Ok, so after a rocky start, I'm back looking at Campy ergo parts to retro-mod my mid 80's Raleigh RacingUSA frame and upgrade from Shimano 600 to Campy Chorus Ergopower. Even after reading what I can, I'm finding that I still don't know as much about Campy parts as I'd like...


I have gathered that the Campy 8sp freehubs are a bit of an orphan so I'm going to leave that alone and look at 9 or 10 speed systems. It seems there's early 9 speed (with the pointy hoods), gen2 Ergopower 9 speed with the rounded hoods and 10 speed with the same hoods but another gear. I'm not really concerned with the number of gears, it's mainly the Ergopower setup I want and to get my first Campy bike rolling.


Are there any concerns with the early 9 speed shifters/parts (pointy hoods / pre-'97)? It looks like they use a different G-spring? Is it still available for spares? Is there anything else that wears out/breaks and would leave me shiftless? Is the shifting on these any better/worse than later systems?


The Gen2 ergo levers seem to be pretty serviceable at least for the moment, and while they might not have the dramatic lines of the pointy hooded ones, the examples I've held do seem to fit my hands. I've found that somewhere in the late '00's Campy changed their cable pull ratio and I've gotta match shifter/derailleur but that seems like something that one can tell the parts at least. Any trouble spots here aside from the G-springs?


Campy 10 speed I'm a bit of a novice on. Somewhere they got rid of the G-springs, so that's tempting but maybe harder to tell if I'm buying parts online? I'd like to stick with the gen2 levers since I don't care for the looks of the latest levers on a lugged frame. Anyways, what's to know on the 10 speed stuff?