Originally Posted by
seagrade
Long after Shimano renamed 600 as Ultegra and settled on the naming consistency of that and 105 Campagnolo maintained a scatter gun approach with Veloce, Centaur, Stratos, Mirage, Xenon and Daytona all fighting for oxygen at the entry level, to the consternation of distributors and dealers alike.
Potenza was more mid-range, launched above Athena and intended to target Ultegra.
I love the Centaur/Daytona stuff from the early 2000’s. It didn’t have the cutting edge Record bits, like carbon levers. On the other hand, it didn’t have carbon levers. I don’t notice any difference in performance between Daytona/Centaur and Chorus from the same era.
I know you’re right that Campagnolo meant to target Ultegra with Potenza, but that relies heavily on the belief in Campagnolo being inherently better than Shimano. Potenza use Powershift, which works well enough, but I still much prefer my older Daytona with its proper Ultrashift levers.
I also love Campagnolo’s “Racing T” stuff, but it’s a shame what they did to it towards the end of its run. The “Comp Triple” stuff from the late aughts through, I think, 2010 was still very good, but this Race Triple stuff is a blemish on the product line.