Does campy 11S still have shifting problems

[jurkotomo]

Hi guys,
I was a campy lover for a few years, until they announced 11s groupsets (i think it was 2009). I ordered Chorus 11s groupset and I was one of the first ones to get it. And what a dissapointment it was. Downshifting on the rear derailleur was terrible. It turned out it was because the shifters had allot of friction in them. After downshifting, if you fulled the cable, you could still pull about 1mm cable out of the shifter. The friction was deffinetly not in the cables as I've checked the shifters that on the table without any cable casings. Needless to say, it was impossible to adjust the rear derailleur. I've been on shimano ever since.

So now it's 2012 and I'm willing to give campy another try, if they did something about that. I'm looking at the Athena 11s groupset and my question is, does campy still have problems with downshifting on the rear derraileur ?

Thanks guys!

[sugarkane]

Hi guys,
I was a campy lover for a few years, until they announced 11s groupsets (i think it was 2009). I ordered Chorus 11s groupset and I was one of the first ones to get it. And what a dissapointment it was. Downshifting on the rear derailleur was terrible. It turned out it was because the shifters had allot of friction in them. After downshifting, if you fulled the cable, you could still pull about 1mm cable out of the shifter. The friction was deffinetly not in the cables as I've checked the shifters that on the table without any cable casings. Needless to say, it was impossible to adjust the rear derailleur. I've been on shimano ever since.

So now it's 2012 and I'm willing to give campy another try, if they did something about that. I'm looking at the Athena 11s groupset and my question is, does campy still have problems with downshifting on the rear derraileur ?

Thanks guys!

I think it was a spring issue that was very quickly resolved
SR 11 is presently the king of the mechanical groupsets in terms of performance and weight
Pretty sure you'll find it too your liking

[tommasini]

I too had the 2009 version and they worked fine but I wasn't too thrilled about the soft indexing. Campy made a couple of running changes in 2009 and 2010 to the rear shifter internals to address a few sporatic rear shifting issues early in that design cycle. But then the 2010's mid way through that year, the 2011's and 2012's for Chorus to Super Record (can't speak about the models below that) can't be beat - they got it right......more crisp indexing feel at the shift lever, stronger rear derailleur spring, and those other incremental changes have produced a winner.

[jrobart]

Amen. My 2010 SR shifts flawlessly!

[fdegrove]

Hi,

To the TS: friction is key here.

@Tomassini: Remember the good old 05 Centaur? Better still, the "Red"" special issue of the Record 10S shifters which were nothing more than Centaur springs and stuff in a Records shell but, who cares?

Clack, clack, next gear. We all love this kind of audible feedback when shifting gears. When it works reliably it builds confidence. You just know for sure that part of the bike is working just as you expect it to do.

Whilst I do not usually associate Italian design with Bauhaus style architecture, Campagnolo always had a Porsche style knack for it.

Viva,

[tommasini]

Remember the good old 05 Centaur? Better still, the "Red"" special issue of the Record 10S shifters which were nothing more than Centaur springs and stuff in a Records shell but, who cares?

Clack, clack, next gear. We all love this kind of auditible feedback when shifting gears. When it works reliably it builds confidence. You just know for sure that part of the bike is working just as you expect it to do.

When I first installed my 2009 super record group the shifting was good - but a bit underwhelming.......however I never experianced any of the (intermittent) "finicky" issues that I'd sometimes hear about. But I personally didn't like the soft shifting action - I sooooo much preferred the feel at the rear shift lever of the 10 speed Ultra shifting on my other bike. That really left me wondering.......so fast forward to when I put some highly touted 2011 super record shifters on the 11 speed bike - WOW!!.......that caused me in short order to sell off all my 10 speed parts on the other bike and replace with 2011 11 speed. Definitely worth it.

[Grasschopper]

I have 2011 Athena on my Merckx and the shifting is flawless. The things I've read where mainly shifting issues related to cable friction...bad cable routing in the bar area causing too much friction and thus bad shifting.

[Bridgeman]

I got the SR when it first came out and it shifted flawlessly for a number of years. Some recent observations;

* Certain sports drinks can cause poor shifting. As liquid from your bottles and sweat accumulate at the lower bottom bracket area it also can get into the plastic cable guide. When it drys it can almost act like a hard glue and interfere with the cable motion. Had this problem. Clean the guide and the shifting returned to normal.

* Bad cable in the Ergo Shifter. This has been a problem with Campy Ergo Shifters for as long as they have been available. The bend radius is just to small, and over time the cable will fray, thereby hindering proper shifting.

* There are differences in cassette spacer thickness, depending on when they were manufactured. I wanted to replace a Chorus cassette because it had been on the bike for a number of years. Got a new one for cheap and installed it along with a new chain. The result was bad shifting. Put the old cassette back on and the shifting was dramatically improved. The cheap cassette was cheap for a reason.

[EnglishRichie]

RE: FRICTION

Lads, I've just installed some Jagwire Ripcord inner gear cables to my Campy 11 spd record and what a difference it makes.

Firstly, the cables are "die drawn" which produces a much smoother finish to the cable as you dont feel so much of the braids of the wire as "non, die drawn" cables.

Secondly, they have a Teflon coating applied to further reduce friction.

These, I have found to make such a difference that I will never go make to standard stainless non coated cables again.

