-Op car park, en route home from the cash machine, on a slippery winter's day, regrettably also managing to not only smash the right "Ergo-shifter" but also break my own hand and heavily sprain the other wrist.
Now though, Campag has gone so niche almost no new bikes have it as a standard option, even the Italian bike brands. Their lowest groupset, Campagnolo Centaur, is only really viable as an option on £1.6k bikes upwards. Don't get me wrong, it's an 11spd quality groupset, but where is the 8, 9 and 10speed which Shimano offers to indoctrinate new or lesser-deep-pocketed people in to Campag loveliness (and once indoctrinated, aspire to that Super Record 12spd groupset) - or for us able to have a second, cheapish winter batter-bike with the same brand/compatability to attack the salt, mud & ice? They've been also remarkably slow to adapt to the hydraulic brake market, and here's the irony, whilst they were last by a long margin to offer road bike hydro to mass market, they actually helped develop hydraulic brakes for motorbikes decades ago...
So, they've abandoned the lower market and hence are failing to foster the loyalty from the base, the entry level. And hence so become 'niche'. You have to ask for it, look for it - just like Pentax. Yet, like modern Pentaxes, it works, and it works well, really well. I've 5 bikes with Campag 10spd and now one with 11spd Campag stuff, and it just lasts and lasts, works and keeps working***.
I have another theory not helping Campag too. They can't help but to non-standardize, much like Pentax with their focussing ring being opposite to Canon. "Ciao [my limit of Italian], we see Shimano & SRAM have agreed to a standard freehub but we'll do something different". And "our Athena carbon chainset, we'll make every chainring hole 110mm BCD like other people, except that one behind the crank arm, cos', you know, we're Campag!". But in other areas they have learned. Their bottom brackets take the same tools as the other brands and their rim brake blocks are 'Shimano standard' now too I believe. This is right at the time that Shimano & SRAM are going their own way with non-standard, new freehubs & even chains. Only pedal/crank interfaces remain standard at the minute..
So, in summary, these brands that you may not have heard of nowadays, ex-giants. They've a lot of quality, a lot to be liked. Sometimes they've not had the money to advertise to keep to the front, or came a bit late to a market, or failed to outsource production to the Far-East and undercut their competition (Campag is made in Italy & Romania). But don't forget them, they often have been rightful front runners and still have the products to compete if we open our eyes. They may have their quirks but they are still no-lesser product. They may have had to position themselves in a certain way to survive that the average consumer (I'm included) doesn't understand. They are amazing products and we need them even if it's simply to keep the big players on their toes. A market where the choice is merely the leader and maybe one other is not what I want. And it is so boring.
*Last Campag TdF win, 1997. Next one, this year, 2020!
** I've Campag 1999 stuff, still heavily used and in to huge mileages.
*** I must apologize on behalf of Campag for Powertorque chainsets. Lovely in all aspects unless you want to remove them.
Note : This is my opinion (of course) & not necessarily that of my employers. I'd almost hesitated doing this blog as I'm now working in a bike shop. I know Shimano, have to understand it, know it works for almost everyone at one level or another. I leave my Campag-love at the door of the shop, will engage in a Campag-love-in with anyone wanting to partake in a Campag-love-in, but know for good reason why Shimano is stock option of choice for almost all bike brands and hence, bike shops.
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