The Campagnolo Thread

I have used a non 12 sp chainset with 12sp bits. Don’t bother. It’ll start off fine. It’ll shift nicely, but as your chain and cassette wears, it’ll get sloppier and sloppier and sloppier.

This has nothing to do with chain or chainring width, but rather that Campagnolo moved the chain line ever so slightly outboard when 11sp HO came along. The 12sp cranks will play nicely with this chain line. The 11sp will not.

Thanks, what I’m suggesting is actually the other way around, I’m offering my spare 12 speed chainset for someone else to use as part of an 11 or 12 speed groupset. From what I have read, a 12 speed chainset works fine with an 11 speed chain and derailleurs. I have another 12 speed chainset to use with the rest of my Chorus group.

Actually I was following your CP thread to help decide how to set up the 12 speed group - it’s for my dad’s all-road / gravel bike. He needs 165mm cranks according to his bike fit and I was trying to work out whether to try a Praxis or Rotor chainset, but decided against that partly thanks to your experience. In the end I got another Campy 12 speed chainset with 165mm cranks, I couldn’t find anywhere to buy a complete groupset with that spec, so now I have 2 Chorus chainsets which is extremely annoying!

Ah okay! Gotcha. Yeah, a 12sp chainset will be fine on an otherwise 11sp group, but for some reason 12sp really doesn’t like an 11sp chainset’s chain line.

Campagnolo 🤷🏻‍♂️

What do the emoji mean?

Well, when I posted it on my phone it was a white guy with black hair shrugging.

How are you finding Ekar?

Was it just to noise up @amey

Lol no, I've been using campagnolo since 2010 or so. That's just a bonus.
It works really well. The braking is better than my friends with sram. The new thumblever is a great design. I fucked up the install and didn't tighten the rear hose enough at the caliper, and the hose popped out while doing a showoff skid. So I had to bleed it and it was easy and works great.
I wish you could fit smaller than a 38 on the crank, apart from that it's a really good groupset 👍

Does anyone have experience of running large cassettes on short cage Campagnolo rear derailleurs. I have two bikes running Chorus 11 speed and Super Record 11 speed. Both builds have 39/53 chainsets and short cage derailleurs. The max capacity of the short cage derailleurs is stated as 29T but I would like to run 12-32 cassettes rather than 11-29 and have read mixed things online about how achievable this is. Some say it's fine and others say it isn't.

hows that down shifter though?

Good.

From which year are the groupsets?

The SR has the red logo on the rear mech and the ergo levers so post 2015 I think. Front derailleurs is older but I guess that doesn’t matter

You can check either the rear mech / chainset i.e. it should show a small white sticker with a code. On the rear mech this should start with RDxx-SRxxxx. The two digits that come after RD indicate the modelyear.

The same goes for the chainset. This code should start with FCxx-SRxxx. Or "CH" in case of Chorus.

The 29T is indicated for a reason. If you run a less than ideal chainline / length, shift under load etc etc it's likely for the rear mech to snap and come off due to your simply exceeding its outerlimits.

Reason I'm curious to understand the modelyear, is that it might be safer considering changing to a 52-36 up front i.e. instead of exceeding the outer limits of the mech. From the moment Campag moved to the 4 arm crank design, the BCD became similar for all chainring combinations.
Meaning you can easily swap between fixed combinations of chainrings.

Anything based on the 5-arm design had a dedicated BCD for 53-39 / 52-39 and a different one for the 50-34 and 52-36.

If your groupset is from 2015 onwards, you could look for the medium cage rear mech although in this day and age they might be hard to come by.

It used to be available in Chorus / Record and Super Record when they were still in range components. The Chorus RD (medium cage) is now available to order as a spare part under RD15-11CH2SP. This will only work with 11s drivetrains from 2015 onwards.

I had posted this in the "Any questions answered..." but it's similar to Ghostface's question above, so might be more appropriate here...

I have a Chorus 11sp groupset (carbon style, I think it's the 2014-2018 version).
Compact chainset (52/36), 11-25 cassette.
According to specs, short cage has a 34T capacity, and max cog size of 29T.
I'd like a bigger ratio for bigger hills.
I can buy a new Centaur (11sp) medium cage RD with 37T capacity and 32T max cog size, and a 12-32 Centaur 11sp cassette, which would be ideal, but I'm not sure if this will be compatible with the older Chorus shifters ?
Any help/advice greatly appreciated.

Having read your post, I've checked the little white stickers:
RD: RD11-CH1
FD: FD11-CH2B
Chainset: FC13-CH062C
Shifters: EP11-CH1C

...which means it's pre-2015, finally.
Which I guess means it's even less likely that my shifters and RD will work with a new Centaur 11sp medium RD and 11-32 cassette...?

