I'm considering a Bianchi and over here in Oz most of them come with Campagnolo groupsets. What are the changes across the range (Veloce to Super Record). Are we paying for a titanium part here and there, or are there meaningful differences? Someone told me that the shifters are identical across the line up.

Thanks.

This should sort you: www.campagnolo.com/jsp/en/index/index.jsp
Cheers!

Depends what year the components are from.

Veloce/Centaur/Athena is fine; I wouldn't feel the need to go higher unless you get a really good deal. The differences are primarily in weight and finish.

Current Campy parts are pretty much mechanically the same. The shifters are all the same except different brake lever blades, speed holes or some Ti parts.

The Cranksets are the only thing that may have a significant difference. The Rings on Chorus and up are a lot better than the other ones.

I think Chorus is the best cost v performance group campy offers in 11speed. Athena is a slightly cheaper, heavier Chorus w/o lots of the carbon. Centaur and Veloce are both 10 speed.

The big differences start with Athena that is now 11 speed. Each step drop a little weight, but other than that, you won't notice much of a performance difference. Centaur and Veloce are still 10 speed.

As for the shifters, the internal mechanism on the 10 speed models is largely the same, but the clicks from the right finger lever are much lighter, due to a difference in the detents in the index disc. It's still not clear if this has been changed for 2010, to match the firmer clicks of 11 speed.

The other difference is ball bearings on the main pivot shaft. Record and SR have the ball bearings and Chorus might, but the lower levels have a plastic bushing, despite Campy info to the contrary. I've disassembled 2009 Centaur shifters and verified the plastic bushing.

this is right up your alley Dave

you missed the part about the ball bearings in the brakes on the better sets and the better pads too

and the part about the Athena shift levers being a different carbon weave over an aluminum core

RichinPeoria....

I had no intention of writing an all-inclusive report for the OP. He needs to go to the Campy website and read-up on the details. There are some mistakes in the descriptions of the shifters.

There are a great many differences other that those you mentioned. Veloce brake levers are aluminum. Campy still lists aluminum or carbon brake levers for Centaur, but you won't find the aluminum levers available at many places (maybe none). SR has one Ti part in the shift mechanism to reduce weight and cutouts in the brake lever; both sides of the RD cage are carbon, the lower RD pulley bearing is a ceramic ball bearing rather than a ceramic bushing, the BB bearings are CULT ceramic. Go to the website for more.

'k

They all use the same pads BR-RE-700.
The holder are different colours Black (SR-Record) and silver (Chorus-Athena-Centaur).
Veloce pads /holder are the same compound but non replaceable.
https://www.campagnolo.com/repository...0-B-010909.pdf

Great, thanks guys.

So putting 10sp vs. 11sp aside, the obvious alloy vs. carbon differences, misc lightweight parts, etc, the main changes come down to:

1. Chainrings: hard anodization treatment (according to website) on Chorus+
2. Shifters: main pivot point ball bearings (instead of plastic bushings) on Record+
3. Brakes: ball bearings on Record+, "special" brake compound across the range (according to website)
4. Rear derailleur: ceramic lower pulley on SR
5. Bottom bracket: CULT ceramic on SR

I'm not particularly interested in 11sp (10sp wears faster than 9sp IMHO) and I'm quite partial to how Centuar looks. Am I missing out on anything important?!

Is that it?!

I had the Centaur 09 groupset when they were first released and found that the right hand shifter (rear derailleur) with respect to downshifts (small to big cogs) were vague and found it impossible to get the rear derailleur to shift properly (it would shift well in one direction but not the other). Finally in October 09, I decided to ditch the Centaur 09 and replace it with a parts bin Chorus 09 (shifter, derailleurs, cassette and chain). Chorus 09 was a huge improvement - rear derailleur shifting was flawless and fast. Downshifting had clear distinct clicks unlike the Centaur 09.

i don't know if the more recent releases of the Centaur 09 has improved over the earlier or first release, but if it has then you can probably disregard my comments above.

The Athena 11sp is THE group to buy imho. I think the shifters and the derailleurs are better than the 10 speed.

Also note that the new 11sp chain can be taken part and reassembled without the expensive link set that you must use on the 10 speed. The replacement pin you use are cheap and when you install them the new tool expands the ends of the pin so in CANNOT fall out. Motorcycle chains are done this way.

A couple of comments. Centaur and Veloce chainrings are a cheaper stamped product. The reports on how well they work are mixed. There may also be issues with fitting higher level or offbrand replacement rings to these cranks. Some people don't like the vague right finger clicks of the Centaur/Veloce 10 ultrashift ergo levers. That may have been changed late in '09, but I've read nothing yet to substantiate than yet. At this point, it's still rumor, with conflicting reports. Shifting issues were nearly always related to cable friction. That has not changed and is common to both 10 and 11 speed ultrashift levers. The right shift cable and housing for the RD is critical. It most be low in friction and installed properly, or the shifts to smaller cogs may hesitate.

About the 11 speed chain. You need Campy's special tool or at least the pin flaring tool sold by Park to join the chain. The replacement pins are not all that cheap ($7) and it's recommended not to use more than 3, IIRC. I've had good luck so far with the KMC master link made for the Campy 10 UN chain. Others report success with the SRAM 10 powerloc. KMC should have a better fitting master link out in the coming months.

With the Campy 10 chain, there are several master links that will fit perfectly since the width across the inner plates is the same as SRAM 10. Buying one of those Campy joining sections is not required. The joining sections were never cost effective since they cost about half as much as a new chain. I never used one since I first started riding Campy 10 in 2000.

