Dentists and Lawyers rejoice! Campy has entered the wireless game with their top of the line groupset.
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Initial reactions:
- It’s 2 buttons to shift
- My favorite campy thumb button is gone. RIP
- Love the look. The font is
- I wonder what rando tolerances they’ll introduce this time to make self servicing as painful as possible
- It looks like they’re introducing through axles on the front. QR may be something different tho
- Hirth joint still for the crankset
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Also up on Escape….and I’m assuming websites everywhere.
I’m kinda “meh” on it….first, I mourn the loss of the thumb shifters. As much as I hate electronic shifting just match the old mechanical shifters, the thumb shifters were iconic.
And while I understand their logic re: closer gear ratios, I think SRAM already proved that most people aren’t down with the concept overall. Pros immediately wanted their 53’s back and consumers did too.
Honestly, this just seems like an effort to get back to a level playing field and doesn’t really move anything forward. Wireless has been out there, close gear ratios have been done, etc.
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If they could just put a button near where the thumb shifters were, I’d be happy
I’ll read more but yeah, back to parity.
I mean…I’m kinda glad but Campy has been on the back foot for years now.
At least I’ll prolly be able to get 12 speed Chorus for decent now.
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Further reading from the Escape Collective article shows Campy still doing weird things with tolerances to prevent compatibility. Campy being campy. 
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OMG THEY HAVE A QUICKLINK SYSTEM FOR THE CHAIN NOW
If you think that isn’t news, it is. Campy has refused a quick link forever.
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How did this pass testing… levers are bad enough being adjustable for all hand sizes, finger lengths etc.
And now they introduce a shifter which is dependant on finger length?
There is a reason that Shimano stacked them front and back, not above and below, for usability between hand sizes etc…
Imagine trying to shift the bottom button with gloves on without any tactile feel, hitting the top one by accident, or pressing both in at the same time.
From Escape Collective:
Please tell me how someone with small hands are supposed to reach the lower button without having to move the whole hand?
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Stacking them above and below was what FSA did on their WE system (although it was a rocker switch design, not independent buttons). I rode it for a couple of years and quite liked it…and I have pretty small hands. It will all depend on the overall dimensions of the lever.
FSA actually had to introduce a shorter version, which I think eventually became their standard and only option.
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Personally, I feel like Campagnolo is trying to go the way of Rolex, Pinarello, Louis Vuitton, etc. They would rather sell $5000 groupsets than $1000 Chorus level groupsets that are 99% as good but don’t have the ti bolts or the hollow crankarms or whatever.
I’ve been riding Campagnolo for 42 years (55 years old now). I never once strayed to Shimano unless it was on a mountain bike. I’ve owned almost every level of grouppo except the oddballs like Victory. Chorus though was my minimum on my good road bikes.
The last 10 years, I had decided that I could care less about labels anymore. “Super Record” didn’t mean anything more than bling at the coffee shop and saving maybe 150 grams which is mostly meaningless to me. As I’ve gone towards prioritizing bling less, Campagnolo has gone in the other direction.
I just bought a Tarmac SL7 frameset which has integrated cabling. There is just no way I’m going to cram shift cables through the stem/headset and there is no way I’m going to buy Super Record wireless. Plus I need a power meter and don’t want to change pedals systems.
I’m thinking my next stop is some Rival etap shifters and a Quark power meter. Half the price of Campagnolo maybe less.
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Curious if you jumped on their EPS system when it came out? Everything i’ve heard is that Gen-1 Campy EPS was a trainwreck and obvious that they released it too soon but later version got on-par with Shim. Always like hearing from Campy die-hards and always wanted a campy bike but just could not afford it.
I bet this wireless will have some buggyness in the first few years…but even sram had growing pains in their gen-1 stuff (actually they always do:)
Personally, I’ve never had EPS.
I never understood “always wanted a campy bike but just could not afford it”. Chorus/Record has been pretty reasonable over the years. Maybe it’s because people go into a shop and see a Bianchi or Colnago with a mouth watering price tag and think they can’t afford Campagnolo.
