105 or Veloce?

[Herman Toothrot]

Which group set and why?

My thoughts are :-
Traditionally over my 30 years of cycling I've had Shimano for MTB & Campag for Road, stay that way as alway been happy.
Ergo I think I prefer to Shimanos road system.
Shimano looks better value
Shimano looks better materials / quality.

I'm looking at carbon Ribbles so it really is only groupset choice no other factors.

[scherzkeks]

Herman Toothrot said:

Which group set and why?

My thoughts are :-
Traditionally over my 30 years of cycling I've had Shimano for MTB & Campag for Road, stay that way as alway been happy.
Ergo I think I prefer to Shimanos road system.
Shimano looks better value
Shimano looks better materials / quality.

I'm looking at carbon Ribbles so it really is only groupset choice no other factors.

Shimano is decent/functional but soft in my experience. Campagnolo is rebuildable, tends to use higher grade materials, and (in my opinion) is nicer to look at.

[Herman Toothrot]

Interesting, I guess I'm used to seeing low end Campag on my current road bike (Xenon mechs) which do look cheap, but the brakes and shifters seem good which are Veloce. My MTB's are all XT and that seems better but then I guess that's more comparable to Centaur.

[gazza285]

Price up the things that will wear out, like chains and cassettes, Campag cassettes are not cheap.

[WarrenG]

I bought a second-hand road bike running all kinds of mis-matched campag gear, but it still seemed like good kit, so I started collecting NOS veloce stuff from the 2008-2010 time, being that it was all Ultra-shift and Ultra-torque. (Power-torque requires a puller to remove the NDS crank, but Ultra-torque separates in the centre via Hirth joint. Ultra shift has multiple clicks in one lever motion to release gears, Powershift is a single click per press)
I really like this kit and will now stay Campy for my road bike(s). For costs, i can't say that it's worse than shimano, provided you shop around. £20 chains in 10 speed is normal for all three big names and the cassettes vary enormously depending on where you buy. never pay RRP and look of discounts on wiggle, ribble or chain reaction for instance.

The main issue though, is; do you want to walk into the LBS and buy spares? if you do - most only stock Shimano, and have to order campy or even SRAM. Then, if they do happen to have it in stock, it will always be more expensive than their Shimano gear for sure.

but I still won't buy Shimano for a good bike. That's for my MTB spares and the commuter (which will only be until I replace with a winter hack).

Edited by WarrenG on Monday 8th September 21:32