I am having 5 different generations of Campagnolo group sets in my 25 years of cycling on my 5 road bikes, all of them offer great feels. I don't care much about technicalities except they are beautifully made. Great collections. No regrets. Thanks Campagnolo.
Agreed Dave Stevens and ShaiBike. 5-arm chainsets are more pleasing to the eye. Of course, aesthetics aren't the most important thing; far from it. But it is nice to have a good-looking bicycle. Kind of like a good-looking car, it is part of the whole experience. For some reason 4-arm chainsets don't look as nice as 5-arm.
I'm old school, a randonneur. Guess what? I have a vintage, as you may say, Campagnolo Record 9 set on my steed. 1000km of riding? Well, this gruppo has north of 120,000 km. Rain or shine, I have depended on this Campagnolo gear. I love the beautiful hourglass form of the hubs. The new stuff? Yes, it is magnificent, I think it's great. But, the utilitarian 90 degree flat cylinders of the new hubs? It's just that. Utilitarian. I like the "dump the cassette" function of the Record 9. It's just my wizened opinion. Campagnolo gear is art, perfect function. Yes, my gear is old, but so am I. Hey, this new gear will serve you well indeed. But I'll share something with you. It's physics. Shifting on a monocoque carbon frame? Ka-tonk, Ka-tonk! You're riding a guitar. Columbus steel frame? Yes. That Campy gear goes click-click-click. Almost silent. Joy. Over the years, I have replaced the bearings, including the cassette pawls. It's a labor of love indeed. As for the condition and cosmetics? The alloy looks like new.
I'd go for the 2015 Chorus (actually i did), not for the 2014 Record. 2015 is a bit stiffer when pedaling, but the difference in shifting performance is huge in the 2015 components favour. The new chainrings might not have as many pins but the shape is and stiffnes of the chainrings is an improvement - The shaped outer chainring also helps when down shifting. The design is just really cleaver and it works a lot better than the 2014 design. For the 2015 cranksets the biggest improvement is in the Chorus range. Up until 2014 neither right or left Chorus side where hollow. (Record/SR where hollow in both sides). In 2015 the Chorus left side is hollow and identical to Record/SR - the only difference in 2015 is that that Chorus left crankarm is non-hollow. I'd just wish that Campagnolo had utilized the the multi-BCD design better and allowed a 30t inner. For me a SUper compact 46/30 is the ideal cobination. Unfortunatley a 46/30 low-q chainset with a modern thru-axle design is almost imposible to find and rediculus expensive. There are only two options out there: the expensive and imposible to finds Sugino XO901Super Compact and the super expensive modular MIddleburn R02 X-type.
Completely agree, AND: from the catalogue of campy 2016 www.campagnolo.com/media/files/035_325_Catalogue_groupset_Campagnolo_2016.pdf you can clearly see that the pins have been modified depending on the chainring combination, so in the 53-39 you still have 8 pins while in the compact versions just 4. so, it´s done on purpose. I doubt campagnolo saves money on pins when it comes to quality of shifting.
He's totally misunderstood the reason for a four arm design. He's assumed that "stiffer" equates to better power transfer - actually it's all about the stiffness of the outer chainring in the shift zone. Hence the positionof the support arms. Hence the wider spacing of the outer ring bolts, etc, etc. You also can't compare Chorus to Record for weight as the cranks are a different lay-up and the LH Record crank is hollow, whereas Chorus is solid. The shifting system / pins is again misunderstood - both rings have in effect the same shift zones. On an even number chainring, you use 4 upshift pins. On an odd number of teeth you use 8 upshift pins - because the pin must always catch an outer link to bring it into the ramp on the inside of the ring. Reason? On an odd number inner ring, those outer links will fall on alternate teeth rev by rev. On an even number inner ring, the outer links fall on the same teeth each time. Hence 4 pins on, say, a 34 or 36 inner, 8 on a 39 inner. We know from the shifting under torque, that the four arm is better in both directions than the five ... Oddly enough, when you are investing many 100s of 1000s of Euro on the machining, you don't design on the back of an envelope ...
