1x Campagnolo Ekar drivetrain

[blaugrana]

I never understood why they have so many tiers of groupsets with confusing and ever changing names. Especially considering they are basically irrelevant in the OEM market, where most of the lower end groupset sales go. Potenza didn't seem like bad value, but it's hard to convince people who barely know your brand that your 4th tier groupset competes with the market leader's second (while being generally more expensive). And making it incompatible to Chorus and above was also needlessly annoying.

These days, if you want a Campagnolo equipped bike you will almost surely need to build it from a frameset, so it will rarely make sense if you are looking at the Potenza or below pricepoints, because at that level you get much better value buying a fully built bike. Competing with Ultegra would mean offering fully built bikes with Potenza at around 2.000€, but that's really hard to find. At the higher end of the market the value is more similar, but then you will probably be looking at Chorus or above anyway.

[c60rider]

Yet another groupset marque from Campag coming, with Potenza already replacing Athena in almost the exact same slot?

Too many groupset names over the year for Campag, so that most cyclists have no idea which is which other than maybe (super) Record and Chorus.

Let's see, from my memory and just in the time I've been into bikes we've had:

• Xenon (retired)

• Mirage (retired)

• Daytona (renamed Veloce, for legal issues IIRC)

• Veloce (survived, moved from mid-tier to lowest tier)

• Centaur (survived, moved down the ranks)

• Athena (retired) and Athena EPS (retired)

• Potenza (retired)

• Chorus (survived)

• Record (survived)

• Super Record (survived)

Throwing away half your marques does not seem like a good way to build recognition of your sub-brands.

The range when I started back in the late 80s when Super Record had been updated by C-Record was the entry Triomphe and next up the Victory groupsets (which is what I bought and still own) which were both very similar. They'd just introduced the Chorus set that was built very much on the aesthetics that C-Record had introduced along with the then really sexy looking, for the time, mono-planer brakes. Then they brought out the Croce D'Aune towards the end of 1987 or 88 in between C-Record and Chorus sets. Croce D'Aune didn't last long at all until they dumped it and just went with Record and Chorus once they'd decided to ditch the delta brakes on C-Rec and CDA and go with dual pivot. Then they brought out Athena to supersede the Triomphe and Victory which was a slightly cut-price Chorus.

[Vespasianus]

I never understood why they have so many tiers of groupsets with confusing and ever changing names. Especially considering they are basically irrelevant in the OEM market, where most of the lower end groupset sales go. Potenza didn't seem like bad value, but it's hard to convince people who barely know your brand that your 4th tier groupset competes with the market leader's second (while being generally more expensive). And making it incompatible to Chorus and above was also needlessly annoying.

These days, if you want a Campagnolo equipped bike you will almost surely need to build it from a frameset, so it will rarely make sense if you are looking at the Potenza or below pricepoints, because at that level you get much better value buying a fully built bike. Competing with Ultegra would mean offering fully built bikes with Potenza at around 2.000€, but that's really hard to find. At the higher end of the market the value is more similar, but then you will probably be looking at Chorus or above anyway.

Yet, many people still see Campagnolo and think it must be really expensive. I think people would be shocked at how reasonble the Potenza price point was.

Potenza is a good group and one that does compete well against the 105/Ultegra mechanical group sets.

I recently just tried going to a full Potenza Disc groupset but stock was low and it was hard to find the set up I wanted. Now I know why. I ended up having to buy components separately and honestly, it was a bit of a pain setting up after living in Shimano land for so long. Say what you want about Shimano but they make things really easy to do.

If Shimano comes out with a Di2 105 groupset for ~$1000, I think it would be wise for Campagnolo to get out of the low end market.

[jih]

Let's face it, for the cyclists Campag are targeting, in practice three Shimano groupsets exist: Dura Ace, Ultegra, and 105 (I know there are others but these are not sold to Campag's target audience). Likewise, SRAM have Red, Rival and Force. Campagnolo could simplify it down to three groups. Super Record, Chorus, and Potenza would be an awesome line up.

