Can anyone explain...
 

Why Campagnolo Veloce Ergopower brifters are cheaper than Sora's, but Veloce RD's are more expensive than Ultegra RD's? Just a little observation... I'm somewhat stumped by these pricing oddities.

It seems that all those Shimergo guys are right all along: Campagnolo shifters with Shimano RD's, wheels and cassettes are the cheapest way to get a brifter bike.

Shimano has more flexibility on pricing. Campagnolo being so much smaller, each assembly has to pay its way.

Nothing wrong at all going with the lower cost Shimergo route, especially for x bikes.

I wouldn't discount the used Campy route though.

I picked up a complete 2009 Centaur group last night for less than $250.

Maybe it was pure luck, but I had answered an ad locally two months ago and he had the groupset at a higher price so I passed.

It never sold and he called me back to sell it at my "offer" price.

It's going on a friend's Ridley x bike this afternoon. :)

They do have to pay their own way, but watch closely for the next year as Campy shuffles their lineup just a bit. Probably one group, maybe another will be discontinued. Always great deals when groups are nixed.

good advice Grady. Postponing the project to next year gives me a good time to save up for some really choice bits too.

30 years ago Campagnolo was what 3rd party companies copied, now they try to make their stuff Shimano like.


My touring bike in the mid 80's got parts from when Campag admitted defeat, and gave up the MTB sector, entirely .

The sweet spot for me is still 10 speed Chorus. Great performance, looks good and cheap.

Deals are out there on lightly used Chorus groups.

Agree chorus is Campy's best deal going as far as their whole gruppos goes. The veloce brifters are essentially disposable. They can be "re-cored" but that one part costs about as much as a whole new set with fresh cables. The chorus on up brifters can be rebulit.

Though, on the budget end there is quite a bit to be said for Veloce pulling an Ultegra RD. It really is a sweet combination for the amount of $'s involved. Ultegra RD's really aren't tangibly outperformed by anything.

The real deals right about now are some of the higher end 10 speed wheelsets, since everything is going 11 speed. Buy a 10 speed wheelset for your 8 speed cassette, then add in the ultegra RD and veloce brifters and you have a real freshening up of a nice 80's steel ride.

I figure that, since Shimano's brifters not only aren't rebuildable, but also that they expire just from sitting in the garage, that there is a relative scarcity of Shimano brifters in the marketplace versus Shimano rear derailers.

Whereas, with Campy, the Ergolevers on all of the seldom-used bikes that eventually get sold, with some of these bikes being parted out as "parts available" on the market, are still serviceable years longer than would be Shimano's brifters.

Also, in the past, with Campagnolo having used wider cassettes and thus a closer sprocket-to-spokes distance on their rear hubs, many a Campag rear derailer met it's maker after being shifted into the spokes.
This has resulted in a relative scarcity of Campag rear derailers versus Campag Ergolevers available.

Lastly, with Shimano offering MTB derailers, many of these get substituted for a bike's original Road derailer, leaving a few more Shimano road rear derailers looking for a home.

Good point on Ultegra.

Makes me wonder why one would go to DA now that 6800 is out there.

Loads of trickle down value at that price point.

threw in my hat on just such a gruppo today :) Maladvertised, so I might just score a deal there. I've done it twice before, netting a Daytona group and a real nice Centaur one with Daytona/CXP33 wheels.

I hope you get it.

The deals do pop up, so we'll cross our fingers.

I am assuming this is for your fancy new Somec frameset?

Yes, for the Somec. Definitely not a frame to build up with parts bin deore/tiagra :)

Do you have a special wheelset in mind?

Does the owner of the groupset also have an appropriate wheelset?

Never hurts to ask them.

yeah, I learned that asking people what they haven't put online yet pays off! the other day I bought an Icarus front hub, and asked if he had any more Campy MTB stuff lying around. Turned out he only posted the BB's and headsets he had, but not the brake parts, since "nobody runs canti's anymore". That got me some perfect Icarus levers too.

Wheelset is undecided yet: I do have a nice set of Zonda's I can swap in, or a more classic combo of Daytona hubs and Mavic rims. I also picked up a pair of 20/24 Novatec hubs, just because they were cheap and local. I could build those into a pair of mock Shamals with some shiny 38 mm rims.