Campagnolo Athena shifting issue

Mike54321

Hi all,

I am having a problem that is now getting extremely frustrating.

My relatively new Canyon Ultimate Al with Athena has an issue with shifting at the rear. No matter what I do, there always seems to be an issue somewhere on the rear cassette whilst shifting from larger to smaller gears. Basically with a click of the thumb shifter it will move the derailleur but the chain wont quite engage the next cog and will just make a clicking noise as it attempts to. Sometimes after several pedal revolutions it will engage correctly, sometimes not. This isn't on every gear by any means, and it is normally an issue around the smaller cogs.

Since this started happening I've adjusted the rear derailleur to attempt to sort it and as I say, it can be made to work perfectly going down into lower gears but never back up to higher gears. I'm reasonably mechanically competent and am sure I can't be too far out.

I've also considered it could be a bent hanger, it has been in the car a couple of times and it was a possibility. To my eye it did look like the lower cog on the derailleur was further in that the upper cog, by a tiny amount, so I tried bending a spare hanger I had to make them exactly in line. This does seem to have improved things slightly but not a lot.

The only thing I can think that has changed since I originally received it is the bar height, which I put down slightly. Obviously this makes the cable bend slightly tighter. Is it worth shortening the cable housing a little at this end?

I did take it to the bike shop a couple of weeks ago and they send they had found a problem with the cable wrapping around the shifter and had sorted it. Once I got it home I found it was pretty much the same! Does this problem make sense to anyone? I might end up going back there again but it's a fair distance and after it not being fixed last time, am trying to avoid it.

Any suggestions?

rolf_f

Have you done set the rear mech exactly as the (easily Googleable) Campagnolo manual recommends?

sweeney

put a new cable on

Mike54321

Rolf F wrote:

Have you done set the rear mech exactly as the (easily Googleable) Campagnolo manual recommends?

Yes I've tried it that way and as described in a number of other guides. I can always get it going fine one way but not the other. I think a new cable is my next attempt.

Monty Dog

I'd suspect the cable outers - particularly if the inner liner has been 'pinched' when cut or there's a protruding burr. I use a bench grinder to square off the ends and a sharp-pointy tool to open out the liners on the outers. Otherwise, the inner is kinked or frayed.

Velonutter

Monty Dog wrote:

I'd suspect the cable outers - particularly if the inner liner has been 'pinched' when cut or there's a protruding burr. I use a bench grinder to square off the ends and a sharp-pointy tool to open out the liners on the outers. Otherwise, the inner is kinked or frayed.

Yep I would have thought the same.

The only other thing easily done is to get the cassette spacers mixed?

Mike54321

Velonutter wrote:

Monty Dog wrote:

I'd suspect the cable outers - particularly if the inner liner has been 'pinched' when cut or there's a protruding burr. I use a bench grinder to square off the ends and a sharp-pointy tool to open out the liners on the outers. Otherwise, the inner is kinked or frayed.

Yep I would have thought the same.

The only other thing easily done is to get the cassette spacers mixed?

Can you expand on this? I'm assuming you mean the spacers between each gear on the cassette. I assume these should all be equal thickness?

Mike54321

How can they be wrong then if they're all the same?

smidsy

Mike54321 wrote:

How can they be wrong then if they're all the same?

They are not all the same - Thats the italians for you.

Velonutter

Mike54321 wrote:

Velonutter wrote:

Monty Dog wrote:

I'd suspect the cable outers - particularly if the inner liner has been 'pinched' when cut or there's a protruding burr. I use a bench grinder to square off the ends and a sharp-pointy tool to open out the liners on the outers. Otherwise, the inner is kinked or frayed.

Yep I would have thought the same.

The only other thing easily done is to get the cassette spacers mixed?

Can you expand on this? I'm assuming you mean the spacers between each gear on the cassette. I assume these should all be equal thickness?

Spacers are not the same, download from the Campag site the diagram of the cassette and check the spacers are in the right order and see if that fixes it, if not then at least you can cross that off.

Monty Dog

The fact that shifting up the cassette is fine would indicate cassette spacing is OK and that's why I'd suspect cable-drag affecting the down-shift.

Mike54321

Thanks everyone for your responses.

A question on cable drag. If it were caused by this, then when I have the bike on a stand and shift to a smaller gear on a gear where it sticks, should a quick pull on the gear cable where it runs underneath the chainstay cause the derailleur to move that final bit and shift the gear?

Ben6899

Mike54321 wrote:

Thanks everyone for your responses.

A question on cable drag. If it were caused by this, then when I have the bike on a stand and shift to a smaller gear on a gear where it sticks, should a quick pull on the gear cable where it runs underneath the chainstay cause the derailleur to move that final bit and shift the gear?

I think that might depend where the cable drag is occurring. I wouldn't suggest it's a foolproof experiment.

How long is the RD loop?

g00se

There was an issue with the shifters when the new shape first came out that had similar symptoms - where the mushroom-end of the gear cable wasn't sitting properly in it's 'socket' in the pulley and was dragging against the lever body when shifting to lower sprockets.

If they're new levers, then the pulley-wheel was redesigned late 2009 so that specific issue won't be the cause - but it COULD be something similar? If you take the levers off, you should be able to see the mechanism working inside and whether the mushroom-end is sticking.

cycleclinic

When a bike comes in with the down shift not working correctly but the upshift does the first thing I do is check the cables and replace if necessary.

You say you tried to bend the hanger. Have you had the allignment checked?

Mike54321

Right, well over a month has passed and I still have on solution.

I have now had the hanger alignment checked, it's fine.

I have re cabled it again and it made no difference.

I have changed the derailleur in case there was a slight bend in it. For a couple of times up and down the gears this worked, then the same problems started again.

I do feel like cable friction is the most likely cause, but don't know what else I can do to improve it. Could there be some sort of issue inside the frame where the internal cable is routed? Doesn't seem likely to me but that's all I've got.

Now the weather has turned nice it's even more frustrating!

g00se

Might be OTT, but you could contact the campag service centre and see if they can recommend someone near to you to sort it out? it might be the fastest way to get the bike working if it's nothing obvious.

Monty Dog

Firstly, check for over-tight cable runs on the handlebars i.e. unwrap the bar tape and see if the shifting improves? FWIW Campagnolo 11 speed is pretty sensitive to getting the cabling correct, particularly check that end cut end is clean and square and that the liner is not pinched, dragging on the cable.

Grimez71

Hi - i know its been a few years, but did you ever fix this? I have a very similar problem after 'upgrading' my bike to Athena recently. My other bike has Veloce which shifts perfectly, so its really frustrating. Any tips appreciated.

antonyfromoz

Grimez71 wrote:

Hi - i know its been a few years, but did you ever fix this? I have a very similar problem after 'upgrading' my bike to Athena recently. My other bike has Veloce which shifts perfectly, so its really frustrating. Any tips appreciated.

I don't know is this will help but my LBS has just fixed my slight issue with the rear gears by straightening the rear gear hanger - it would previously not shift cleanly into the fourth, third and second smallest cogs but now it is perfect. HTH