campag mechs and 11 speed

fast as fupp

ive used campag 8 & 9 speed mechs and they worked fine with 10 speed ergo's and chains BUT will 10 speed mechs work with 11 speed shifters?

Flexisurfer

Have a look on the Campagnolo website, it shows the compatibility between groupsets.

brearley

it works.
not as well as with an 11 speed mech but it works well enough.
front mech isn't a problem. I use dura ace front mech with my 11 speed, no problem

rolf_f

Bear in mind that the current Campag 10 speed mechs have weaker springs than the older, pre Powertorque variety - so those might work better. That said, I've used a current Veloce mech on an Ultratorque 10 speed and it seemed fine.

proto

Not tried it myself but I've read on various forums that it will work just fine.

11sp shifters, 11sp cassette, and chain with 10sp everything else, without problem.

Not what you wanted to know, but I can confirm that 10sp chainset and 10sp front mech works fine with 11sp everything else.

fast as fupp

marvellous news! thanks!

cal_stewart

there was a rebuilding thread on weight weenies a few years ago when 11sp came out. the only different in the ergos was the disk had 11 notches and not 10. you could buy the disk and upgrade your 10 to 11 till campag caught on and stopped selling it.

gfk_velo

Hi All

@brearley, well, yes, it does *work* but it's nothing like as smooth, fast or precise a shift as with an 11s RD.

You get some problems at either end of the range, especially on cassettes starting on an 11 or 12T, because Campag vary the distance between the sprockets at the high end of the cassette according to the starting sprocket size in 11s. There are also potential longevity problems with over-compression of the RD return spring at the "low" end of the gear range, since the width of an 11s cassette is greater than that of a 10s and the degree of compression of the return spring differs anyway because of the difference in the geometry of the RD itself.

It's not generally possible to use a 29T bottom sprocket with a short-cage 10s RD either - this is a built in ability of the 11s RD.

@RolfF you are broadly correct re the RDs, however, the strength of the return spring is of greatest importance in two areas - the ability of the RD to pull cable back through complex or tight cable runs, and crucially, the ability of the RD to overcome internal friction in the lever. If used with an UltraShift lever, a stronger spring is needed, not weaker, as the internal rotational friction of the UltraShift lever is greater than either Escape or PowerShift. This was the reason that there were some early problems marrying the 10s UltraShift levers to RDs designed to work with Escape. Campagnolo fixed that ahead of the introduction of PowerShift in 2009 by running a short series of the Veloce and Centaur RD with the same springing as Record and Chorus 10s.

The RD needs to exert at least a 1kg pull at the lever for the UltraShift internal to revolve as designed - the current 10s RDs generally generate around 0.8kg unless the cable run is immaculately looked-after and very simple.

@proto You can get some front shift issues on Compacts, especially, running a 10s chainset with 11s everything else. It's not recommended as it is possible for the chain to drop "between" the chainrings, failing to mesh correctly with the inner. It is also possible for the chain to "over-throw" to the inside far more easily. The latter can be fixed with a chain catcher but it's not ideal and the upshift, small to big ring, whilst it works, is not as quick or clean as it is if 11s rings and FD are used together. There are also some possible longevity issues in the LH shifter, as the pull ratio between FD and lever differs between the older 10s FDs and the UltraShift / PowerShift levers, such that the user will still be applying shift force to the upshift lever as the FD comes up against the high limit screw. Done on a serial basis this may lead to failure of the upshift lever. Set-up issues, compatibility issues and maintenance issues around this are at the root of around 90% of the failures we have seen in LH Escape levers, for instance.

This is the reason that Campagnolo have FD-CE110, a pull-ratio compensation plate, for using 10s QS front derailleurs with UltraShift levers. In boxed (not OE) pairs of UltraShift levers, this plate was supplied from the latter part of 2008 when UltraShift was introduced, through until the revision of 10s FDs for the 2010 season. FD-CE110 is still available as a spare from us.

@Cal_Steward - the reason that Campag have stopped making the 10s 7 11s internals available as loose spares is more related to the fact that they wanted to reduce the number of spares SKUs than anything - it is still possible to buy a complete 10s or 11s UltraShift RH body complete to convert 10s systems to 11s or vice versa, and in doing so, you will be getting the latest version of the lever body, which a user-exchange of the internals didn't guarantee.

All users need to bear in mind that in common with Shimano and SRAM, gearing systems are designed to work as just that - systems. Whilst work-arounds and compromises can undoubtedly work or be made to work to some standard, they won't work as well as the fully integrated system, and some other issues, such as longevity of parts, may rear their heads.

Warranty is offered on the basis of a system being used with compatible parts which is why compatibility tables are published at http://www.campagnolo.com - if parts are used outside of this envelope, in general only materials and workmanship are covered, and again, only for a reduced period in accordance with EU rules in this area.

Best to all
Graeme
Velotech Cycling Ltd, Main UK Campagnolo Service Centre

cycleclinic

Velo gk you say 10 speed rear mechs are not meant to mesh with 29T sprockets but the short cage rear mech according to campag specs 2012 onward 10 speed RD will be fine up to 30T rear cassette sprockets. I have always used medium cage mechs with such 12-29 or 13-29T cassette so are you saying campags own tables are incorrect?

g00se

My understanding is that the 2011 onwards 10 speed mechs use the 11-speed parallelogram (probably to save on tooling).

Officially, the 2011+ new-parallelogram 10-speed mechs (powershift) have a slightly different cable-pull / deflection to the earlier 10 speed mechs (ultrashift etc), but anecdotally close enough to work if you mix-and-match old and new 10-speed kit.

So I suspect that the deflection is now identical to the 11 speed. The tech docs even refer to it using the 11-speed geometry.

These newer mechs can accomodate a 30-tooth sprocket with a short cage.