A few years ago I was given the opportunity to ride a
Campagnolo equipped bicycle owned by my boss at
the shop I was working at. I had always been drawn to Campy equipment due to, in my opinion, it's superior aesthetics at the time. I took a quick spin on that bike and was instantly sold on the crisp shifting and superior ergonomics of the shifters and consequently vowed that my next bike would be Campagnolo equipped. When the e-mail arrived last fall that a
SystemSix with
Campagnolo Record was available from the Smackdown (truly a magnificent person), I had to have it. So the arsenal of bicycles in my basement was shifted around a bit, some room was made, and my first Campy bike arrived...it was actually hand delivered, way too cool. It's been a beautiful partnership ever since. I love it so much that when I bagan to build up a cyclocross bike last winter it too was equipped with Campagnolo although, I did opt for
Centaur and
Veloce parts since it would be seeing lots of rough off-road riding and parts will be less expensive come repair time.
Wheels were another story though. The SystemSix that I am riding came equipped with Fulcrum Racing 1s, which I really like, and I use a set of Chorus hubs laced to Mavic Open Pro wheels as training wheels, which I also really like. Well you see, Blue has two sets of
Campagnolo Scirocco wheels that he uses on his Colnago C50, also Campagnolo Record, and really talks them up so I decided to snag a set and give them a try. The set that he uses everyday is the 2008 model in silver with the G3 lacing on the rear wheel and a radial laced front wheel. His second set is, I believe, a 2006 model with G3 lacing front and rear. Since the 2008 version was mounted on his C50, I took borrowed the 2006 model and mounted them on the SystemSix for the group ride last night. First impressions are that I was very impressed with this wheelset. Very stiff lateraly for great stability in the corners as well as during sprints and they roll up under power quite nicely for great acceleration. The G3 lacing provides these characteristics and for the back wheel I was quite pleased with it. The front wheel however, seemed I touch on the rough side while cruising down some of the not-so-perfect roads. It wasn't bad but it was noticable. I would not avoid these wheels based on just that although I do suspect that Campagnolo switched to a radial laced front to smooth that out a little better.
I would definitely NOT be opposed to keeping these wheels getting a set of these wheels for myself, they are very nice. Wonder if they would work for cross......might have to give that a try next. I'll try to get a picture up a little later too. Not only do these wheels do a great job during the ride but, they look sweet doing it as well.
Read the complete post at http://carlosdajackal.blogspot.com/2008/08/g3.html