Originally Posted by
HillRider
Question for DaveSSS: the beauty of the pre-escapement Ergos is that they were pretty ecumenical about what crank and front derailleur you used since the micro-shifting would let you position the fd at will. I have one bike with '06 Record Ergos, a Veloce fd and a Shimano Ultegra triple crank. Front shifting is just fine and I can trim the fd to run cleanly in all of the chainrings.
The "escapement" Ergos (below Chorus) were hopeless but will the new "UltraShift" ('09) Centaur and Veloce Ergos also work with a mixed bag of cranks and fds?
It should since there are still 6 clicks for operating a triple. The choice of crank makes no difference, since all have nearly identical chainring spacing, but I would always use a Campy FD. I tried a Shimano DA triple FD once and never could get it to shift decently with my Campy shifters.
I have the new Centaur shifters and still have one triple crank, so maybe I'll set it up to try one of these days. Shifting a Campy triple FD normally requires 7 clicks from the old style shifters. To make the shift from the little ring to the middle ring, a 5-click full sweep of the left finger lever should make the shift. Then 1-2 clicks of the thumb are needed to recenter the FD cage and eliminate chain rub. Since the new shifters only have 6 clicks, that shifting sequence has to be a bit different, but there will still be trim clicks available.