"Have a guess how much that cost...?"
I was asked.
"Campag isn't it?".
"Yes".
"Oooh, I dunno, seventy or eighty quid..?".
"£140, RRP".
"Blimey...."
Now you can do a fair bit better than that if you shop around and/or you are prepared to wait for delivery, but this is very much a niche item, not widely available; in a busy workshop they will get the part in next day through the usual supply chain and get the bike repaired and out the door. [If they waited days for parts for every repair they would need two or three times the space to store bikes in for repair, for one thing.] The folk that manufacture replacement chainrings for third-party chainsets don't appear to offer this sort, and likely volumes are such that it might not be worth tooling up to do it, either.
If the worn ring had been a five bolt one on a training bike, I'd probably have removed the peg, turned it, and carried on. At first sight it looks like you might be able to do this with modern four-bolt chainrings too, but in fact the four bolts are not set in a square pattern, so it will only go on two ways not four, which is no help with chainring wear. Shimano ones are the same too; so much for progress...
BITD I used to run campag NR; it was for the most part -amongst its contemporaries- a robust, durable and functional assemblage of components. Sure it wasn't the lightest but it would mostly keep going for years. Sure, it was pricey too, but I don't remember a spare chainring costing as much as a half decent used bike....?
Needless to say I'm not planning to invest in a similar chainset anytime soon. And -as if it needs saying- chains are relatively cheap, where cassettes and chainrings are pricey. It makes much sense to change the chain before it takes out other transmission parts.
cheers
