3rd party chainring compatibility for campag 2011-2012??

[neeb]

*CORRECTION*

I was misinformed by Probikeshop. I ordered a "type E" inner ring and got sent something that is labelled "D/E". And it's NOT threaded, it looks to me exactly the same as you would expect it to be for the 2009/2010 Ultratorque. Probikeshop now tell me that Stronglight don't make threaded inner rings... Thoroughly confused now about what Stronglight are up to with their labelling. There does appear to be a "Type E" outer ring at least, as there is a photo of it. No idea if it differs from a type D.

My first thought on discovering this was that you might be able to use a standard 11sp inner ring from stronglight or TA with a Campagnolo 2011/2012 outer ring if you used the old style bolts in place of the ones that screw directly into the inner ring (only the inner Campagnolo ring is threaded). Having just disassembled a 2009 and a 2011 crankset however, it's clear that the 2011/2012 Campagnolo outer rings have also been specially designed to be incompatible with the old style bolts... There is a wider sloped lip on the edge of the holes that interferes with a lip on the old style outer bolts, while the new screw-in bolts don't have this lip. There is absolutely no reason for doing this other than to prevent people from using the old bolts with the new outer chainrings, so preventing mixing of pre 2011 and post 2011 inner and outer rings...

The only good news is that as far as I can see, the actual spider is exactly the same. So the only solution if you want a 36T inner ring seems to be to buy both outer and inner pre-2011 style rings and a set of pre-2011 campagnolo bolts (unless someone starts making threaded inner rings, or unless perhaps a 3rd party set of bolts might work with 2011 outer and pre-2011 inner rings).

I for one am completely sick of being manipulated by campagnolo in this way. If they spent as much ingenuity on designing new equipment as they did on making their various product lines incompatible with each other and with everybody else's, perhaps they would have more pro-teams using them. If you believed the manual, you would think you weren't even allowed to change a chainring without getting a service center to do it for you. And I'll bet that little plastic thing inside the bolt that lines up with the crank is there to invalidate your warranty if you change the chainring.

[Steve928]

The little plastic 'peg' inside the chainring bolt pulls out with no effort and can be put back in if you like. Nothing breaks when you extract it, in fact it's hard to see why it's there at all..

If you decide to go for standard chainring bolts then make sure that you're sitting down before you check the price for Campagnolo ones! Luckily KCNC have seen the gap in the market and do very nice sets in various colours for not much money at all.

[neeb]

The little plastic 'peg' inside the chainring bolt pulls out with no effort and can be put back in if you like. Nothing breaks when you extract it, in fact it's hard to see why it's there at all..

If you decide to go for standard chainring bolts then make sure that you're sitting down before you check the price for Campagnolo ones! Luckily KCNC have seen the gap in the market and do very nice sets in various colours for not much money at all.

Going for a matched set of 50/36 TA Nerius rings, complete with some matching TA campagnolo compatible bolts I found on ebay (a bit cheaper than the campagnolo ones).

The plastic peg is a puzzle. When you push a torx wrench into the bolt it gets pushed to the "in" position. Once the bolt is removed you can push the peg back to its original position from the inside, but then when you are doing the bolt up again it gets pushed back in again. I was assuming that it was there to detect if you have removed the bolt for warranty purposes, but I didn't think of trying to reinsert it from the outside once the bolt has been torqued up again. Is this possible?

[flatlander]

neeb, thanks for all the information you've provided. I share your frustration with Campy on this issue. An option I'm considering is using the 2011/2012 Campy bolts and threaded inner ring with a Stronglight or TA 48-tooth outer ring. In light of what you've learned about the lip on the Campy outer ring and bolt heads, do you think I would have any luck trying to use the 2011/2012 bolts with a third-party outer ring?

[neeb]

neeb, thanks for all the information you've provided. I share your frustration with Campy on this issue. An option I'm considering is using the 2011/2012 Campy bolts and threaded inner ring with a Stronglight or TA 48-tooth outer ring. In light of what you've learned about the lip on the Campy outer ring and bolt heads, do you think I would have any luck trying to use the 2011/2012 bolts with a third-party outer ring?

My first thought was that this might work (unlike using the older bolts with the newer outer ring), but on looking more closely I think there might be at least one potential problem.

Here's the new style campagnolo outer ring bolt hole and matching bolt (for threaded inner rings):




And here's the old style bolt hole (in this case on a TA Nerius ring, although I think the 2009/2010 Campagnolo ones are the same) and the old style (non threaded, 2 piece) bolts:




You can see why the old style bolts don't work with the newer rings - that little step on the outer bolt is obstructed by the 45 degree sloped surface on the newer outer bolt hole. The bolt will go through the hole, but only as far as the step on the bolt.

However, the newer threaded bolt does actually at first appear to go all of the way into the hole on the old style outer ring. For the TA ring at least, when you look closely you do realise that is is not quite as flush with the outer chain ring surface as perhaps it should be, although there's only a fraction of a millimetre in it. This is because the flat recessed ledge on the newer bolt hole is actually slightly deeper in the campy ring than on the TA ring. However, I think this may actually only be because the TA ring is slightly thinner to begin with - unfortunately I don't have an original Campagnolo 2009/10 outer ring handy for comparison. It's difficult to tell if the bolt is protruding slightly further through on the other side or not, if so it is only by a really tiny amount.