Lastly, I have found that the top pulley wheel does NOT like being to close to the sprockets, so by turning the Phillips screw that is located on the underside of the mech counter clockwise to bring the top pulley away from the sprockets by between 5 - 7mm will also help shifting and will also have a "lighter" touch at the lever as you are not having to work against excesive spring tension.

You should now find that shifting will still have the Campy "click" but will be slightly easier shift and a little snappier changes at the mech.

Hope this helps

[Butcher]

I bought a SR in '09 and it shifted great. I had IO Dupont cables with Nokon housings. I decided to change cables since the rear cable was starting to fray coming out of the RD. Since this is a severe angle and caused the fraying, I elected to go with the Campagolo cables that came with my groupset. After installing those cables, the shifting did hang up. After some research, I found the extra drag came from the cable end rubbing against the inside of the shifter housing. A little more research found that Campagnolo did come out with a different disc so the cable end does not protude out of the disc and hit the housing. This caused the shifting to go back to normal, which is great.

Too bad you switched to Shimano because of a small problem like that. I have a SR and Chorus 11 groupset and both bikes shift great as long as you maintain your bike.

[DaveS]

Most of the friction problems with the 2009 11 speed shifters was really due to the need for more spring tension at the RD or a helper spring in the shifter. Previous shifters had a coil spring in the mechanism, that the new design lacks. Campy changed the cable housings in a effort to reduce friction, but it was still cable friction (and a lack of spring tension) that caused the problem with shifts to smaller cogs. They did made a change to the plastic used for the cable guide, located where the cable exits the ergo body, in an effort to reduce friction. I'm still using some '09 Centaur shifters, converted to 11 speed, with a 10 speed RD and don't have the friction problem. Those shifters don't even have ball bearings on the main pivot shift.

If you have a frame that creates tight bends in the cables, or just do a sloppy job of cable installation, you may still suffer from poor shifts to smaller cogs. Using the tighter bend with the shift cable at the front of the bar may make the problem worse. I route the cable on the back side of the bars, particularly when using short reach bars.

[J.v.S.]

Can confirm what others wrote above already. I got '09 Campy Record/Chorus mix and was not quite satisfied with rear shifting performance due to the friction issues also mentioned earlier. I then sent the rear Ergopower unit and the derailleur to the Campagnolo distributor and got it upgraded to the new '11 internals.
What I have experienced since then is the best shifting performance I have ever had on a bike. May sound odd but it is indeed great fun to shift. I came from DA 7800, which worked absolutely flawless as well, but this Campy feeling is absolutely gorgeous.

[Frankie13]

RE: FRICTION

Lads, I've just installed some Jagwire Ripcord inner gear cables to my Campy 11 spd record and what a difference it makes.

Firstly, the cables are "die drawn" which produces a much smoother finish to the cable as you dont feel so much of the braids of the wire as "non, die drawn" cables.

Secondly, they have a Teflon coating applied to further reduce friction.

These, I have found to make such a difference that I will never go make to standard stainless non coated cables again.

Lastly, I have found that the top pulley wheel does NOT like being to close to the sprockets, so by turning the Phillips screw that is located on the underside of the mech counter clockwise to bring the top pulley away from the sprockets by between 5 - 7mm will also help shifting and will also have a "lighter" touch at the lever as you are not having to work against excesive spring tension.

You should now find that shifting will still have the Campy "click" but will be slightly easier shift and a little snappier changes at the mech.

English Richie,

did you use the Jagwire Ripcord with the original Campagnolo housing or a whole Jagwire kit including the housing from Jagwire as well?

Thanks



Hope this helps

[tommasini]

I just looked at the '11 model spare parts diagram and noticed that Campy has added a coil spring to eliminate the problem with eariler model shifters. The coil spring that's closest to the ergo body was not used in previous years.

Hi dave - the left lever has a second coil spring.......otherwise the right as far as I can see still only has the one coil spring that is located midway into the guts - and is pulled into and out of place through the thumb shift lever opening. I've taken apart both 2009 and 2011's (both just for fun and to compare).....

Or am I missing something?

[EnglishRichie]

RE: FRICTION

Lads, I've just installed some Jagwire Ripcord inner gear cables to my Campy 11 spd record and what a difference it makes.

Firstly, the cables are "die drawn" which produces a much smoother finish to the cable as you dont feel so much of the braids of the wire as "non, die drawn" cables.

Secondly, they have a Teflon coating applied to further reduce friction.

These, I have found to make such a difference that I will never go make to standard stainless non coated cables again.

Lastly, I have found that the top pulley wheel does NOT like being to close to the sprockets, so by turning the Phillips screw that is located on the underside of the mech counter clockwise to bring the top pulley away from the sprockets by between 5 - 7mm will also help shifting and will also have a "lighter" touch at the lever as you are not having to work against excesive spring tension.

You should now find that shifting will still have the Campy "click" but will be slightly easier shift and a little snappier changes at the mech.

English Richie,

did you use the Jagwire Ripcord with the original Campagnolo housing or a whole Jagwire kit including the housing from Jagwire as well?

Thanks



Hope this helps

Hi Frankie 13 and all

I always use Shimano SP-41 outer housing with Campag brakes / gears ( yeah I know, dont say it ! )

If you use Shimano inners you will have to shave down the nipple end of the cable for it to fit in the Campy lever, I dont endorse this so try it at your own risk !

Keep pedaling !