I've had Mirage in the past and it worked fine.

Mirage is Campy's basic, serviceable group. Not light but reliable. I would rate it much higher than Tiagra in terms of either durability or the ability to upgrade or repair small parts, although they may be similar on the scale. Mirage is one below Veloce, which is about equal to 105 but probably more durable.

mirage = 105

$2/chuck,

I often wonder how this equivalency is arrived at?

First off, all Campy is rebuildable/repairable while Shimano is throw away and replace.

There is no Shimano equal to Campy Record! Maybe, just maybe, Dura Ace is somewhat equivalent to Campy Chorus. Maybe, just maybe that makes Ultegra equivalent to Campy Centaur? On what basis? Price? Weight? If its on performance, this is a poor comparison. Personally, Centaur outperforms Ultegra.

Between Centaur and Mirage are the Daytona group and the Veloce group. Campy Mirage is much more durable and shifts far better (precisely) than 105. I think I can make a judgement of this type having ridden Mirage for my first five years on a Bianchi.

The other thing most non Campy people believe is that either by the number of groups down from the top of the line or by price or by weight one can claim a Shimano group is equal to a Campy group.

But something happens with Campy that doesn't happen with Shimano. Its called trickle down. Campy's top two gruppos use ball bearings and not bushings. Each year, last year's Record group pretty much becomes this year's Chorus group.

The rest of the Campy line uses metal bushings for bearings. Last year's Centaur group becomes this year's Daytona Group. Last year's Daytona group becomes this year's Veloce group and last year's Veloce group becomes this year's Mirage group. This trickle down of technology and performance does not happen as predictably with Shimano.

Shimano does have two things that Campy doesn't have! Tiarga and Sora. Now granted Campy can't touch these two groups price wise, these two groups cannnot begin to perform or demonstrate the durability of Campy's entry level group, Mirage.

Hope that helps. And to qualify my bias, I am a Campy lifer, but I did start out as a Shimano disciple.

---

Ben Cline


Better to aspire to Greatness and fail, than to not challenge one's self at all, and succeed.

I shall defer to your wisdom. I probably should've wrote 'mirage >= 105'. I didn't want the OP to think the low end campy was equivalent to the low end shimano. I have new ultegra & 8-speed veloce/mirage, I haven't noticed a difference in performance, and the campy stuff has proven to be remarkably durable.

I got 10 years out of an 8 speed mirage group. Would still be riding it, but I wanted 10 speed so all my bikes matched. Good stuff.