I have always ridden Shamino equipped bikes, until today. Yesterday I bought a used steel frame Orbea which has mostly Centaur with some Chorus and some Record. This is a 10 speed system. The frame was special ordered with specific dimensions in May 2007. Not sure when the actualy assembly was done.

I was not impressed with the Campy, but the problems I had may well have been "operator error". I did have problems with the front derailuer.

My question: Is there a big difference in the performance of the Centaur Vs Record? Would it be worth the time, money and effort to upgrade? Everything but the front derailuer worked well.

did you mix the older, pre 2008, parts with post 2009 parts?
Although I haven't really heard of any problems mixing them.

cable binding somewhere?
FD not positioned correctly?
Have you gone over and double checked the build job?

I don't know the answer to your original question, but if campy is anything like shimano, it only gets lighter. The shifting quality doesn't have a noticeable change between different levels.

There may be something wrong with the front DR. I have a Campy Chorus triple and the front DR shifts very well. I have no complaints. A double should shift even better. The biggest adjustment you should have to make with Campy is the thumb shifter.

I haven't ridden enough Shimano to know who it works but a guy in my club rides both and prefers the shifing on Campy. So something must be wrong with what you have.

What problems did you notice with the FD?

The first problem was that I tried to shift from the big ring to the small ring. The chain was "stopped" for some reason, I do not know what it was. I stopped and did not find anything. Soon after that I could not shift from the small to the ring.

I stopped to look. Could not see anything wrong. Soon it got to where I could not shift anywhere. All this started after about 15 miles on the bike. Never had anything like this with the Ultegra FD.

The cable seemed OK.

As I tried to get home I shifted from the small to the large to find it threw the chain off. This happened twice.

I had gotten "OK" at working with problems with the Ultegra. I have no idea on the Campy equipment.

FD adjustments require the same procedure on all brands.
nothing special about shimano, campy or sram.

make sure your FD is aligned correctly, at the proper height, not slipping and make sure there's proper cable tension as well as having the correct high and low limits for your chainrings.

I'm guessing your FD is too low and hitting the chainring, or something is flimsy and making the FD cage hit the chainrings if the cranks simply don't move anymore on a shift.

What AEO said.

My first ride (Oct, 2009) with new Chorus 11 components: threw the chain off the inside (couldn't make it do it again); shifting from the large to small ring it seemed to get stuck (chain rubbing on FB). I had been using Shimano Ultegra previously and wasn't used to Campy. It's like Campy has a couple of clicks in the shifter to get from large to small rings. I chalked up these two things to new user error.

Things have been working fine since then except the chain has gotten thrown off the small ring twice in the last couple of weeks. I need to check the limit screws.

What was said. Check the height and alignment of the derailleur, cable tension, and limit screws. Also, the front shifter isn't indexed like Shimano. It acts much more like a friction shifter. It takes 3 clicks or so to make a shift in either direction.

1st... thing, technically u can put any FD in there, even a shimano or a sram one and it will shift no problems, as many implied, maybe u have a problem with the setting of that FD, look for the manuals and stuff in the web, the other thing is that a FD last centuries unless is bended or something else, so most likely that FD is working fine.

Good luck and enjoy.

I ride campy record/chorus 9 and love it, I can get everything adjusted and shifting perfectly, like butta however, Im not sure about your crank (hehe) but I know the carbon chorus requires a specific lenght bottom bracket. I think 102. perhaps thats your issue. I dont ride the chorus anymore because the threads for the pedal cracked and pulled out but the record im running now is also very happy on the 102 spindle.

As someone else pointed out, Campy FDs are not a 1-click shift when going from small to large ring. Unlike Shimano, they have several clicks for trim adjustment. It takes me 2 swipes to go from small ring to large.

Perhaps the cable is binding somewhere. If you disconnect the FD, see if the cable moves smoothly through the housing. The last person could have done a sloppy job cutting cable housing, didn't route the cable correctly, didn't seat the housing properly.

A Campy shifter should never require two sweeps of the finger lever to shift to the big ring. Double FDs require either 3 or 4 clicks, depending on the model year. The finger lever can execute 5 clicks with one sweep. Triple FDs, pre-2009, require 7 clicks (of 12 available). It takes a full 5-click of the finger lever to shift from the little ring to the middle ring, followed by 1-click of the thumb button to recenter the cage.

Shifts from the big ring to the small ring on a double take the same 3-4 clicks, but all you do is mash the thumb button all the way down. To trim the cage to the left from the big ring, just push enough to make 1 click.

The 2009+ ultrashift levers only have a total of 6 clicks, but still have enough cable pull to operate a triple FD.

I've owned noting but Campy since '95 8 speed. Never had a problem with setup, shifting or dropping the chain. My 11 speed FDs have both worked perfectly, never dropping the chain with a 50/34 compact. Most user problems can be traced to setup issues. As noted, Campy is no different to setup than other brands.

i have a 2003 bike with centaur on it that shifts flawlessly. i have a 2006 bike with chorus on it that shifts flawlessly. the diff in fd shifting is noticeable between the 2 though, there's a little longer throw on the centaur bike.

whoever has to do more than 1 sweep to go from small to big of vice versa has a fd way out of adjustment or needs to work on their shifting technique.

biggest difference between shimano and campy shifting is the feel of it. campy has a noticeable "click or clunk" sound, which i like because it's positive feeling, i.e. the feedback from the shifting lets me know the shift has gone to where i want it to. shimano is more stealthy, but gives less feedback to the rider. the feel of the 2 can take some getting used to.