With the completely newly developed Centaur, Campagnolo wants to offer newcomers to road cycling an inexpensive alternative to Shimano's 105 groupset. According to the price list, the complete groupset including gears, brakes and drivetrain should cost around 757 euros. However, experience shows that the actual market prices are likely to be lower.
In order to save costs, the new Centaur was closely modelled on the Potenza groupset with rim brakes presented in 2016. The technology and ergonomics of the Ergopower brake levers come one-to-one from the Potenza. The grip bodies are made of carbon-reinforced plastic, while the brake levers are made of aluminium. Inside the levers, the Power Shift mechanism familiar from the Potenza does its job. Unlike the expensive Campa Super Record, Record and Chorus groupsets, which have the more complex Ultra-Shift mechanism, Power-Shift changes gears to smaller sprockets in stages.
At first glance, the Centaur crankset looks like a clone of the Potenza drivetrain. With it, the four-arm crank spider introduced to the top groupsets in 2014 has now finally become the recognisable feature of all Campa cranks. Unlike the internally hollow Potenza cranks, however, the Centaur cranks are made of solid aluminium and are therefore somewhat heavier. Surprisingly, Campagnolo relies on the Ultra-Torque axle with Hirth gearing for the Centaur cranks, which is familiar from the top groupsets and can be split in the middle. When introducing the Potenza crankset, which has a continuous Power Torque shaft, the Italians argued that Ultra Torque was too expensive for a mid-range groupset. According to Campagnolo, however, this argument no longer applies because a way has been found to reduce the manufacturing costs for the axles. The Centaur cranks are available with 52/36 and 50/34 tooth chainrings.
The Centaur rear derailleur is only available with a medium-length cage and is compatible with sprocket sets with up to 32 teeth. For cost reasons, the rear derailleur does not have the so-called Embrace technology of the more expensive Campa rear derailleurs, which increases the number of sprocket teeth engaged by the chain. Three sprocket packages are available for the groupset: 11-29, 11-32 and 12-32 teeth. These are also of interest to owners of more expensive Campa groupsets. According to the official price list, the Centaur cassettes are around half the price of the Potenza or Chorus cassettes at around 86 euros.
The Centaur rim brakes have been completely redeveloped in a dual-pivot design with perforated brake arms. Campagnolo gives the weight of the complete groupset as 2,471 grams.
The new Centaur follows on from several predecessors of the same name. From model year 2002, the Centaur was number three in the component manufacturer's groupset ranking and a popular alternative to Shimano's Ultegra. However, the more Campagnolo expanded its groupset range in the following years, the more the Centaur slipped down the internal hierarchy and increasingly fell out of favour. It finally disappeared from the catalogue in 2015.
The new Centaur is available in black and silver. The black version is available immediately and the silver-coloured version from September.
