Jed19

I am in the market for a nice carbon fiber road bike. I am considering a Triple, but I was told by a bike shop mechanic that I should not buy a Shimano-equipped road Triple, as there will be constant issues with adjustments and serviceability. He has suggested that I buy a carbon frame or buy the carbon bike, strip and sell the components, and then send it to an outfit in Coos Bay, OR for it to be equipped with Campy Triples. He said the Campy Triples have no issues with constant adjustments, and moreover the Campy shifters are eminently serviceable.

I respect his opinions, but I am not sure he is giving me correct advise.

Is he right that the Campy Triples have no adjustment and serviceability issues?

Thanks.

Regards,

pigmode

I have the same question. My sister has an Allez Comp Triple with the Gossamer crankset. When she had problems shifting the front, the mechanic advised her to replace the Shimano chain with either a KMC or an SRAM. Not sure of the outcome yet...

cuda2k

I know that Campy has more ability to deal with front shifting situations which arrise more with triples than the Shimano design. To say that you shouldn't buy a Shimano triple, or that Campy has no problems with triples is a gross over statement. Everyone is allowed their own opinions, but any time someone tells me that I shouldn't buy one thing over because the one they are pushing is so vastly superior than the other throws up a red flag for me to do some more research for a balanced informed decision. I don't have any experience personally so I won't say I'm the right guy to ask on either front. You may want to send jsharr a PM and ask him his opinions about his Shimano Tiagra triple he's riding now (a Trek 1200). Also do some reading on how Campy's front shifter works and how Shimano's works. Under stand the differences from the source.

roadfix

I can understand being able to trim with Campy as opposed to very little trimming with Shimano as far as front shifting is concerned. Perhaps that's what your mechanic was referring to...?

caligurl

hmmmmm ok.... time to find a new bike shop!

i just bought a carbon fiber bike (ok... it was about 6 months ago....) it came with a dura-ace (so shimano) double..... i wanted a triple.... so my bike shop put a dura-ace triple on it for me..... it's been in the shop ONCE for it's initial tune up.... i've got 3500 miles on the bike so far.... i don't have any issues with it! if it's set up correctly... it doesn't need constant adjustment...

get a good bike shop (with a good mechanic).... and you should be fine!

oh... and shimano triples DO have the trim... you have a couple of clicks in each of the big and middle ring to get it just right! i love my triple!!!!

DocRay

Consider a compact crank and a larger rear sprocket-then get whatever shimagnolo you want.

DocRay

Consider a compact crank and a larger rear cassette-then get whatever shimagnolo you want.

KevinF

Shimano shifters do have a trimming function, but it's not as good as the front trim on a Campy shifter.

I rode a Shimano triple for a long, long time. I don't think that there's anything fundamentally wrong with them. I never had a problem with the "front" brifter; I had the rear one die on me once, but the rear does get shifted far more often then the front, so I'm not surprised it died first.

My current bike uses a Campy compact; I don't have any experience with the Campy triple. Campy's brifters are the same between doubles and triples. There's a lot of trimming in a Campy shifter; that's the only thing I can imagine the OP's mechanic is talking about.

steve_wmn

I have a Shimano triple and I haven't needed constant adjustments. Shifting the front has always been fine, but trimming it out to eliminate chain rub can be a bit finicky. My front shifter only seems to access all the trim positions when trimming to the right (ie, toward the big rings). So sometimes I'll have to coast a bit and put the front derailler into a downshift position and then immediately trim a few steps up to get rid of a rub.

markwebb

I would predict that more bikes have Shimano triples than Campy juet because they are somewhat less expensive. I myself have Shimano Ultegra triple and find it very satisfactory. No need to adjust any more than my previous experiences with Campy. The trim is better on Campy front derailleur. And the brifters are re-buildable and more servicable on Campy, but I have never had to rebuild my Shimano so that has not been an issue for me. If I had not already procured the Shimano stuff via other bikes that I was able to strip and use, when I built my newest bike I would have gone with Campy, but I had most of the Shimano already so I did not need to make the investment. The $$$ diff between Campy Chorus and Shimano Ultegra is not that large considering it's an investment meant to last many many years. But if you already have the Shimano or bike already has it don't worry it works great !!

platypus

wtf is this "you have to send it away to get it campy'd" nonsense? It's not especially difficult for anyone (especially a competent LBS mechanic) to strip off the ShimaNO bits and put on the Campy group. There's nothing magical about it. I prefer Campy, but to say that Shimano triples need adjustment all the time is just silly. Run away from that shop and don't go back!

zacster

I was able to put together my Campy bike without any problem at all. Once I lined everything up it worked perfectly and I haven't touched it since. I'd never put a bike together before so it certainly should be doable by any bike shop on the planet.

I ride Campy, but I don't hear any loud complaints about Shimano either. They are both very competent groups and it is just a matter of preference.

roadfix

Me too.....on several builds. And I'm not even Italian.

dstrong 

I finally found my middle-ring trim (coming big-to-small) a couple of rides ago (after more than 1000 miles). This was after I had completely re-assembled my bike and was tuning it back in.

