Campy Chorus Brake Calipers Clearance

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RyanH
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by RyanH

@silvalis, I only had a little time with them back to back. Before they were on my Classic with different wheels so it wasn't comparable. I can't definitively say how they were different other than I immediately noticed a difference. Maybe Cal can pay better attention than I did. If I were to try to pin point it, I'd say that the new design has slightly more grab to it while the older design has more modulation at slow speed.

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Calnago
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by Calnago

Ok... I can report back here now and state that the Dual Pivot Chorus Calipers (both front and rear) do indeed provide slightly more clearance than either the Record or Super Record Calipers. What was a barely see daylight kind of "flint catching" situation with Record or Super Record calipers is now perfectly fine clearance at 2mm with Veloflex Vlanderen 27mm tubulars on new Campagnolo Boras with the Chorus calipers.
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silvalis
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by silvalis

Are there any other major differences between chorus and record/sr right now? Because the price jump is huge.
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Calnago
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by Calnago

In the brake calipers? There's differences, like ti bolts, a different type of barrel adjuster, a bit different method of micro adjustments and caliper centering. But functionally Chorus is very very good. If you're on a budget you shouldn't feel like you're missing the amount of price differential in performance.
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silvalis
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by silvalis

Yeah just the calipers. In the process of planning out a new build, not exactly on a budget, but just a bit begrudging when even the campy blurb barely differentiates between the models, yet a set of record dual pivots cost more than twice chorus.
Chasse patate

vektor
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by vektor

Sorry for the resurrection...

I'm having the same issue as described above on the rear, but with the SR single pivot brake caliper (see attached photo). Little movement causes the tyre to touch the caliper arms on the side at the top..

Is the Chorus solution also true for the single pivot brake? Was also thinking about adding additional tooth lock washers...

Thanks for any real life experience!Image

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by RyanH

You're going to want to get the dual pivots as they have more clearance. Single pivots are limited inherently by true design.

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by tommasini

vektor wrote:
Sun Apr 01, 2018 9:27 am
Sorry for the resurrection...

I'm having the same issue as described above on the rear, but with the SR single pivot brake caliper (see attached photo). Little movement causes the tyre to touch the caliper arms on the side at the top..

Is the Chorus solution also true for the single pivot brake? Was also thinking about adding additional tooth lock washers...

Thanks for any real life experience!Image
Look how high up the pads are - they look to be at the top of the slot. That suggests that the bigger problem in one that is inherrent (cant be changed) with the frame - that the brake bridge is rather low.

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by roadhog44

Later Chorus calipers will definitely provide more clearance for you, I can see that the issue is the brake caliper and not frame brake bridge. I had a similar situation on my Helium SL...Chorus added another 2-3mm clearance over a S Record single pivot on the rear - And thats ALL ROUND the tyre too!

vektor
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by vektor

Thank you for your very appreciated answers!

The frame's brake bridge provides enough space. I will give it a try with the dual pivot, that's currently mounted to the fork, as I could probably easily swap my single pivot to a dual one.

If that's not gonna work, I will check the new Chorus calipers.

BTW: I installed additional washers and that helped a little bit, as the brake is moving tangential, giving a little more space...see the attached photoImage

vektor
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by vektor

Had the chance to try the dual pivot SR rear brake today...made it even worse. Brake was sitting on the tyre. Unfortunately no photo :/

I'm thinking of sticking to the current solution...works for 99% of the time...

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Calnago
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by Calnago

@vektor... not sure if you read the whole thread, or maybe it wasn't discussed explictly, but the single pivot Campy brakes have a high peak in the middle, so at the very center you're probably not going to do much better than that. Dual pivots have better all round clearance, and where the single pivots may crowd the side of a larger tire when activated, the dual pivots have more clearance that way. But as you widen the pad clearance for wider rims, the arms come down towards the top of the tire and with no tension on them they would sit right on the tire no doubt. They may sometimes be able to provide adequate clearance when adjusted for specifc rims, but depending on tire size, let's use Conti 4000s 25mm clincher as the goto example, not always. Chorus Dual Pivots would povide the most clearance all round of any of the Campy calipers at the moment, but I'm not sure about them being higher specifcally in the middle than your single pivots, but they are definitley higher thant either SR or Record. I started this thread and ended up getting some Chorus calipers to verify this, as the responses to my intial query were sometimes conflicting as to whehter there was more clearance or not. There is... maybe only a couple of millimeters, but that was enough for me.

But I think the more critical constraint that you have is as @tommassini above noted... your brake bridge is low enough that you have to have your brake shoes mounted very high in their slots. Unless your brake track is well beyond the standard spec for what brake tracks are supposed to be, there's really not much you can do about that. An extra serrated washer between the brake and the bridge may help a little bit, depending on the angle of the stays relative to the brake track, but probably not enough to make a useable difference in your case.

I'm not sure the Chorus calipers would give any more absolute clearance at the pique than your current single pivots. The Dual Pivots are however, much nicer when it comes to fine tuning and setting the adjustment. Good luck. I have a bike with single pivots on it. At some point, because I'm curious too now, I'll throw the dual pivot Chorus on there to see if it has more clearance than the single pivot does.

Good luck.
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by FELIPERSANTANA

thank you all for the reviews. I have a dogma 60.1 with a super record. and this group is currently in my Cervélo Rca. I tested this week the 28 mm gatorskin tires on the rear of the RCA and ok. the Super Record brakes offer good clereance. But in the lead I have a problem. I thought the potenza and chorus + 2015 brakes would solve my problem. Am I right?

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by RyanH

I managed to get just enough clearance on the Litespeed Classic by putting some washers on the inside of the brake shoe area. It was the ones that come with ee brakes so probably 1.5mm on each side. Prior to that, applying the brakes would cause the arms to touch. After they didn't touch.

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robertbb
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by robertbb

Resurrecting a very old thread but may be of interest to some.

TLDR; if you have Record or Super Record 11 and it bugs you that you need Chorus branded brakes for extra clearance, buy the Non-Series skeleton brakes! They are only 2-3 grams heavier than the Record brakes (as RyanH showed) and the stopping power is far, far better given stiffer arms. The one catch is that you will need to use the Shimano style shoes (which I view as a bonus - the clips on the Campy ones are a pain in the ass!).

Long version:

I just switched both my bikes from the 2014-2017 dual/mono model (chorus version) to the 2018 dual/dual model (non-series)

A few interesting things I noticed:
- The stopping power of the front brake increased *massively* with the new versions
- There is a "non-series" version which looks to be identical to the Potenza version, but which says only "Campagnolo"
- The Non-Series and Potenza versions come with Shimano style brake pad shoes (with the bolt)
- The Chorus version comes with the Campy brake pad shoe (with the clip)

Interestingly, the Non-Series/Potenza version is actually a stronger and better brake than the Chorus version! If you look at the two brakes side by side, the arms on the Non-Series/Potenza model are considerably thicker than the arms on the Chorus one and to compensate the Shimano style shoes are thinner. On the Chorus model the arms are thinner and the Campy style brake shoes themselves are thicker. Net result: both offer exactly the same clearance and the same overall "potential" for configuring how close you want to run the pads to the rim and for toe-in.

The other thing to note is that I tried switching the shoes around and it won't work - the Chorus shoes on the Potenza brakes actually results in less room to set up and toe in the pads properly. The Potenza shoes can't be tightenened enough on the Chorus brakes.

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