My first “real” bike was (and still is) a steel Condor bike that I had fitted by perhaps the most traditionalist of traditionalist bike fitters. Plumb bob, KOPS, and stretched way out front with a stem way too long for me. Was also told, “its Campy or nothing” too and that “Disc brakes are a fad”. I laugh when I look back at it but my whole biking experience has been nothing but campy.
Since then, I’ve been holding it down with an 11 speed potenza. I have been baptized by fire into learning how to be my own mechanic with how temperamental it is. I’ve learned to love the thumb button and each shift is done with a very tactile and audible thud. I’ve tried sram and shimano since and found them to be different but have developed a preference for campy.
Tho that will likely change when I buy my next bike. I’m really now hoping they throw wireless on Chorus and then I’ll prolly be convinced to stay.
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Wireless Chorus would be awesome — Ekar would be rad too.
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Worst bike related release of the last… hmm… at least gotta be 5 years.
- $5400… and not even a power meter.
- $5400… even if there was a power meter… wow…
- $Did I mention the price?
- STAB MY EYES. That’s a monstrosity. Both derailleurs are HUGE and UGLY.
- Removable batteries! Yay! Except you can’t swap them… Sooo what’s the point again? Oh… being able to charge off the bike… Is this really a huge issue???
- 10-25, 10-27, 10-29… that’s it… 32 “not recommended” What year is this?
- 50 maximum chainring… WHAT YEAR IS THIS?
- 1x not supported / recommended. I don’t care but people want it… again… WHAT YEAR IS THIS?
- 34mm maximum tire… Wait… huh? I mean not that I want anything close to that on a road bike but… huh? OH… THE GIANT FRONT DERAILLEUR GETS IN THE WAY OF ANYTHING BIGGER. L O L
- Good luck not pressing the wrong button on those shifters. They somehow ditched that god awful thumb shifter (which I understand, some people love. But anything that limits your user base functionally people with small hands and prefer a modern front end setup with straight horizontal levers is just bad design) for something WORSE.
But it’s ok guys! It’s not all bad news. PREPARE TO BE MIND BLOWN… YOU CAN NOW USE QUICK LINK ON THE CHAIN. GAME CHANGER.
Campy has become an unironic joke. Sorry not sorry.
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Trust me. all EPS have been trainwrecks from product design standpoint (connectors that get bent / broken easily. battery charger that is giant but has a tiny cable so it just dangles on the bike while charging, asking for trouble. Wires that can’t be connected / disconnected from battery / derailleurs shifters easily or at all. List goes on) But at least they shifted well and looked gorgeous for the most part.
This wireless group has… NOTHING going for it.
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Oooof… $15.5k
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I purchased Campy Super Record 12s mechanical about three years ago. It has worked impeccably and I really liked its esthetics relative to competing group sets. I have been holding off on going electronic because I wanted to see this release. I’ve had such a great experience with this Campy grupo that I wanted to stick with Campy. I really, really wanted to like this new group set, but from first sight and from first read, I didn’t find one single freaking thing redeeming about it (either innovatively or esthetically) vs its competition.
I’ve decided to stay with my existing Campy mechanical for now, because I absolutely love it. However, if in the future I do decide to go electronic, I’ll probably be jumping to SRAM. What a huge letdown.
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I’ve been on Campy mechanical for over 20 years and I just love that thumb shifter. In the all the years I’ve been in love with my Campy, I’ve never felt sad reading a new product release until now. I think it’s time for me to learn how to use another groupset.
The first hint that Campy didn’t really want me to stick around was when they swapped out the carbon shifters for aluminum in the 12-speed Chorus. I let that slide by sticking with my 11-speed Chorus set-up.
But, dropping the thumb shifter is Campy’s way of giving me permission to date another groupset. And in case I didn’t get the hint, the $5k price tag is Campy’s way of filing for divorce so it can marry someone who can afford it. I like being different, but I can’t afford being that different.
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You have to remember that most of the time a company makes a really stupid groupset design decision, it’s because one of the other companies has a patent that prevents them from doing what actually make sense.
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