No you don't. You cannot install a chain in the wrong position on a double/triple. The only type of chainring that requires specific chain positioning is a narrow/wide single chainring, as found on many 1 x 11 MTBs.
ch2263 No, you don't have to change your shifting habits when riding. The four design is simply a performance improvement over the five arm design when shifting underload during the shifting phase. The feeling is most noticeable when you are climbing up a high whilst standing on the pedals and you shift from the small chainring to the big chainring. The chain simply ramps up and down quicker and positively with the four arm design over five.
Please note that the difference in the no. of up shifting pins is 8 in the 53/39 combination and 4 in the 52/36 and 50/34 combinations. You were doing a comparison of the older version Record 11 speed 53/39 with a newer Chorus semi compact of 52/36. Therefore, the older Record 11 speed crankset has the same no. of upshifting pins as the new 4 arm crankset for Chorus, Record and Super record which has a 53/39 ratio chainrings
Just to clarify something. You aren't comparing two things that are the same. Specifically with regard to chainring profiles. The Chorus crank you show has a mid compact (52t) which only has 4 upshifting ramps. Both the compact and mid compact chainrings have only 4 upshift ramps and different cutouts while the standard (53/39) has 8 ramps. It has always been like this with Campagnolo 11 cranks, eve with the old design. If you had a standard chainring combination new design crank, you will find it has the same shifting ramp profile as your older one. Hope this helps.
totally agree and if one compared new record with old record, the weight would be more similar me thinks. not useful to complain about weight differences between two levels of Campy. even so 65g ? not much to worry about
I do not agree. Just bought a new semi compact chainrings for old chorus and the chainring has 4 pins. The old compact chainring had 8 pins. I think this is a new thing that has nothing to do with the number of teeth.
Don't forget to mention chain-width when it comes to part of the "smooth shifting" effect. Again, I also use the 2008 Record (flagship goupo for the day) and I have no complaints and have never been dropped for any shifting mishap.
I rode Campy Athena silver 5-arm (50-34) and lats year changed over to a Potenza 4-arm (52-36). I recently bought a 10 year old Merlin Cyrene titanium roadbike with Chorus 2010 5-arm (53-39). The shifting performance of the Chorus is remarkably better than the Potenza. The Potenza was comparable to Athena. The looks of the 5-arm set are so much more elegeant, I simply dislike the bulky looks of the 4-arm gruppos.
Could it have been that Campag introduced their four arm chainset system simply because of the need to keep up with the Japanese 'joneses'. Five arms are obviously stronger and more stable needing less material in both rings and crank arm, however the need to update for update's sake overides this.
Keeping the bearings lubed prolongs their life, Mobil 1 full synth works very well, buy a 1 l bottle for the same as 100ml of cycle lube, use an eye dropper to apply , just lift the seal and fill the race, push back back seal , spin to distribute & wipe off excess, do this every 12-1500 & they’ll last a long time.
You could've just gone right ahead and said the new Chorus's looks are downright vulgar and garish while the old Record still looks sublime. I can't understand why Campy are going down the slippery path of playing catch up with Shimano and copying their style and, by doing so, cheapening and de-valuing their brand. Copying others, if not done subtly is tantamount to publicly admitting defeat. Personally, I find the new X-shaped cross styled chainsets by Shimano absolutely hideous and I'll never be seen riding on a bike sporting them. I also believe they're not aerodynamic and the fact they're introducing yet another incompatible drive train component with those of those of their previous series, will eventually come around and bite them. I hope they eventually see the light and stop introducing artificial obsolescence under the guise of re-vamped looks or upgraded specs and so on.