While the 11 speed chain is not likely to last quite as long as the 10 speed model, I would not expect the difference to exceed 10% from what I've seen so far. I'm seeing the same type of wear pattern I get with Campy 10 chains - little elongation (measured properly with a precison rule) and similar roller wear as measured with calipers. The 11 speed chain will still last longer than most other brands of 10 speed chains that elongate much faster - killing the chain before the rollers get too worn.

I've have the '07 UT Centaur with 3 years of use, 20 000 km and it still looks and works great. Wore out the G spring early last year on the shifters after 13000 KM and replaced with it with '09 shifters.

1. The chain rings have over 20 000 KM on them and show little wear. No difference in shifting compared to the SR I've used.

2. The '09 shifter now with 6000km on them, still shifts fine. However I am using a '06 rear deraileur. I have seen other '09 complete group sets and they also shifted fine not showing the shifting problems. The shifting is softer then SR.

3. No difference in stopping power compared to SR.

4. and 5. I'm not that sensitive.

Thank you everyone. It appears that Veloce/Centuar have "cheapened" in recent years and that 11sp doesn't wear too badly. I'm going to give this some thought but will probably settle on either Athena or Chorus.

Cheers!

I've had the same shifting problems that bo00on described. Every few weeks I fiddle with it a bit, to no avail. At this point I think there must be something odd about my frame geometry, or something. I am shocked that I don't hear more about Campy shifting problems. It makes me think that I am missing something. The count of replacement parts so far (Centaur, all new):

1 pair of shifters (crashed and broke the left so took the opportunity to replace)
1 derailleur (med cage. This seems to have helped, which is ironic considering that a longer cage length is supposed to make shifting less sharp. I've since taken the med cage body and put my short cage on it under the hypothesis that the spring in the short cage Centaur derailleur was weak.)
at least 3 cable and housing replacements
1 derailleur hanger
1 barrel adjuster
3 chains
2 cassettes

Today I've toyed with different housing lengths: cut a longer than standard housing for the rear loop, and shortened the front housing slightly because I had experimented with it being slightly longer than needed the last time I tried to put an end to these problems. I may have made things a bit better, but I can tell that the problems have not gone away. I mean, dialing in shifting is not rocket science. There should be a large margin for error.

The great part is that I had 2006 Campy Chorus shifters with the same parts before and my shifting was flawless. I switched for ergonomic reasons, but at this point I am considering switching back. I hate hate hate the vague shift feel on Centaur and below anyway. Maybe if you like friction shifting it would work for you.

Based on my experience I would say that if you go Campy then buy something better than Centaur for the shifting components. Also, have someone else do it so you can blame them when it doesn't work. I'm about to plunk down ~$200 on a Chorus derailleur of some vintage and see if that works (I think that 10 and 11 speed should work identically). It is too bad, because I really like the ergonomics of Campagnolo shifters

Ive got a 2007 Centaur gruppo on my Cinelli and I have not had to screw around with it much at all it since I built the bike up a couple years ago.

It is when I got to using the 2009 shifters that **** hit the fan. Things were peachy with 2008 Centaur bits all around and Chorus shifters. I suspect the new and improved (not sure how a thinner housing is supposed to improve things) cables combined with sloppier shifter actuation, compared to ten speed Chorus, are mostly to blame.

I had some shifting problems with the new 11 Speed Chorus that had me chasing it for a few weeks. It was not cable friction but rather my rear derailure hanger was slightly bent. I straightened that and it now works fine. Dave helped me on that one.

don't waste your money on the Chorus 10 speed rear derailleur. Been there, done that. Slight improvement but still unable to dial in properly. One thing that I did differently with the Chorus 11-speed was to have both brake and derailleur cable housing routed through the front of the handlebar. With the Centaur, I had the brake in front, derailleur at the back. Some say that there's less cable friction in relation to the derailleur housing through the front while others say no difference. YMMV.

10 and 11 speed RDs do have a slightly different actuation ratio, so they are not totally interchangeable. The 11 speed model will move further for a given amount of cable pull. The difference is not great, but the 11 speed RD will work better on a 10 speed drivetrain than the opposite mismatch because it slightly over shifts, while the 10 speed RD undershifts, if used on an 11 speed drivetrain. I've posted before how to modify the 10 speed cable clamp bolt so it will work with 11 speed.

Here's the cheapest 11 speed RD. https://www.ribblecycles.co.uk/sp/roa...RR922000000000

I've routed all of my shift cables around the back of the bars, but I quickly roll the housing under the bar, so it exits near the center, right behind the brake cable housing. The bars I use have too sharp a bend for the front routing.

The new repair kit, EC-CE110 may solve the vague right finger click, but I've still not been able to verify that.

I didn't care for the vague right finger click either, so I converted my last 10 speed bike to 11 speed. I got the parts to convert the Centaur shifter from a wreck damaged Record shifter, added the cassette and chain. I used Shimano cable housing with a new Campy cable.

Any good on-line source?

I'd try aebike.com. I just read a post on another site that says that the EC-CE110 kit is part number LD9948 from QBP. That particular part is not listed at aebike.com, at the moment.

With a little more searching, I found it listed, but out of stock. If that picture is accurate, the detents in the indexing disc sure look different to me.

https://www.ebikestop.com/campagnolo_...ssy-LD9948.php