The story of the Campagnolo Gran Sport begins immediately after the Second World War. It was a time when cycle racing was dominated by two Italians - Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi.
Gino Bartali, a conservative man who saw himself as a skilled craftsman, loved the intricasies and complexities of Tullio Campagnolo's Heath Robinson rod-operated gear changers like the infamous Campagnolo Corsa. He used one to win the 1948 Tour de France.
Fausto Coppi, however, revelled in modernity, progress and technology - and despised Tullio's ornate contraptions. In 1949 Fausto Coppi defected from Campagnolo to Simplex, and horror of horrors, won the Tour de France. An Italian demi-god had triumphed using French equipment. Tullio Campagnolo was humiliated and mortified.
But the shock was exactly what was needed to get the, ever-cautious, Tullio off his backside and spur him to produce, in 1951, his signature Campagnolo Gran Sport derailleur. It, famously, adopted a parallelogram mechanism, and its strength and accuracy defined the way that derailleurs operate up to this very day