I changed my old record crank to the new as soon as it was released...I am a climber and put it under fair amount of stress during my trainings It was creaking at the same spot even after I changed bolts...I could never get it quiet again...the new one has less arms and therefore less points to end up out of alignment. By the way, the old bolts were easy to overtighten or not to tighten enough. The nuts in the arms are a way better solution therefore they have to be bigger. I like the thing about not having to change the whole crank just because you want to go to compact, midcompact or largest rings. I would go for new crank any day.
5-bolt would be more efficient for power transfer (and you're right, why not have a groove channel support for the 4-bolt crankset to help support the outer chainring?). Both are nice and work with no discernible difference, excluding the placebo effect. Next, to max out your bearing-life be sure to USE THE COTTER PIN / CLAMP THAT'S ON THE DRIVE SIDE CUP -- IF YOU DON'T YOU WILL WEAR OUT YOUR BEARING DUE TO "ROCKING" THE BEARING WHEN RIDING.
One plus for the new crank not really emphasized: the owner of the new crank can switch from std 39/53 to mid-compact 36/52 or compact (34/50) without changing the crank. For older design, should you want to from, say, 39/53 to 36/52, then you have buy a whole new crank.
Love the video, here are some some numbers. Cranks are super record 172.5 mm. New is a 52/36, and the old is 53/39 New (R) 424 gm (L) 200 gm with bolt Old (R) 410 gm (L) 233 gm with bolt No 53/39 new chainrings to weigh.
My 4arm Potenza is very difficult to pull to the bigger 52 chainring. If I fail to click 2times all the way up and keep pulling for same time, the chain will fall down and the smaller 36 chairing will not catch it. Furthermore all inner edges of the 36 are very sharp and way too often take the chain for a walk up through the chainstay gap to do some ugly damage to it. Even if it does not jam the chain in there I am very sadly never able to pull it up by the front deraillour. Allways have to stop and get my hands dirty by helping the chain get back on. If I rarely managed to lose chain from shimano chainrings I was always able to pull it back by the deraillour immediately without stopping. Without any additional hardware as chain security thingie. Please stay on much nicer looking 5arm version with more pickup pins if you have it.
Good overview and some good comments. I found the video very helpful and I kind of agree that the 5 arm five bolt system seems better than 4 arm 8 bolt. I was lucky enough to around 10 years ago buy a Centaur UT crankset which was originally 10 speed and successfully upgraded to 11 speed with stronglight rings where the inner ring is actually threaded . If buying new today think Chorus UT 5 arm would be my choice as recreation rider. However, If I was racing again, then can see the huge advantage of all rings fitting on same crank set is great.
Im happy with my 2014 Record/Super record mix. The new generation chainsets may indeed help improve gear change but on looks alone they are too 'Japanese'. Unfortunately Campag recommend you don't mix 2014 with 2015/6 So I'll be sticking with the 2014. Yeah I too have been a life long Campag fan, only Shimano on my MTB.
I run a full 2016 Super Record set except for the crankset - I have short legs and use the older 165mm crank. Shifts flawlessly. I think the new crank is actually slightly cheaper.
Of course, they only need to add ramps/pins onto the new (4 arm) ring. So nothing wrong with the arms, just the rings. Im sure by the time the rings are worn out, the new rings will have been improved by then.
You would think a one piece spindle would be stronger than a two piece. You would have a continuous tube compared to a cut in half tube that has a meshed gear type of setup. Is there a real advantage to this two piece spindle over a solid one piece or is it just marketing by different makers.
Axle strength is never the issue, within the context of reliability and performance. The main advantage is not needing to use a bolt to secure a crank arm onto the axle, which is how every other manufacturer does it (e.g. with Shimano you have to secure the non-drive side crank to the axle). At the moment in time when Campagnolo started developing their 'out-board' bearing cranksets, finally moving away from square taper axle BB systems, some manufacturers were having reliability issues with the crank/axle interface, in particular irreversible wear to the soft alloy of the crank's interface as a result of poor installation. Campagnolo adopted the 'Hirst' design as it's virtually impossible to install it incorrectly (ignoring issues causes by out of tolerance BB shells), and even if somehow the axle securing bolt became loose, there wouldn't be much wear or irreversible damage to the tough steel-on-steel Hirst joint inteface, certainly not when compared to the result of a Shimano or RaceFace axle/crank interface being riden on with a loose bolt. This design allows Campagnolo to ensure the most stressed connection (the one between crank and axle) cannot develop play and will never be an issue. The Hirst joint tooth profile means even a really under-tightened bolt results in a split axle that is as stiff as a single shaft axle - it's a great peice of engineering design (not invented by Campagnolo).
