Last fall I decided to build up a new fast bike this year and started collecting components. Before I had a chance to buy the frame I was given a used Colnago C40, which shifted the focus from ‘get a new bike’ to ‘get this Colnago working for the purpose’. One aspect of the Colnago that did not work well for me, since I climb a lot of hills and am not a youngster, was the standard double crank with 53/39 rings. Gears were just a bit big for my style of climbing, though I have climbed almost every hill around here on that bike now.
Yesterday I dug into the box of components I had picked up for the theoretical new bike and put the compact double onto the Colnago. It was not a straight swap; the compact crank has outboard bearings so the bottom bracket needed to go and outboard bearing cups installed. The regular front derailleur was replaced with a CT design, and the short cage rear derailleur was swapped for a medium cage unit to handle the extra chain wrap.
It all looks nice, but … shifting is a bugger, or more correctly shifting the rear is a bugger. But that has nothing to do with the new crank. The Colnago came with Chorus (carbon) shifters of unknown vintage and probably heavy use. The right shifter has progressively gotten a bit, hmm, mushy should we say. It shifts, but it is getting difficult to feel the detents and it has become the brifter version of friction shifting; move the lever and see what happens. I have been thinking of doing a rebuild; just went parts shopping. Parts to repair that shifter will be about $107! Ochsner has right hand Chorus carbon 10sp shifters for $141; will it be worth $34 to just get a whole new shifter? Then what happens when the left shifter goes? Maybe I will just go back to the components bin and use the 2006 Centaur 10sp shifters I picked up last fall (2006, before Campagnolo cheapened and lessened the functionality of Centaur).
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Pingback from RocBike.com » Links Of The Day: 22 July 2007 on July 22, 2007 at 5:16 pm
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Building bikes up is always an adventure, eh? It is like remodeling. It will be twice as expensive as you expect.
The Retro Rocket has downtube friction shifters. I have to say I like the pureness of them. I use SRAM Force on my other bike. It works fine, but there is somethign about being able to reach down and throw it 4 cogs at a time that is pretty cool.
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Chris – I used friction downtube shifters, exclusively, into the late ’90s; it was all that was available when I grew up. My commute bike has downtube shifters that I run in friction mode half the time, indexed the other half. And the touring bike has DT shifters which I run in indexed mode most of the time. I like DT shifters, and friciton is nice. But not on a racing bike right now, esp. when the friction-like shifting of that Ergo lever is not quite right.
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I’ve rebuilt two Campy Record rear shifters. They seem to last only 6,000 to 8,000 miles for me. But the good news is that they’ll function as a friction shifter when the indexing fails. And the repair should only cost you a $9 spring. Seriously, find a good shop that can repair it (sub-$20 including labor, I almost guarantee it). Cyclepath in San Mateo would be a good shop for you.
Campy rules!!! Fix it, don’t replace it.
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Lorri – wished it was as simple as just the G springs (there are 2 of them in the shifter). I did get into the guts of the shifter last night, and the index gear is shot and the G spring carrier may be gone, too. The 10sp index gear is $45, and the carrier is $21 (with bushing) for the carbon shifters vs. $12 for the alloy. The worn out index gear is the reason it is just sort of friction at the moment; the shifter moves to the correct position, then because the gear is too worn it just slowly creeps back since the teeth are too worn. And I forgot to mention that the hoods are gone; that is another $34 there.
Guess I cannot complain too loudly since it was a free bike, which is quickly becoming a free frame as I replace components (but the Chorus double crank will go onto Ms. Chatterbox TT bike). The Colnago was obviously ridden hard, with minimal maintenance. The BB shell had a nice coat of mud around the cartridge BB, for example.
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