Looking For Information on Campy
 

Hi Everyone, I got in my first serious ride (20 miles) on the Litespeed Arenberg I bought a week or so ago and I am happy and the bike is meeting all of my expectations. I have ridden Shimano for most of my riding life and am pretty familiar with them but I want to learn more about Campy. My bike has the Campy 10-speed Daytona groupset on it but I want to learn about all of the different Campy flavors for shifters and cranks like Ultra Tork and Power Tork and Power Shift and Ultra Shift and all that other stuff so I know better what I am talking about. I have looked here and online and haven't seen anything, even Sheldon Brown was lacking. Is an information guide here or elsewhere that has all of the Campy variants that someone can point me to? If there is I would appreciate knowing about it. Thanks.

Ultra torque good, power torque bad
Ultra shift good, power shift bad.
That about covers it.
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In all seriousness, the Ultra shift appears on the hgiher end groups, and allows for more gears per lever throw.
Power torque is an older bottom bracket scheme. Again, ultra torque is better, stiffer, easier to install.

Powertorque cranks actually came a couple of years after Ultra Torque was introduced

A source of catalogs/manuals/instructions for pre-2015 Campy is $20 from: https://campybike.com/

Campy's site has good info. i.e. User manuals, Catalogs, Tech specs, Tech manuals, spare parts, etc. They go back a number of years,
https://www.campagnolo.com/US/en/Sup...#documentation

Cool story, bro...

Ahem, some of us really like the newer PowerShift stuff.

Somebody must or they wouldn't offer it. I miss my 8 speed Chorus and its ability to shift 8 gears in one shot (not that I did it often). Want to buy a brand new 2018 Centaur group? Couldn't even bring myself to install it on a bike.

Was that to come up with something cheaper for the lower end systems? I don't have PT tools so I've avoided it.

Is it 10 speed Centaur? I actually might be interested. Have you even tried the levers? You could be pleasantly surprised.

Well, we certainly agree on the superiority of Ultra Torque to Power Torque.

Not necessarily.

A standard pricing model is a cheap product no one wants (Athena), an expensive one (Chorus), and a more expensive one (Record). It makes the expensive one seem more reasonable.

I'm using NOS 2010 Centaur Carbon Ultrashift levers, which are Record substituting a 10 speed index cam/ratchet and brake blades with no sexy cutouts weighing the same 337g.

Campy shifters could never shift 8 cogs at once. 3 larger or 4 smaller, with one push on the finger lever or thumb button. I've owned every version from 8-12 speed.

I know you know your stuff, but isn't that a little unfair? I thought the 11sp Athena stuff had a pretty big following because of it's shiny silver old-school good looks? And wasn't it Ultra Shift at one point, with only Centaur and Veloce being Power Shift?

Anyway, my Veloce 10sp Power shift levers (with the little circle symbol) shifting a Centaur 10 speed rear derailleur (with the little square symbol) feel really great. The button is so easy to reach and operate, even if it only shifts one gear at a time.

Not really. PowerShift levers have mechanics unlike all other Campagnolo levers since 1992 not using the much maligned Escape mechanism introduced on Xenon in 2004 then Veloce and below for 2007-2008. People had durability problems with both Escape (IIRC, they had plastic parts in the escapement mechanism) and pre-2015 PowerShift.

I don't know what they did to the internals for 2015 and beyond.

Yes.

2009-2010 Veloce and above were all UltraShift. Centaur Carbon was identical to Chorus and Record except for 10 speed index cam/front ratchet and no Record brake blade cutouts which didn't drop the weight from 337g. Super Record was identical to Record except the rear ratchets saved 7g a pair, the brake blades got a third cutout, and a carbon fiber sticker was affixed to the shift paddle. Veloce was identical but had black alloy brake levers adding 21g. Athena and Centaur alloy were identical to the others except for silver alloy front shift paddles and brake levers.

Historically, some Chorus was Record with a different group name printed on the parts or small part like the skewer nut although the 2009-2010 lack of differentiation went a bit far for business.

The first 10 speed units had weak index cam detents which were corrected as a running change. Bushings were also replaced by bearings.

I bought NOS 2010 Centaur Carbon Ultrashift levers before the supply dried up. I also grabbed a set of NOS 2010 Veloce levers for spares with a net price of about $50 after subtracting the hoods and cables which I'd use eventually.

What's the issue with installing it? Currently looking at Potenza for my wife's cross bike but the centaur looks good to me as well.

What's the superiority? I just today installed a power-torque crank, cx11, and thought it was a decent design though the whole bearing stuck on the crank bit seems a bit wonky to me. I've got an ultra-torque crank, chorus 12, sitting by the bench waiting for my frame to arrive and I've looked it over. Honestly I don't see anything that to my eye makes it more special then the power-torque and it too has the same goofy bearing situation, the Chorus crank is obviously nicer in style, bolt pattern and weight but really I see the two spindle styles as a total toss up.
Been thinking if the bearings fail rather then deal with weird things I'd turn some shims on the lathe and just install them with a King or White Industries BB. Though I do prefer how Campy deals with the whole BB30 nonsense which is what I installed the cx11 into.

