frantik

Just wanted to vent.. after spending a pretty penny on some 9sp Campagnolo Veloce shifters/brakes I discovered today that they only work with Campy brand cables and housing... which cost $50 a set. The generic housing which I have a ton of and get for less than $10 a bike from the LBS won't fit, and neither will the $30 jarwire stuff The price to avoid Shimano's ugly alien octopus brifters is pretty darn high..

okane

...we had to pay a hefty markup at the Schwinn dealer because only Schwinn tires would fit their s2 rims. We vented then too!

frantik

doing a little more research it might be possible to get away with using housing other than campy brand.. it's mostly the housing ends that are campy specific. i dunno though, might just bite the bullet and go for the campy cables

okane

It's a bit easier today to find generics. Back then, nothing but a Schwinn tire would fit a Schwinn rim, and believe me we tried to find alternatives because coaster brake skids really wore them down quickly.

miamijim

Jagwire makes Campy specific sets. You could always buzz down the ends of Shimano compatible cables....

gomango

Agreed.

No biggie.

frantik

yeah, looking into it more it's not as much of a big deal as i first thought, but still seems i gotta get at least campy ferrules which means paying like $10 for a few bits of aluminum

frantik

actually, maybe i spoke too soon or misunderstood something I read earlier, as i just tried some stock housing and had no problem putting it in the campy shifter. the shifters came with one campy ferrule and the housing doesnt fit in the ferrule but it fits in a stock ferrule

i was shopping for jagwire "Racer" housing and read it wasnt campagnolo compatible which made me confused. I think maybe the older campy stuff used more generic housings? i dunno... glad it looks like i can use stuff I have on hand, or the fancy colored jagwire stuff

rhm

I have Veloce 9 speed ergos on one bike, running a Shimano 8 speed cassette and derailleur, so a classic Shmergo setup. I most definitely did not buy campy cables, nor even campy specific, and it works fine. I think I had to do a little work on the cable ends with a file, if memory serves. Whatever it was, that I had to do, it was, not enough of a hassle for me to remember it now, two years later.

frantik

i think what i was reading related to newer campagnolo shifters or something. I should have actually checked the levers themselves though because now i can see it's not going to be an issue. now i can go back to deciding between the titanium colored jagwire cables for $30 or generic stuff i have on hand.. i think i will probably at least try out the generic stuff first though

dddd

Yeah, no problem using generic housing with Ergo levers, as long as the right size of ferrules (i.e., normal ferrules) are used with the particular housing. Easy to get flummoxed by Campag's 4.5mm shift housing though.

jet sanchEz

Are the 8-speeds also compatible? I forget...

noglider 

What's different about the Campy ends?

Tim_Iowa

Campy shift cable ends (E in the pic) smaller than Shimano ends (D).


You could probably grind down the Shimano ends to fit, but Jagwire and others sell reasonably priced Campy-compatible cables now.

RobbieTunes

REI sells Novara cables that have a Campy end and a Shimano end. You cut off the one you don't use. Very similar to the brake cables that come with a bell end and a disc end. I think they are $6/each. You can also file down the end of a generic shifter cable (like the Jagwire) to fit in the Campy whole. It's a PITA but better than spending $50/set on Campy stuff that only comes in black.

I can relate to your initial dismay, however. On a set of new 2011 Veloce shifters, I used a Jagwire Race kit, thinking it would be fine. As such, a bike swap relegated me to trying to get the cable out of the shifter, with the ends stuck in there. I ended up taking the shifter apart, cutting the cable off, removing the coiled spring, and then forcing the end out by pushing it from the cable side with a needle-noze pliers. Then, of course, I had to re-assemble a new Veloce shifter that I'd never had apart before. Let's just say, I learned a lot during that 2-hour session, and used words that, although not new, were certainly not in my normal vocabulary. Silver lining: at least now I know how to disassemble that part of a Campy shifter. On the re-coiling of that spring, it appears that I coiled it one more turn than OEM, but the levers "return" quite well, so everything is hunky.

noglider 

Thanks, Tim. So as long as you can find a ferrule that fits, then there are no concerns about the housing?

cyclotoine

I file sram ends to fit. I like sram 1.1 cable best... smoothest.

Tim_Iowa

That's correct. Use 4mm shift housing, 5mm brake housing. 5mm shift housing is common, confusing the matter.

I confess, I spent $70 on a Campy-brand full cable kit for my Giordana (8s Ergopower equipped). It came in white, fit perfectly, and has little gold "Campagnolo" script on the housing. I'll spend a bit more for aesthetics sometimes.

GrayJay

I took the other compatibility approach and drilled out the hole in my campy ergo shifter that the cable end sits down into so that a standard size cable end will fit. 20 years later, same ergo shifter is working fine.

frantik

oh maybe this is what people were talking about.. it looks like 5mm shifter housing will fit into the levers but i guess I need to get campy specific shifter cables or grind down the cable end.

frantik

so i checked all the shifter cables i have here and they all seem to fit the campy shifters just fine.. i even see a little C on them. I guess the generic stuff just uses the smaller campy size since it will fit both campy and shimano. It does make me wonder about the jagwire racer cables though.