campagnolo campatibility
 

Hello.

I have just started to get into road cycling, nothing to serious, just cycling to school and the occasional ride. I want to upgrade to sti/ergo levers on my bike but dont wont to fork out £80 for shimano soras because i think its way to expensive. On ebay ive noticed that you can pick up cheapish campagnolo ergo shifters but ive read that these are not compatible with shimano rear derailleurs. Is this true? In particular i want to know will a campagnolo avanti lever be compatible with a sora mech.

Thank you.

Generally speaking, you are correct, Campagnolo shifters are not designed to work with a Shimano drivetrain. If you were to attempt it, you would need an extra gadget attached to the rear derailleur cable at the rear derailleur itself in order to compensate for the differant spacing in the gears, etc.

In your case, with just a good run around bike like you have, I would also like the Campy shifters but would still be better off with the Shimano Soras, or even Shimano Tiagra shifters which are even a little cheaper I think. That is another option of you like that kind of shifting.

You have downtube shifters right now? How many speeds does it have (rear sprockets) ?
If your bike is that old, you may also consider just leaving it as is, becuase the newer 9spd shifters won't work if you have a 7spd cassette on your existing bike. I think Tiagras and Sora shifters only work with 8 or 9 spd, not sure. Correct me if I'm wrong.

If that is the case, then you would almost need to upgrade your whole drivetrain if you go to the newer STI shifters.

Its a new bike, it was orginially a flat bar comfort type racer but ive put drops on so need to chose what sort of shifters to have. The derailleur is sora with an 8 speed cassette.

Thanks

you need on of these (http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/Shiftmate.asp). they are supose to convert the indexing from on to the other.

Well, in all honesty, if you want to spend the extrra money for a shiftmate, (which will work), then you won't be saving much than if you just got the Sora shifter to begin with. Besides, if you get the Sora shifter, you know it WILL work, and won't have to worry about any serious tinkering to get it just right. Just my 0.02.