From the Southern Hemisphere comes Stuart Passmore's second look at Campy's newest gruppo: Daytona
First off...up until this last week, I have been doing about 390km avg per week....so say I've had the gruppo for 8 weeks...I've done about 3100km on the groups. The gruppo is holding up great. Since its been on the bike, I haven't touched a thing. I haven't cleaned the chain, cluster or anything. It's been ridden in the rain twice (its still summer over here) and I only wiped it down and reapplied oil. Its been working great...I haven't had any real problems at all. Ummmmm...what can I say. I will go thru some of the components in detail. Pedals- I have finally gotten used to the pedals....they are just different, and the Looks definitely feel more familiar. I tightened up the tension to full and now I feel heaps more secure. Its funny that I have my tension right up and everyone else reckons they are real tight pedals....that's pretty weird. I like the platform now and the cleats are holding up really well. One thing I have noticed is that after getting wet, they don't squeak like my look pedals do. Shifters - I'm a big fan of these shifters, but there are a couple of things I don't like on them. One, it took a month or so for the rubber on the hoods to lose that "shiny slippery" feel. Now the rubber has softened and they are much nicer. It might be just me, but I think these shifter housing is larger than my record ones. Two, They definitely feel larger in the hand to me. I much prefer riding on the Record shifters compared to the Daytona ones. The Daytona shifters are still stiffer than shimano or chorus/record. I think that there are no helper springs in the shifter either. The record shifter have a lighter action, both front and back. This is not significant, but it is noticeable. However, the actual shifter lever itself does feel more solid with Daytona than the record shifters......probably because its metal rather than plastic. Three, in the wet, my finger does often slip off the inner lever, causing a missed shift or no shift. The problem is worsened by the fact that the lever moves independently of the brake lever. I go to shift, but the lever moves back and my finger slips off. It happens rarely in the dry, but often in the wet. Four, the actual click of moving from one gear to the next is quiet large. This may sound a bit strange, but with the record shifters, its click and in. The Daytona shifters are more like cliiiick and in. Make sense?? Something like the "shifting window" is larger with the Daytona shifters. Brakes - These are good brakes. They are a little grabby, sort of on or off, but this might have more to do with pad material than anything else. They work very well in wet or dry. Bottom Bracket - Not much to tell on this yet...I may have to pull the cranks off to get a good feel of the bearings etc. Derailleurs - Man....not much to say on these either.....they work well and still look really good. The jockey wheels show no sign of wear yet, not in side play either. Cranks - I like these cranks. They are solid. No other real news here. Hubs - No real news here....they are still as smooth as they were before. Miscellaneous (cables etc). - So far none of these are showing signs of rust or similar. They all seem to be in pretty good nic.....a little dirty perhaps. Cheers
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