[Roel W]

Campagnolo groupsets are pretty expensive.
I made a few calculation exercises to build an affordable steel bike (Standerd Triebwerk, Ritchey Road Logic, Cinelli Nemo TIG,....) but it always ended up Shimano 105 or Ultegra was much cheaper compared to Potenza/Athena (with Campagnolo wheels).
Their strategy to change groupsets and parts of groupsets randomly (like the crancksets on Athena from Ultra Torque on my 2010 bike to Power Torque on my 2014 bike, both Athena, not to discuss the Ergopower Ultrashift to Powershift downgrade, the change of cable pull-ratios between 11-speed groupsets,....): It 's a mess.
Shimano at least has a clear line-up and you know how long a groupset will stay in the market before a complete new groupset comes to the market (and not just changing some random components). Dura-Ace, Ultegra/600 and 105 are names that last for decades. And ironicly enough, mostly the Italians play the tradition and heritage card.

[Vespasianus]

Let's face it, for the cyclists Campag are targeting, in practice three Shimano groupsets exist: Dura Ace, Ultegra, and 105 (I know there are others but these are not sold to Campag's target audience). Likewise, SRAM have Red, Rival and Force. Campagnolo could simplify it down to three groups. Super Record, Chorus, and Potenza would be an awesome line up.

What are the groups below Dura Ace, Utegra and 105? I know there are things like Tiagra, Claris, but I don't know how they are ranked. Campagnolo is similar. Super Record, Record, Chorus and a rotating group of names that is hard to keep track of.

[c60rider]

Not particularly hard to keep track of anyone's current line up. A quick click takes me to the campagnolo home page, select mechanical groups and it gives me 4 model ranges of SR, R, chorus and centaur. https://www.campagnolo.com/UK/en/Groups ... g_bicycles

[robertbb]

Applying some detective work from another forum, I'm tipping we'll see a 9t cog somewhere in the mix.

[wheelbuilder]

Let's face it, for the cyclists Campag are targeting, in practice three Shimano groupsets exist: Dura Ace, Ultegra, and 105 (I know there are others but these are not sold to Campag's target audience). Likewise, SRAM have Red, Rival and Force. Campagnolo could simplify it down to three groups. Super Record, Chorus, and Potenza would be an awesome line up.

What are the groups below Dura Ace, Utegra and 105? I know there are things like Tiagra, Claris, but I don't know how they are ranked. Campagnolo is similar. Super Record, Record, Chorus and a rotating group of names that is hard to keep track of.

Claris, Sora, Tiagra, 105, Ultegra, Dura-Ace

[gwerziou]

The drawings of the new cassette interface are wild, like nothing else I've ever seen. Is this stuff supposed to drop this year?

In what way?

The cassette interface was somewhat triangular but with curved sides, so it didn't have points at the vertices.

[Roel W]

Yet another groupset marque from Campag coming, with Potenza already replacing Athena in almost the exact same slot?

Too many groupset names over the year for Campag, so that most cyclists have no idea which is which other than maybe (super) Record and Chorus.

Let's see, from my memory and just in the time I've been into bikes we've had:

• Xenon (retired)

• Mirage (retired)

• Daytona (renamed Veloce, for legal issues IIRC)

• Veloce (survived, moved from mid-tier to lowest tier)

• Centaur (survived, moved down the ranks)

• Athena (retired) and Athena EPS (retired)

• Potenza (retired)

• Chorus (survived)

• Record (survived)

• Super Record (survived)

Throwing away half your marques does not seem like a good way to build recognition of your sub-brands.

To be complete: Daytona has been replaced by Centaur, not Veloce. Daytona/Centaur was between Veloce and Chorus.
Veloce exists for years. (I bought a bike with Veloce in 2001 and I bought Daytona Pro-Fit pedals with it (Veloce Pro-Fit never existed, Daytona were the lowest in range pedals))

[jih]

Claris, Sora, Tiagra, 105, Ultegra, Dura-Ace

Sure, but my point was that only 105 and up are in the same market as Campag. Tiagra and below do not intersect with bikes that are likely to be equiped with Campagnolo groupsets.

Maybe with the exception of touring bikes.

[uraqt]

That cassette patent is trilobe like, I read a little about that interface and it's kinda cool no wear and tear. Someone has a crank/axle interface that is like that..I also think that it has no limite to the the number of times it can be swapped.

C

[gwerziou]

Here's the new freehub design: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis ... 2004A1.pdf

[JAQ1]

I think you are interpreting that scetch incorrectly. The Tri-Lobal part at the back is the same as current freebodies from Campagnolo. The design is actually a "spider" integrated into the freehub. Then a machine 1 piece cassette (Like SRAMs) is bolted onto it in the same manner a chainblade is to a crank spider.

With that is also a 10 tooth cog and the freehub does not use a lockring.

Not a bad design, but machining intensive and will probably cost more than an AXS cassette.