1x Campagnolo Ekar drivetrain

[gwerziou]

Are the blue and red oils substantially different and cannot be mixed? Is Campy dropping the blue oil for all products? Eventually my blue oil-filled hoses will need to be refreshed; what if there's a little blue oil left in the lines when fresh red oil comes in?

[Miller]

Both times I have built bikes recently with the Campy pre-bled hoses, I still ended up bleeding the brakes.

I've started on a build using Chorus 12 with prefilled ergos and brakes. Doing my homework, I watched Campag installation video for prefilled hydro. It shows nothing about doing a bleed/fill after attaching the hoses to the calipers. I concluded it must not be necessary. Will find out soon. Previously I've installed Potenza hydro and that did need filling after the hoses were attached.

[Miller]

Are the blue and red oils substantially different and cannot be mixed? Is Campy dropping the blue oil for all products? Eventually my blue oil-filled hoses will need to be refreshed; what if there's a little blue oil left in the lines when fresh red oil comes in?

Reading this previous comment from EvanT,
"Slowly and steadily, Campy is going to switch to red oil. They do not recommend mixing them as the formulation is slightly different but more than formulation, they are concerned that mixing blue and red will result in "muddy" color and if you go to LBS for brake related issues, LBS may want to bleed the brakes due to "muddy" color"
I think it will be perfectly fine to mix blue and red oil. The brakes will work.

[uspspro]

Anyone find a source for extra chainrings yet? I went with the 40t, but now I am thinking the 38 will be just a little bit better for pulling gear, kid trailer etc. Also, if anyone wants to swap their 38t for my 40t, I am down.

[gwerziou]

Are the blue and red oils substantially different and cannot be mixed? Is Campy dropping the blue oil for all products? Eventually my blue oil-filled hoses will need to be refreshed; what if there's a little blue oil left in the lines when fresh red oil comes in?

Reading this previous comment from EvanT,
"Slowly and steadily, Campy is going to switch to red oil. They do not recommend mixing them as the formulation is slightly different but more than formulation, they are concerned that mixing blue and red will result in "muddy" color and if you go to LBS for brake related issues, LBS may want to bleed the brakes due to "muddy" color"
I think it will be perfectly fine to mix blue and red oil. The brakes will work.

Thanks! I'm not too worried about the possibly muddy color though, as my brake lines aren't transparent!

[bobrayner]

Anyone find a source for extra chainrings yet? I went with the 40t, but now I am thinking the 38 will be just a little bit better for pulling gear, kid trailer etc. Also, if anyone wants to swap their 38t for my 40t, I am down.

Personally, I'm very tempted by an upgrade to 3T Torno - Gerard Vroomen says "All our 12-speed Torno chainrings also work on EKAR (not 100% as smooth as the Campagnolo chainring but no problems) and in a few months we will have chainrings made by Campagnolo for the Torno." - so, later in 2021, I might have a spare, lightly-used Ekar 38T chainring. Not yet though.

I asked some other aftermarket chainring suppliers about Ekar. One said "we're thinking about it", one said no, the rest didn't answer. I'm sure the aftermarket will get there eventually. Good luck with it!

[uspspro]

Anyone find a source for extra chainrings yet? I went with the 40t, but now I am thinking the 38 will be just a little bit better for pulling gear, kid trailer etc. Also, if anyone wants to swap their 38t for my 40t, I am down.

Personally, I'm very tempted by an upgrade to 3T Torno - Gerard Vroomen says "All our 12-speed Torno chainrings also work on EKAR (not 100% as smooth as the Campagnolo chainring but no problems) and in a few months we will have chainrings made by Campagnolo for the Torno." - so, later in 2021, I might have a spare, lightly-used Ekar 38T chainring. Not yet though.

I asked some other aftermarket chainring suppliers about Ekar. One said "we're thinking about it", one said no, the rest didn't answer. I'm sure the aftermarket will get there eventually. Good luck with it!

Wow! The Torno is sick, but is way overkill for me. Though it would be nice to find an Ekar compatable crankset that gets down to 36. To me, a big advantage of the 9t cog is the abitlity to run a small chainring, and not need a crazy 50t in the back.

I'll probably just wait for the campy ring to show up for sale. I've seen 40t rings online, but 38t is out of stock.

[bobrayner]

Would you like oval? Mark at https://www.pyramidcycledesign.co.uk/ seems helpful, interested in doing Ekar chainrings, and might be able to go down to 36t, though my instinct is that an oval ring may have to be larger (if it's bolted onto an Ekar chainset).

My new bike build is really just a wish-list of different upgrades that I've wanted for a while, all put together in one new bike. Campag, aero, tubeless, integrated bar-stem, power-metering pedals... if I could get oval chainring and/or Torno, that would tick every box. Of course if you just throw in a bunch of features rather than working to a coherent vision, you can end up with this:

[gwerziou]

I would bet that Spécialités TA will be coming out with some Ekar product. That seems to be right up their niche, as it were.

[gravelginger77]

Has anyone tried running the ekar cassette 2x on a 12 speed groupset?

How would this be different to a shimano GRX 2x setup?

[bikewithnoname]

The 13spd cassette has different cog spacing to the 12, the indexing wouldn't work (well it might but not well). Not sure why you'd go to the expense of an ekar cassette and compatible wheel/freehub to only use 12 of the gears anyway?

[bobrayner]

The 13spd cassette has different cog spacing to the 12, the indexing wouldn't work (well it might but not well). Not sure why you'd go to the expense of an ekar cassette and compatible wheel/freehub to only use 12 of the gears anyway?

Maybe the idea is to combine Ekar cassette (and Ekar chain and Ekar rear derailleur) with a front mech from a different groupset?

I am sure there will be an OEM solution eventually (like 2x13 Campagnolo Super Record) because Campagnolo are desperately trying to retain market share on road groupsets, and this is leveraging tech that they've already got, and the brand has a historic reputation for releasing road groupsets with 1 or 2 more sprockets than the competition. (I thought I was so cool when I had a bike built with 18-speed Campag in the mid 1990s; a 9-speed cassette felt genuinely pro at the time)

But until then... yes, I think it's possible with some tweaking, but it won't be perfect. One independent manufacturer of 1x12 chainrings has already said that their product will work with 1x13 so the profile is probably very similar, but moving to 2x you can't be narrow-wide any more, and you need to worry about shift ramps too. Maybe it would work better with custom chainrings, but chainrings aren't the most difficult task for small independent business with a workshop and a machinist. (This forum is full of people modifying or using custom-machined parts to enable some clever new use of OEM shifters, brakes, &c). If the chain is narrower by 0.25mm, an existing front derailleur will probably work, maybe not perfectly, maybe the shift ramps could be modified...? Perhaps the Ekar rear derailleur can't cope with extra-large changes in chain length due to cross-chaining...?

[bikewithnoname]

I guess so, I do think you'd run into some chain length/RD tooth capcity issues too unless the front 2 rings were pretty similar in size. The RD capacity is already likely maxed out on the 9-44 cassette range

[bobrayner]

Good point! Although if you're going 2x, you don't need a 9-44 cassette any more.

If it was my bike, I wouldn't - that's a lot of extra work and extra complexity (and maybe extra weight), for a small benefit. But some people will think differently, especially if they want very close gear ratios

[gravelginger77]

Good point! Although if you're going 2x, you don't need a 9-44 cassette any more.

If it was my bike, I wouldn't - that's a lot of extra work and extra complexity (and maybe extra weight), for a small benefit. But some people will think differently, especially if they want very close gear ratios

yes thats a good point. what about an ekar rear D with a 2x 12 speed setup like chorus?