However, there is another potential problem - the newer outer ring has a smaller hole for the special bolt underneath the crankarm. The newer bolt for this position is narrower, so I think with an older or 3rd party ring you might need one of the older style crank arm bolts so as not to have a gap. Perhaps this wouldn't matter in practice however, as the ring would still be held in position by the other 4 bolts and firmly sandwiched in place at the crankarm position too, even if there was a gap between the bolt and the hole in terms of their diameters.

So, to summarise.... it might work - especially if you could get hold of an old style 5th (crankarm) bolt & washer (the washers are different too) to use together with the 4 new style threaded bolts. But no guarantees... I guess the safest thing would be not to mix old style and new style inner rings, outer rings and bolt sets.

[neeb]

So, to summarise.... it might work - especially if you could get hold of an old style 5th (crankarm) bolt & washer (the washers are different too) to use together with the 4 new style threaded bolts. But no guarantees... I guess the safest thing would be not to mix old style and new style inner rings, outer rings and bolt sets.

On second thoughts... forget trying to use an old style 5th crankarm bolt with a newer threaded inner chain ring... although the 5th bolt hole on the newer inner rings is not threaded like the other 4 holes are, it is smaller (as on the outer ring) so the older 5th bolt wouldn't fit through.

[LionelB]

So is there a confirmation that TA or Stronglight is going to release new chainrings?

I want to have a 50/42 setup and I am planning to buy 2012 crankset.

[neeb]

So is there a confirmation that TA or Stronglight is going to release new chainrings?

I want to have a 50/42 setup and I am planning to buy 2012 crankset.

Not as far as I know.

But you can always just do what I did - get both inner and outer TA or stronglight rings and a set of 2009/10 Campagnolo or 3rd party campag specific bolts. The spider itself is the same.

[flatlander]

On second thoughts... forget trying to use an old style 5th crankarm bolt with a newer threaded inner chain ring... although the 5th bolt hole on the newer inner rings is not threaded like the other 4 holes are, it is smaller (as on the outer ring) so the older 5th bolt wouldn't fit through.

Thanks again, neeb. If I was Stronglight or TA, I wouldn't bother making chainrings for 2011/2012 cranksets. If they did, they would only sell one ring at a time, whereas today we need to buy two rings and bolts if we want an alternative to the standard Campy configuration. Like you, I'll be doing that soon.

[neeb]

It'll be annoying if TA or stronglight do come out with new style rings after all in a month or two's time. I'm still curious about this mysterious stronglight type E, but as even the people who supposedly sell them can't tell me what they are, I for one have given up on them!

[jbf]

Great thread. I have a 2010 Record 11 crank and am looking for new 34/48 rings to run 10-speed. Since I have a choice, is there any reason to buy Stronglight over TA, or vice versa? Otherwise my primary considerations are cost and color (prefer silver for my Ti bike).

[natiedean24]

This thread confirms exactly why I snatched up a 2010 model while I could. It is unused at the time, but I will buy a simple 36T TA ring when I'm ready to go.

I do hate being manhandled by Campy with this new 'standard' of theirs, but that is the way of the bike industry, from rim widths, to bar / stem diameters, to BB and crank systems, they like to keep the target moving.

[neeb]

The ironic thing is, compatibility and availability issues aside, the new system actually makes swapping chain rings easier. You just put the chain ring on and torque up the bolts, no fiddling around with having to hold another bolt on the other side with a screwdriver or wrench and risking chewing it up. It's easy enough that you could swap chain rings regularly depending on the ride you were doing. It's just a pity that Campagnolo don't do a decent selection of chain rings and make them easily available for reasonable prices.

[Montana]

Very helpful information neeb! Thank you!!! I too ride campy in a 36 -50 and feel the same aggravation... I was going to make the leap to a new 2011/12 set with the Ti spindle but I am going to wait for the aftermarket rings to catch up -

I have a set of the Stronglight Type D rings on my 11 speed SR and they work very well

[neeb]

**UPDATE**

This is never ending, but having started this I feel obliged to finish so as not to mislead anyone...

I just received my set of TA bolts for Campagnolo carbon ultratorque. I assumed they would just be functionally the same as the campy ones, but actually they are much better than that. With 2011/2012 crank sets they allow the use of TA (and presumably other 3rd party) inner rings with campy "new" outer rings, as well as TA with TA. They are cleverly designed to be reversible - you fix them one way around for the new campy outer rings, the other way around for TA / old outer rings. This would appear to be TA's solution to the problem instead of making different chain rings. Also, the instructions confirm that it is possible to use a TA outer ring with "new" threaded campy inner ring with just the standard new campy bolts (i.e. with that combination, you don't need the TA bolts).

Another thing - with all chain ring combinations on the 2011/2012 crank sets, TA say to use the standard new campy 5th ("shouldered") bolt rather than the supplied TA 5th bolt (which is like the older campy one), which is presumably just for older cranks. This makes me think that despite appearances, the actual spiders may not be 100% identical after all between 2010 and 2011.

I now have my 2 new TA rings fitted to a 2011 crank with the 4 TA bolts plus the standard "new" campy 5th bolt, and it's working fine. As it turns out I didn't need to buy the TA 50T outer ring, but it's nice to have a matching set and it saves a few grams over the campy one.

Here are the instructions for the bolt set:



Here's where I got them from:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/360388424277?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649#ht_2191wt_1083

Chicken cycles also have them, and I imagine they will become more widely available in due course.