Road Cycling - Campagnolo Question

Here is my quandry and my question. I recently upgraded my Cannondale from a mix of Shimano 105 and some misc. CODA stuff to Campy Chorus. I really love the Campy group. As for the stuff I replaced, the 105 stuff is decent, the CODA stuff varies. Anyway, I had it left over and was going to sell it on E-Bay. Noticed the price that used 105 was selling for and the fact that CODA brakes and hubs weren't selling at all so I decided to get a frame instead to mount it on as a backup/rain bike (forgot I live in AZ and don't need a rain bike -good excuse though). I bought a brand new Orbea Zonal frame for a song and just finished building it up a couple of days ago. Well - my right 105 shifter is starting to miss shifts, in fact that was one of the reasons (excuses) I used for the initial upgrade. So I either need to get a new shifter (cheapest solution) or I need to consider a switch for that bike. There are a lot of reasons for me to switch the new bike to Campy, such as wheel compatability and shifting similarity (you should have seen me shifting that Shimano stuff after six months on Campy, kept up shifting when I should have been down shifting).

Does anyone have any experience with Campy Mirage or Veloce components? I am looking for a lower priced option for this bike and can't really justify the expense of another new Chorus group. If anyone has ridden Mirage, veloce or even Xenon please let me know what you think of it.

By the way, the Orbea handles very nicely, climbs well too.

interesting, campy believes in trickle down tech. if you look at older models, they look like the current lower end lines. if you look at the centuar line, it looks like record line from a few years back. I think the lower end stuff at campy works pretty much as well as the high end, they just wiegh more.

veloce is a very nice. in fact, 2004 veloce is a 10-speed group, not mucg different from 2001 daytona... which wasn't much different from 1998 chorus.

Indeed, cheaper campy beats cheap shimaNO... I have an older TT bike that has a bunch of campy Athena, which was considered to be their bottom of the barrell. I ride it frequently and in the rain, and it still goes great after 12 years. ALL campy is quality...

I guess the same is probably true for Shimano too (pretty much) but I think the only real difference between the lower ranges and the top line stuff is weight (and 9 or 10 speed of course). Cheaper groups use steel and ally instead of ally and carbon. Xenon and Mirage will be slightly less smooth than Chorus and Record, but it's not as if they're not good. The good thing is they're all compatible, so you could go for quality where it counts (derailers, hubs), but save money on shifters and brakes (that's what I'm going to do).

I have a Mirage equipped Bianchi that I bought new in 1996. It still works flawlessly.

DEMON

Last month launched my first road bike with Veloce triple and Campy Scirocco wheels. So far I am very pleased with the crisp accurate shifting and overall quality of the powertrain.
I went with a Salsa Las Cruces frame for greater flexibility and so I have the Avid Shorty ( squeal like in Deliverance) canti's.

For the extra few hundred dollars I did not go up to Centaur. In a couple of years I may hop up to Chorus.

On a side note I think I set the black-ice speed slide distance record today. Going down a local asphalt trail and the back wheel kicked out and started to try and pass me on the right. I musta slid 60 ft - 20 ft past the bike.
Rode home but now have a weird hip/groin pain that makes walking a painful adventure.

Good luck!

mtg