Bike Components?

Fabrice le Bourhis in Ireland is building up his own bike and was looking at the Centaur group set from Campagnolo, he wants our opinion on these components and if we know anything about Deprisa frames and Swordfish wheels?

Question:
hi again I’m building my own bike from scratch and I was wondering what you were thinking about Campagnolo Centaure groupeset like the all bike will be mostly carbon fiber (frame, stem, fork, handlebars, wheelset, pedals (look keo) saddlepostCBX, brakejaw, even the saddle will be carbon san marco lite aspide.

I was also wondering if you knew much about deprisa alto frames and swordfish wheelset thank you very much…….

Hi Fabrice,
That’s not a very Irish name?

The Group Set
OK, the Campagnolo Centaur group set is very good quality, but it does use some steel or alloy parts where alloy or titanium or carbon parts would be used on the more expensive group sets. The Centaur works just as well and could possibly be harder wearing, but it is heavier than the other sets.

The great thing is that it looks and feels the same as the Record or Super Record groups because it has the same technology and uses the same feed back from the Pro riders that has shaped all the components over the years.

If you can find the money I would try to get the Chorus (or better) as there is a weight saving and you must go for the Carbon Ultra Torque system chain set as everything else on your carbon frame is going to be carbon.

The Frame and Wheels
I’ve looked everywhere and spend hours surfing the net to try and find out about Deprisa carbon frames, but couldn’t find anything, anywhere! So maybe these are an imported carbon frame with a distributors name put on them, but I don’t know, sorry.

The Swordfish wheels do look very good made with alloy hubs and carbon deep section rims with 20 front and 24 rear spokes. These wheels are shipped from Taiwan and are on e-bay, without riding them I wouldn’t like to say if they are reliable or not, but they are a light weight bargain.

Equipment made in Taiwan is normally good quality and can be trusted; it’s nice to see the equipment before you buy and this is the problem of buying “sight unseen”. Reading the e-bay page they sound very good, but you probably already thought that yourself?

Let us know how you get on.

Photo of Swordfish from e-bay.