Correct, means your groupset is MY2011. Please note that Campag was selling and producing this code up until 2014. So items sold up until 2014 would still have the 2011 code as no changes were made to that product since. Your crankset is MY2013 as this was the year Campag introduced the 52-36 ratio IIRC.

It's also the key reference to use when looking for the correct spare part i.e.

The Centaur 11s parts are not compatible with any other 11s parts, with the exception of the cassettes and chain as long as the cassette is within the outer limits of the rear mech in question.

Quote from the manual of the Centaur rear mech;

"The Centaur rear derailleur is designed to function exclusively (and is therefore com-patible) with Ergopower Power-Shift commands marked with the letter D"

The letter D is visible when you lift the rubber hood, it's not part of the code that's mentioned on the white label.

Rule of thumb:

2011-2014 11s drivetrains, Chorus / Record and Super Record ergo's, chainsets and mechs will happily mix and match. Athena 11s is based on a different shifting system (single click downshifts vs multiple in Chorus and up), and will therefore behave differently. Also the Athena chainsets are based on Power Torque vs Ultra Torque for the high-end.

Anything from 2015 onwards for 11s Chorus / Record and Super Record, is not compatible with anything pre-2015 other than the chains and cassettes. Once again, always keeping in mind the outer limits of the mech. I do believe the chainsets will work with each other as well although you might need to re-adjust the front mech a bit.

Potenza 11s, here you have the version pre and post DB, items suiteable for DB use will show the HO mark.

Ergopowers with EP17 code will only work with FC17 chainsets (power torque) and RD17 rear mechs. EP18 ergopowers codes will only work with FC18 chainsets (ultra torque) and RD18 rear mechs.

In general, all 11s chains and cassettes can be mixed and matched, just make sure you remain within the outer limits of the rear mech.

Current 12s drivetrains can be mixed and matched without issues.

Do you know if people have any luck mixing any 10 or 11 speed chainsets with 12 speed drivetrains? I've read that the spacing between the chainrings has changed slightly.

I've got 10 and 11 speed carbon chorus chainsets that I'd theoretically like to use with a 12 speed chorus disk groupset.

I know this is the official campagnolo line, but I'm not sold on it. I put a potenza mech and 11-32 cassette on my old man's pre 2014 chorus group, and it worked just fine. Also the 11s tt shifter didn't change between the model iterations.
Did the cable pull ratios change? If so why didn't the tt shifter change?

That fact that something works "just fine" doesn't mean it works like it should.

The Potenza is designed to cope with the 11-32 range so that is one worry less to take into consideration. Also keep in mind that whatever combination you opt for that's outside the scope of what's recommended by the manufacturer, will possible result in a refused warranty claim if still valid.

10s and 11s chainrings are probably wider than the 12s version which might result in the 12s chain not to engage correctly on the teeth. The 12s chain is 5.19mm wide vs 5.9mm for the 10s for instance.

Thanks for all the detail, much appreciated.
That's pretty much what I was expecting tbh, and it's helpful to have it confirmed.

Admittedly, I was also secretely hoping for an answer exactly along the lines of :

"I know this is the official campagnolo line, but I'm not sold on it.
I put a potenza mech and 11-32 cassette on my old man's pre 2014
chorus group, and it worked just fine."

So I either:
a) Keep the nice pre-2014 Chorus groupset all together for another project.
b) Hope that even if a mix of post-2018 Centaur 11sp and a pre-2014 Chorus 11sp doesn't work exactly as Campagnolo has designed it to, it still may work well enough that I don't notice any deficiencies.
c) Sell the Chorus groupset and buy a post-2018 11sp Centaur groupset.
d) Sell the Chorus groupset and buy a Shimano 105 groupset...

A 105 group isn't that much cheaper than a Chorus 12 speed group right now. If you want wider gearing, I cannot recommend a sub compact Chorus 12 speed set up enough. It's fantastic. The jumps between gears are really nice and the range is amazing. 48/32 with an 11/32 will get you up literally anything.

A 105 group isn't that much cheaper than a Chorus 12 speed group right now.

Where do you get your numbers?

Chorus 12 speed is 73% more expensive than 105 (using bike24 as an example).

Merlin. Chorus 12 speed mechanical rim is $1,067.57. R7000 is $695. Like I said, not that much cheaper. If it was like half the price, then yeah, but it's not.

Having moved from R7000 to Chorus 12 myself, I think it's worth it. Consumables last eons longer than Shimano consumables, too - but then you'd hope so given the premium for a cassette!

It's not like I'm comparing 105 to SR.

That's still almost 54% more expensive. I would say that's a lot.

But Campagnolo has never competed on price, so no surprise there.

If you can find me a new 12sp Chorus groupset for not much more than £550, then I'd definitely be interested!
https://www.probikeshop.fr/groupe-complet-shimano-105-r7000-36-52-11-32/151137.html
https://www.probikeshop.fr/groupe-complet-campagnolo-centaur-34-50-11-32/142003.html