Good work, thanks for that. Last year I swapped out 2013 Super Record 5-arm for the 2015 Super Record 4-arm. The newer model was indeed heavier, albeit only by 12g. Interesting observations regarding the number of pickup pins & machining around them. I'm guessing that the extra weight must be related to the 'chunky' chainring as well as the 8-bolt solution. I did feel that the chainset was a bit stiffer, but that is not on any objective measure. Visually, the new version is stunning, not that the old one was ugly.
Wrong. Shimano is aluminium with a constant 4-bolt 110mm bolt circle diameter, while Campagnolo's new design is full carbon with double bolt circle diameter (8 bolts total) to get nearer to the actual chain ring: 112mm for the small ring and 145mm for the big ring. All other things equal, the Campagnolo crankset should be superior in stiffness, but slightly heavier. BUT...! Since it is made out of carbon, then it ends up being actually lighter AND still stiffer by geometry.
Shame you didn't compare old Record with new Record, instead of using a lower grade Chorus crank and suggesting that a new Record crank is no better than that.
Im using the new chorus crank set. I woun't call them very smooth upshifting coming from a shimano background. But they none the less gets the job done...
Great video mate! I wonder, if the result, in terms of the weight, will has a big gap, if you compare the same group. I mean "old" Record with new Record.
Nice video, but they are two totally different products, it takes time for the latest tech to filter down to the mid range products, but this is new chorus is about half the cost of super record so if it was me I would save my cash and put the rest towards a set of carbon wheels.
Curious to know if you have ever tried any of the Rotor cranks. I have a Rotor 3D+ crankset and I think it is superior to anything out there today. When paired with a Sram Yaw 22 front mech, it makes for the quickest front shifting action I've ever experienced with a non-electric groupset.
I have one bike with Rotor 3d+ crankset, the rest have Shimano. Rotor is pretty good however interchangeability is a problem. I train using Stages DA 9000 powermeter and obviously i cannot use it on my bike with Rotor crankset.
I have used 2011 Record, Rotor 3D, and 2018 Record all on the same bike with otherwise same groupo. All are pretty nice, but both Record cranksets are lighter and shift better than the Rotor.
I bet for 2017 or 18 that Campy will make the adjustments you have spotted cannondany so make the shifting better. Of course, they can not make something perfect first time!
When the pedal eyelet insert pulls out and the carbon breaks when standing up and pedalling you will not like carbon cranks give me the Chorus alloy version every time .
Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that Most!!! Campy Pro Shops are Soo "high end" that they treat the average rider like we are a pain in their Ass!! Especially if you have Old Campy Gear or a off brand bike... # Sucky Campy Representation!!!! :/
About weight U forgot that record series (old one) is hollow body chorus series (new one) is full carbon. Infact comparing the same series, the new one R lighter than last one.
I notice in most of your videos (which are always worth watching due the quality of the information) that you very often shake the objects in your hands when you are emphasizing key words. It is very common in everyday body language, so I suggest that you either do not hold the object and/or use a pointer (using a pointer stick will focus your actions but might distract the viewer). I suggest that you take a look at some presentation instruction videos relating body language. I really like the information you included but I sometimes (often) have to stop the videos due to your hand movements causing eye stress. Please keep on with the good work - it is worth the effort. Ps. Don't worry - I am a technical communicator by qualification and over 20 years' experience but I still make rookie mistakes in public so I use encourage the use of a 'professional presenter' in product videos.
