Is there much to choose between these two groupsets? Any difference in durability or feel? There appears to be a small difference in weight, but apart from this is there any reason to pick Centaur over Veloce?
I’ve got mostly Veloce on my tribike (and about 50% Veloce on my road bike). Works great for me and I haven’t had any trouble with it.
That said, if I could have afforded the Centaur group when I had my bike built, I probably would have gotten that.
Veloce is nice, but i’m for Centaur. you’ll ride your bike a long time and it’s worth the extra money. consider the miles ridden, it’s worth the long term investment to have something lighter and nicer.
i recently went from Centaur to Record–the Centaur will go on my back up roadie. i like Centaur very much–it shifted well, and was 100% dependable. i vauge for it.
Not really, centaur has been described as an in between groupset - not clearly better than veloce and not significantly below Chorus. The new veloce will be a fantastic groupset and I shall probably use that for training instead of centaur on future bikes (no point paying the extra for carbon). Spend the difference on nicer wheels and a really good saddle - far more gain to be found there than in the components.
probikekit.com is selling out the old campag now btw
I have used some of the Veloce parts in the past (brakes and derailleurs). They were OK, but not as nice as the Centaur groupset.
For several years, most Centaur and Veloce parts have been fairly similar. A fewdifferences may be worthy of note:
Hubs - Centaur hubs are cheaper versions of Record with larger diameter hubs and lower weight than Veloce. Veloce are based on the pre-1999 Campy standard and are quite a bit heavier. I’ve also found the bearings don’t last as long.
Chainrings - Centaur are higher quality and longer lasting.
Bottom brackets - Centaur are lighter and have better bearings.
Other differences between the groups are pretty much cosmetic. I have everything from Record to Veloce (with several Chorus groups) and find they all work well and are fully compatible with one another if I want to switch most parts (except bottom brackets and cranks where Record/Chorus are compatible with one another and Centaur/Veloce are compatible with each other).
From what I’ve seen, bigger differences are in store for 2007 with Centaur getting some carbon parts and Centaur and lower getting new shifting.