chefxian

Hi, I have a quick question. I am building a crit bike. A teammate wants to sell me a Campy 8 speed group. Will the 8 speed handle the rigors and bs of crit racing? For example the crispness of shifting or having 8 speed gearing? Thanks for the help.

kindablue

If it works, you'll be fine. Heck, someone almost won a crit in Boulder, CO on an old steel frame with down tube shifters.

Personally, I wouldn't buy 8spd, unless I'm really pressed for cash and it was offered super cheap. Whats the asking price (if you don't mind me asking)?

My advice is to buy something cheap and fairly common. 10 spd shimano/sram is pretty common in wheel pits.

Psimet2001 

No. It will always be at least 2 speeds slower.



wait....nvrmnd.

chefxian

Well it's nice to know I could get one smart azz answer. BF never let's me down. He want's 200. The wheel pit question makes sense. Didn't think about that. Thanks

mtrider05

I have Shimano 105 5600 shifters, front/rear derailleurs that work perfectly just with some scratches I may be willing unload for around that price.

zzzwillzzz

one of my teammates won a crit on his track bike with a single speed freewheel this year, so you should have 15 more than you need

chefxian

I know your teammate. He is a little stronger than me. Sorry I need at least the 8 gears but thanks for the helpful answer and say hi to James for me.

botto 

what's wrong with your current bike?

chefxian

@Botto, I just got my BMC warrantied. It took over a month and risking thrashing my BMC in a crit I am going to build a crit bike.
I just got a CAAD 5 frame for super cheap. I figured it would be easier to lay that down than the BMC. Plus the BMC is an awesome climbing
bike but doesn't feel quick as a crit bike and I have raced it in 4 races. Am I being a baby and should I just keep riding the BMC? I just know the you shouldn't race what you can't afford to replace theory. I race about 30 crits a year and 4 road races.

carpediemracing 

If you want to protect a bike, okay. Personally I'd max out my crit bike and leave the road bike alone (i.e. put the good stuff on the crit bike).

However, regardless of which bike you max out, I'd get similar/compatible equipment for your back up bike. This way you can swap wheels, derailleurs, etc between the two. Buy one set of fancy wheels, etc.

I believe in this principle enough that I upgraded my wife's bike to 10s (I'm running a slowly-becoming-obsolete Campy 10s). This gives me not only my primary and secondary bikes (with Campy 10s), it gives me my wife's bike and the tandem (for Ergo levers) as spares. I also have a 3rd bike build kit (but no frame) as a backup. I also have a slew of 10s wheelsets.

I'll give you whatever 8s usable stuff I have, it's totally useless. Hard to buy parts, nothing is compatible with it (no 9s or 10s), etc etc. Useless. Most of my stuff is worn - I used it till it was dead then got 9s. I wouldn't wish 8s on anyone. The only thing it's good for is restoring an old bike.

Hida Yanra

Yes - you could, but I don't think it would be worth it.

I have a teammate who raced 8s until a year or two ago, it didn't slow him down any... but there's no neutral wheels, parts are hard to find, etc.
Unless your teammate is offering you the whole group at $75 or less - I wouldn't find it a good deal.

As you've already seen, 10s 105 groups can be found in the $200-$300 range, and that's a much better idea.

mmmdonuts

You'll be spending more than $200 on the Campy 8-speed so don't waste your money. Decent wheels with compatible hubs and cassettes are a pain to find.

carpediemracing 

As far as Campy 8s itself, it would work fine if it was in good shape. Durability - it's good stuff, especially the first year or two of stuff. They didn't have a lot of production so you automatically got Record levers, Chorus cranks, etc.

The cheap hubs are horrible, the worst Campy stuff I've ever seen. Anything with sealed bearing or replaceable cone (screws on the rear axle) should be fine, depending on wear.

Crispness depends on component wear - shifter internals (springs), derailleur wear (pivots), cables (smoothness), chain (shifting and noise), cassette wear (shifting and noise), chainring wear (shifting and noise).

8s gearing - if you have a bunch of cogs (11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-22-23-25) you'll be good. 8s is nice in that the cassettes are all individual cogs. This means you can mix/match cogs to make a custom cassette.

chefxian

Awesome! Thank you guys all for the advice. This is exactly what I was looking for. I have Campy 10 on my road bike. I will pass on the 8 and look for a newer Campy gruppo. Thanks again for all your help.

YMCA

Man I miss those days. I loved varying my combos. Now it's like I'm told what to do by some Japanese know-it-all (Shimano, not you Aki)

carpediemracing 

ha.

I tell people "No, I don't speak Shimano" when it came to working on their stuff. I can adjust something but to figure out why an STI lever jammed up?

With Campy 10s you can buy Miche cassettes. They're not light but they're individual cogs. I've messed around with a few, initially when I borrowed my wife's 25 but didn't want the 12 she had in that cassette. I cobbled together an 11-25. I want to get an 11-21 for races.

I thought very hard about buying individual cogs, esp the "good" ones, the even ones - 18, 20, 22. I haven't done it yet - when I'm stuck in the 13 and the 14 the whole race the bigger cogs don't make sense. For training it's no biggie, the cog jumps. And with 10s you only miss out on the 18 usually, the 16 sometimes.

Treefox

Neutral support is the only problem I can imagine.

Trucker Dan

8 speed cassettes are not compatible with 9,10,11 freehubs. You must us an 8 speed only hub.

Walter

Rode Record 8 exclusively for years and it's still on my Colnago. I just ride a Litespeed that has 10s alot more often nowadays. It shifts more than fine though spare wheels could be an issue. (As pointed out several times)