Cyclocross - Cheap campy cranks

On the lower end, centaur, veloce, mirage... is there anything cool or uncool about lower-end campy cranks? How'd they stack up to a sugino crankset, say?

I'm looking for a crank for my rob roy build and I'm leaning toward square taper which means sugino, lower-end campy, and random stuff like dimension, bmx cranks, an fsa model, etc. There's a place on ebay sells the lower end campy for $50-60 and I just don't know anything about campy. I'm guessing there's nothing spectacular about them but anything I ought to know about campy cranksets that may effect my decision I'd appreciate.

I haven't ridden any of the lower campy square tapers, but I will say that I love my Veloce UT crankset. If I were looking for a $50-60 crankset and could get a new Campy of any level, I'd do so without compunction.

I'm also riding a $75 Sugino on my commuter, and have no problems with it, either.

If you're going to go Campy, be aware of the JIS vs. ISO square tapers.

I guess what I'm getting at is would a lower end campy crank be better in terms of finish quality, construction etc., than say a sugino xd crank or a lower-end fsa crank?

It's probably a dumb question I just don't know anything about campy so it still has this mystique for me, like it's all just slightly better than japanese stuff.

Campy no longer makes square taper cranks (except for Record Pista), as far as i know.

but any Campy crank would be just as good as a budget Sugino. i mean, it's not rocket surgery. it's a crank, for goodness sakes.

finish quality on Campy parts is always excellent, whatever the price point, in my experience.

if you are buying used, however, beware oddball BCDs...

I use a compact Centaur. It's a mid-range component of excellent quality. I also use Centaur brifters and rear derailleur which function flawlessly. The front Record derailleur is good too.

I just figured out campy bb's are pretty dang expensive. So there's the answer to my question: "Well teh cranks are find, but the bb's are pretty dang expensive."

Back to ye' old shimano closeout or something.

Mirage BBs should be really cheap. The cranks are really good. I'm not ultra keen on the black Mirage finish (the silver ones appeal to me more), but they are pretty cool. The chainrings are much nicer than Shimano ones too.

You should be aware that the bcd of doubles is 135, not 130.

However, I also have a Sugino XD on another bike. I really like it. I'd probably take a Campagnolo crank over it, but it's a really nice product.

Forgot to mention that the Xenon double is still square taper, as are the race, comp and champ triples. So it's not just the Pista :)

I'm looking at new leftover cranks from 2005 or 2006 for about $50-60. Centaur bbs seem to be around $60. For $45 for the cranks and $35 for the bb I can get 1 105 hollowtech, so i think I'm gonna go that way. It's for a SS anyway so I may replace the inner ring for a no-ramp one and the large for a guard, so I'm not too worried about the rings.

In that case, find a Sora square taper. I have Sora triple cranks, and the cranks are really nicely made. I recall Jenson having a sale on Octalink Ultegra.

I think low-end Campy is very high quality but very heavy. On my older steel Colnago road bike I went from Shimano 105 to Veloce and I think I ADDED 1 1/2 lbs.

My Bianchi Axis had a Mirage square-taper bottom bracket (same as Veloce except w/steel retainers instead of aluminum). Beautifully made and butter smooth but I swear it must be filled with lead!

I just sold a campy record aluminum crank on ebay... it went for 17 dollars! keep your eyes open. The release of UT really brought down the value, but not quality of campy square taper