Rather disillusioned by Campagnolo kit

[nickyboy]

So I got a nice bike a couple of years ago; Btwin 720. Came with full Campagnolo Centaur kit. Looked great and I was looking forward to riding it hard in the Peak District

Fast forward a couple of years and about 9,000 miles. It's cost me a fortune in replacement bits

2 replacement cassettes
3 chains (I've changed to KMC as Campagnolo chains are ridiculously expensive)
Rear derailleur (spring tension had all but gone)
Left shifter (plastic surround broke)
Right shifter is about to go
Rear brake caliper is about to go

That lot is about £500 plus labour to fit

LBS reckons that Centaur just isn't up to the job and I should run it into the ground and replace with Shimano which, for the equivalent, is much cheaper

For the record, I clean and lube the bike every week. The miles I do are hard miles with plenty of climbing but I would have expected expensive components like Centaur to last longer. Other than the front brake, front mech and chainrings, everything is replaced by 9,000 miles

 

[I like Skol]

You are not supposed to ride it! Campagnolo stuff is just for posing down at the coffee shop while you quaff your cappuccino isn't it?

In contrast, my hybrid which as you know doesn't get much love but is used for the majority of my riding has covered around 13-14k miles and is still running great. The wheels were a bit ropey at the start due to poor build quality although the hubs could have been re-used without an issue. I made myself some super handbuilt hoops that have been great ever since. The only other bits of note was to skip the junk Tektro hydraulic brakes and fit some decent Shimano XT kit. The rest of the bits are just run-of-the-mill Shimano 9spd DEORE. The shifters and derailleurs are still working fine despite my neglect. I have had to change the middle chain ring (about £10) and a couple of Hollowtech BBs (again, about £10-12) but otherwise, despite my best neglect the other consumeables are a chain every 1-2k and a cassette swap every other chain but at about £10 and £20 a pop these don't break the bank.

IME Shimano have got the market sewn up on the mid range stuff and I have no desire or need to find out if this holds true on the top range gear.

 

[ColinJ]

One of my road bikes has 9-speed Campagnolo Athena on it. That was probably the 1999 equivalent of Centaur. I have had 17 years of use out of it.

The front mech broke after about 10 years but I take the blame for that - I hadn't adjusted the endstops properly and was forcing it to shift beyond where it wanted to go.

The rear mech is the original. It does have some play in it now, but still works ok.

The brake callipers have always been fine and look like they will last forever! I buy compatible brake blocks from Discobrakes to save money.

The shifters have finally started to get a bit worn. They still work but I would not be surprised if they were to suddenly die. (That is not going to be a problem because I will soon be upgrading it to 10-speed anyway.)

Chainrings and cassettes wear out. I never felt that the Campag kit wears out faster than that from other manufacturers but I usually buy chainrings from other companies because they can be cheaper. I buy Veloce cassettes and sealed (square taper) bottom brackets to save money.

Campag chains are too expensive. I usually just buy mid-range SRAM chains and get on fine with those.

My other road bike has 10-speed Chorus on it. That has been fine. I had no problems with the chainset or front shifting but after 12 years use I put a Stronglight triple chainset on instead for the bigger range of gears. To my surprise, with a bit of tweaking I got the new gearing to work without needing new front or rear mechs, and using the original shifters.

The right shifter still works ok but it lost its nice reassuring clunky shift last year. I can no longer hear/feel when I have changed gear, even though the indexing still works fine. Apparently it is due to a spring that loses springiness after a lot use. A YouTube video showed that is is a fairly straightforward (though fiddly) task to replace the spring and the spare parts are not expensive so I will be doing that in the next few weeks.

My experience with Campagnolo has been a positive one so I will stick with it for my current road bikes. I have Shimano Ultegra on my CX bike and it is ok so maybe one day I will buy a 'best' bike with Ultegra or Dura Ace on, but I would probably opt for electronic shifting on that.

 

[nickyboy]

You are not supposed to ride it! Campagnolo stuff is just for posing down at the coffee shop while you quaff your cappuccino isn't it?

In contrast, my hybrid which as you know doesn't get much love but is used for the majority of my riding has covered around 13-14k miles and is still running great. The wheels were a bit ropey at the start due to poor build quality although the hubs could have been re-used without an issue. I made myself some super handbuilt hoops that have been great ever since. The only other bits of note was to skip the junk Tektro hydraulic brakes and fit some decent Shimano XT kit. The rest of the bits are just run-of-the-mill Shimano 9spd DEORE. The shifters and derailleurs are still working fine despite my neglect. I have had to change the middle chain ring (about £10) and a couple of Hollowtech BBs (again, about £10-12) but otherwise, despite my best neglect the other consumeables are a chain every 1-2k and a cassette swap every other chain but at about £10 and £20 a pop these don't break the bank.

IME Shimano have got the market sewn up on the mid range stuff and I have no desire or need to find out if this holds true on the top range gear.

I dare say the top end Campagnolo stuff is really good but the prices are eye-watering. Mid range (at most) such as Centaur I'm not convinced by. For example the shifter ratchet mechanism is plastic whereas it's metal on the more expensive products. As you know, we're always changing up and down in the hills so it gets a lot of use. These have worn out on my most commonly used gears and I'm getting gear slippage

Based on my one experience I tend to agree that in the mid-range you're better of with the Shimano equivalent rather than Campagnolo. It may not last any longer than Campagnolo but the prices are way cheaper

 

[gbb]

If only i could afford high end stuff ..(well i could but refuse to, if its functional, thats good enough for me)
Bottom range Xenon, despite being mostly plastic never let me down, my current bike is shod with Veloce which i find more than ok...but i do detect sometimes i need to have two go's at shifting down in one particular gear, but that could just be a slight indexing problem.

 

[lpretro1]

Campy used to be fabulous but sadly has deteriorated in more recent years. Sadly I'd have to recommend the Shimano route nowadays

 

[fossyant]

I'll stick with my vintage Ultegra and Dura Ace.

 

[thegravestoneman]

I had Campag Veloce 10 speed on my bike bought in 2014, 15,000 miles later I have sold the frame and currently using some of the components on my trike. The only parts I replaced were a chainring, obviously a couple of chains and cassettes (Ambrosia) and I got through a Rim on the Zonda's.

 

[Tin Pot]

Veloce is doing fine for me, three years in. But I don't have a shim bike to compare it with.

Veloce groupset is only marginally more expensive than 105.

 

[Smokin Joe]

I never had a problem with Campag kit, the only failures I had were on Shimano (Pedal fell apart and rear mech spring went).

 

[Crandoggler]

It does look stunning. I'm a big fan of SRAM's mechanical performance. Sod shimano.

 

[HLaB]

I bought my campag Veloce equipped Bianchi in circa 2006 or 7 and its never had a hiccup in 10,000miles. I've replaced chains and cassettes but no more regularly than my shimano bikes.

 

[accountantpete]

Campagnolo used to work well and look great.

Then they started introducing plastic paddles on the shifters (which tended to break) and plastic drums in the Quickshift shifters (which tended to break rendering the whole shifter useless).

At the same time they stopped doing the things that looked nice and made the bike stand out from the dreary Shimano groupsets - like the C-record era cranks and hubs.

In the meantime Shimano have had to up their game - I'm still not convinced by their left shifters but everything else is better than Campagnolo IMHO.

 

[Gatters]

I'll stick with my vintage Ultegra and Dura Ace.

Great stuff and so is my vintage 105, top quality engineered parts.