I’ve had experience in both. When I first bought my Trek 5200, it came with the Ultegra on it. At the same time, my friend bought a LeMond, same setup. After about a thousand miles, both of us noticed the overall sloppy feeling, and it wasn’t long before his gave up the ghost. He decked it out with DuraAce after that. Mine gave up shortly after at around 1500 miles on it, I went with Campagnolo Record. In its defense, I’ll say right up until the second that it gave on me, I was really happy with the Ultegra. After that I just couldn’t see fit to riding more of it, and decided to give Italian quality a try. Since then, I haven’t given one iota worth of thought to Shimano, Campy pleases me just fine, here’s my review.
PERFORMANCE
1. Campy is smooth. It puts Shimano to shame. The clicks feels smooth, the action is smooth, and its quiet. Shimano doesn’t have squat on this.
2. You can shut up the front derailleur. With the Shimano, you only get 3 clicks, one for each chain ring that you have. You can’t fine-tune it at all and you get a lot of chain rubbing on the front derailleur. Not so with Campagnolo. I love being able to fine-tune it, where I want it, and it makes my ride a whole heap quieter.
3. Durability, Campy feels great, even after the mileage is tacked on. Each day I ride, the shifting feels like the day I put it on. The Shimano just doesn’t cut it here; it starts to get the used feeling real quick, and gets sloppy. I understand how you could ask how you shift the Campy in the drops, but it’s real easy, you just put your thumb up there and click it.
Appearance
Campy looks better all the way around; whoever said that Campy looks old fashioned is an idiot. Campy is far ahead of the competition. Lets start at the front, shall we?
1. The STI levers on the Campy far outdo the Shimano. The design is better; you can see this just by looking at it. Campy figured out a design to run both the brake wires and the shifting wires along the handlebars, leading to a refined, clean look. Shimano still hasn’t figured this one out, because it’s impossible with their current design. Instead they’re left with their shifting wires sticking up and out. This looks flat out ugly. The campy shifters in the upper end have carbon fibre on them, Shimano does not. What’s more, Shimano has those stupid caps on the top of their levers that continuously fall off. I lost one, my friend lost one, and we get people in the bike shop all the time looking for replacement caps, so obviously it’s a problem, poor design.
2. The front derailleur is just that, a front derailleur, the performance here is up to the shifting mechanism.
3. Moving along, I’ll cut it to the cranks. It’s really your choice here; they’re about the same. The exception is that Campy’s started to produce a carbon crank, and Shimano’s decided to make theirs wider. Also, Campy figured out that it could integrate the crank-arm into the 5-point connection, while Shimano still runs 5 points and the crank. Again, your choice, Campy looks to be a simpler, less crowded design.
4. Rear derailleur. Their both pretty damn light, Shimano hasn’t caught onto the Carbon bandwagon yet. Campy keeps adding more. I’d say that Campy still goes the distance here in performance. The shifting is ultra smooth, not so much with the Shimano. If you like that carbon look then Campy’s the stuff for you. I love it, it makes me drool.
Overall, both companies know what their doing. If you’ve got the extra money, then it’s def worth your time looking into the Campy stuff. If it comes down to appearance for you then get the Campy, it has more gawk factor. The Shimano does its job; it’s like comparing a Porsche to a Ferrari. They’re both good, and they’ll both get you where your going, hopefully.