When you're on the middle-ring and are trimmed towards the big ring, it takes a very gentle nudge to trim the FD back towards the small ring without dropping it to the small ring. I'm still working on the technique. It seems like it kind of "sticks" and I actually find if I give a little pressure on the front brifter like I was upshifting and then immediately nudge the release to trim that it behaves. I'm also experimenting with applying a small amount of forward pressure on the release to see if that matters.

I checked the manual for the brifters and it really doesn't give much info to the trim function. See the box at the bottom of page 3.https://bike.shimano.com/media/cyclin...9830557291.pdf

backinthesaddle

I guess I have to agree. When I bought my latest bike it came with Shimano 105 Triple. After 2 weeks of riding and never being able to adjust the front derailleur properly + a constant click on the front chainwheel, LBS stripped off the 105 Gruppo and replaced it with Campy Centaur.

The Centaur's been great as far as trimming the front derailleur. But overall adjustment is a little touchy. On 4 occasions I've dropped the chain on the inside, and fell 3 of those times. Now it seems properly dialed in and shifts like a dream.

1 vote for Campy.

krazyderek

my ultegra triple works fine for me, it's not the most stellar shifting in the world but it does the job.

operator

Yep.

Jed19

Thanks for the response. I should mention that the mechanic was not trying to sell me a bike. He was actually giving advise as to what he thinks I should do, and not necessarily at his store.

He was actually very forthright with me, as he told me, he would not consider any Shimano components, if his life depended on it.

He just likes Campagnolo, its engineering philosophy and all that the brand stands for, especially the serviceability of their brifters.

Regards,

jwbnyc

I'd agree with this too.

I've found exactly Two wrenches so far that do an outstanding job of adjusting the Ultegra 10 speed on my bike. The other guys that have worked on my bike have managed to screw it up every time. When it's right it's like butter and it stays that way until the bike goes in for a tune up with the wrong guy.

I rode a campy double adjusted by one of these guys and it was screwed up too.

Wrenches are not created equal.

It only costs about 5 Bucks to check out how well a shop's wrench does with a derailleur tune up.

It's worth looking around for a guy who knows his stuff.

Jakey

Ultegra isn't supposed to just 'do the job' Thats what tiagra is for. ultegra should be stellar.

WheresWaldo

steve_wmn, I have found this to be true when you are going from the big ring to the middle chainring of the triple, but not down from the middle to the small chainring. It seems that it always misses the trim click down between the middle and the large chainring. You get used to it and make that little two finger move with the Shimano Brifter without even knowing it after a while. Although it is annoying at first.

Also depending on how long your chainstays are you should rarely need to adjust trim except at the extreme positions. When I am in the big chainring, I do not need a trim adjustment through the top eight gears, only when I am in the ninth cog or cross-chained do I need trim. In the middle ring I do not need trim in the lowest seven gears and I rarely use the granny 30T and then only with the 5 lowest cogs so no trim needed there. If silent running ( a great movie BTW) is what you want there is more to look at than just the drivetrain, you need to make sure your rear triangle geometry is not part of the problem. I think some run into problems when that try to put a triple on a bike with a really short rear end. This will exagerate the lateral offset of the chain in any gear not exactly on the chainline thus needing more trim. In those cases a compact might be more appropriate.

steve_wmn

So, you send a bike that shifts like butter into the shop for a tune-up? That's your problem right there. They'll feel obligated to do something to your bike and can only make it worse if it's good when it gets there.

Al1943

I don't have any trouble shifting either Campy or Shimano. The nice thing about the Shimano 10-speed triple is that it comes with a 39 middle ring instead of the previous 42. If I were to choose a Campy triple it would be the 50-40-30 crankset. I don't know why you'd need to send your bike to Oregon to set it up with Campy, I'd just slap it on there.

Al

jwbnyc

The guy I was taking the bike to for work moved away and opened his own shop. If I brought the bike in for him to look at and it didn't need anything, he'd tell me as much and it would be true. It doesn't hurt to have the bike looked over from time to time.

The guy who replaced him just does not seem to grok 10 Speed. If I brought the bike in for a look see, he'll say it doesn't need anything and it will not be true and very apparently so. This doesn't just apply to the drivetrain.

I found a guy last Week after casting about, with unsatisfactory results to varying degrees, for a new wrench who knows his stuff.

The bike is back to shifting like butter.

f.gump

Shimano front shifting is indexed, Campagnolo is not, that requires a little more time when you setup a shimano bike, because campy will work regardless of the adjustment as it's a multi-click shifting system.
However Campy is loosing that characteristic in all 2007 brifters except Record and Chorus, and becoming like shimano: indexed.
Poor move if you ask me.
It is true that with current campy you almost don't need to ever readjust front shifting because even if you wear out the lower plate or have a slight cable slip, you just click one more click and don't even notice.
But since rear shifting is indexed exactly like shimano, you need periodical fine tuning anyway.