Sorry. You're only partly correct. The lever is limited to 3 clicks I believe but the thumb button on Chorus will do all 7. If I need to shoot a video of me throwing all 7 clicks on one push of the thumb button, I can do it - having just gone and tried it on my 94 Chorus levers, I'm pretty confident about this. I could go try it on my 93 Chorus levers too but they'll do the same thing. For the record, the thumb button has to go all the way under the lever body and pretty much to the outside, but it'll do it.

No real issue - a little snobbery I suppose, combined with circumstance. I picked it up in 2018, when Potenza was still power torque but Centaur was UltraTorque. I bought it for a re-build of a bad weather bike which was running my spare 8 speed Chorus at the moment. Decided the bike didnt really fit me right, and ended up with a Colnago Master in Art Decor. Given that I was already using 2015+ Chorus 11s on my other bike, seemed a shame to put Centaur on it. 3 bikes with Chorus later, the Centaur group is still homeless - if it had been silver, I'd have gladly put it on my 87 Pinarello, which instead got 10s Chorus. It's really not a bad group - doesnt have the fit anf finish of Chorus, and packs some extra grams, but all the reviews say performance is very good. Ultimately, it'll probably end up on my indoor trainer bike just to get away from the Shimano that's on it.

There was a beautiful colnago master light in art deco that was a pearl white with blue airbrushing that I always wanted, could see with that bike wanting something better.

The left thumb button had 7 clicks to operate a triple FD, up to 2014. 2015 and later models have fewer and clicks will not operate a triple FD. You could push the left thumb button through all 7 clicks, but it would be strange to shift from the big ring to the little ring of a triple all at once. Shifting to the middle ring took 3 clicks. I used a triple from 2003-2008. I switched to a compact crank with 11 speed for the 2009 season. I switched to 12 speed last July.

OK - I'll take your word for it. I've never counted clicks on the left lever. The discussion, if you look at your original statement, had to do with shifting all 8 cogs (ie, right lever on an 8 speed Campy Chorus group) in one throw.

I have Campy Record 10 on my Litespeed Palmares that was built for me around '03. I love everything about all of it, even this many years later it is still a beautiful ride.

This thread seems to have gone way off course :)

The Palmares is a sweet looking frame.- is that from the Lynskys? I'm still riding a 95 Litespeed Classic, I bought new which I upgraded from 8 Speed Chorus to 11 speed Chorus in 2016.

I have no experience with other than Chorus or Record groups but I've never had an issue with either, in any variant I've used, including some mixes/matches across speeds. I do find it more difficult to set up an 11 speed front derailleur with its "indexing" compared to the older ones but once its done, it just works. And, the finish on the higher end groups is just beautiful, whether silver or black carbon. That's my biggest knock on the 11 speed Centaur group I bought - between the painted crankset and the non-skeleton brakes, it just looks cheap.

Thanks for all the interesting and useful info. Is it correct that 10sp debuted in 2000? Is that when the hood styles changed from pointed to rounded?

And yes, when you consider that they include a full set of cables with the levers, some of the prices are really quite reasonable.

There really isn't a huge difference between the two, but I think the main issue is in the ease of crank removal (for routine maintenance and such). As you know, the Ultra Torque are super easy for everything aside from actual bearing removal (which apparently isn't too difficult either, although I've never done it), and of course with a threaded bottom bracket the entire process is really a pleasure. With the Power Torque you need a tool just to get the non-drive arm off, although I believe it was somehow integrated into the arm on later models (but I don't know for sure).

I think what is also nice about Ultra Torque (and I guess could be true for Power as well) is how quickly and easily you can swap components among bikes. Once you have Ultra Torque cups on all your bikes, you can move cranks around in just a few minutes (not that you would do this so often, but still).

And if you do have something to pull the bearings with, you can find the Campagnolo ceramic bearings for sale fo under $100. Put them on any crank and they will be just as good or better than King/White/Wood stuff, and pretty much last forever.

Hmmm, strange that you admit to snobbery and then use so much Chorus. Surely you should settle for nothing less than Super Record, or just regular Record when you are slumming it?

Seriously though, if things go back to normal and you wind up in Manhattan, I'll take my Power Shift Centaur 10sp bike into work and meet you for a test ride. I'm sure you would like it (even the fit and finish looks top notch).

2001 model year, presumably some time in 2000.

That was 1998 following the 1997 model year 9-speed introduction, with the first 9-speed levers having pointy hoods.

My 1996 Chorus levers would go all the way from largest to smallest cog both with the original 8 speed index cam and the 9 speed part I upgraded to when Campagnolo discontinued my beloved 13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21 cog combination.

I used those through 2012 when I broke the tiny spring on the rear shifter front paddle ratchet pawl at which point small parts had been discontinued.

Changing the bearings is easy. Remove the snap ring, pull the bearing, push the new bearing on, replace the snap ring. Takes about 5 minutes to do both sides, 10 if you need to pull the chainset. There are special tools out there to make this easier (I have the Park version) but any bearing puller that fits would work. I've changed the bearings with 2 small screwdrivers, you just need to be a little careful where you pry. The same Park tool will pull the PT arm if you have that version.

As far as finding Campag info, Campagnolo's website is best for the current parts, Branford bike has information on older Campagnolo (although they seem to a shadow of what they once had,) and the Eric Norris's long gone CampyOnly site had hordes of information. The good news is that the Wayback Machine did archive CampyOnly, but I haven't searched it to see how much information they actually archived.