The technical bulletin dated 28/8/2021 TBSC-005-21 regarding Ekar sprocket cassette spacer update clarifies the issue Introduction It is possible that there is a slight, sporadic creaking noise from the cassette of the Ekar groupset, particularly when pushing on the pedals. This noise does not affect the functionality or safety of the cassette. (WRONG) This is more likely to happen when the rear derailleur is positioned in the sprockets next to the area where the two parts of the sprocket cassette come into contact, so for the 9-36 and 9-42 sprocket cassette in the 4th and 5th sprockets (the 1st being the smallest sprocket). In the 10-44 sprocket cassette in the 3rd and 4th sprockets The cause of this problem is the spacer between the sprocket support and the largest sprockets of the sprocket cassette .It is possible that the contact surface is not perfectly flat (IT'S NOT FLAT} so that noise is generated due to relative movement between sprockets - spacer - support. PROCEDURE TO RESOLVE PROBLEM An immediate, but temporary, solution may be to close the sprocket cassette locknut to a higher torque than indicated on the locknut itself, i.e. 60 Nm. The definitive solution, however, is to replace it with a spacer featuring a perfectly flat contact surface. To this end, upgraded spacers that can be recognised by their grey colour have been produced to replace the black spacers that may cause the above-mentioned noise. A replacement spacer has also been created, part number R7160440 which can already be ordered. (GOOD LUCK WITH THAT- NOT WITH a GOOGLE SEARCH) PAUL- My cassette had black spacer , I torqued to 60nm as stated, it cleared the fault 600miles later still OK (threads survived). I could not find the grey spacer part number R7160440, you might have better luck with Campnagnolo rep/dealership I ordered Ekar cassette from Wiggles they checked outstanding stock , all items had good grey spacer fitted If noise re-occurs I will swap cassette and eventually use grey spacer in original ( check spacer alignment on fit ) Overpriced smooth gear cable lasted 800 miles before no down shift I clean bike all the time My first introduction to campnagnolo. Quirky/expensive, the shifting is not great even when it works
60nm. will the freehubody can take that kind of torque after lock/unlock few times maintenance? some thread of alloy freehubody may crack? i saw this kind of things happen
Sold two Van Nicholas's with Ekar. Both of them had the spacer piece changed because of the creaking/ticking sound. Got them straight from Van Nicholas.
Graeme FK -your Service Centre input ,reply here and replies to Thewhiterabbit thread are enlightening and very helpful, a warranty repair would be the way to go, slightly annoying going to Stoke ,the nearest Campagnolo authorised service centre, from North Wales I have the PDF technical Bulletin TBSC-005-21 which show pictures for correct alignment of spider/rear sprocket when replacing black spacer for grey, as you rightly say , it is not obvious, especially if fitted incorrectly in the first instance. (No mention in my version of tech bulletin for checking spacer seating tolerance, whatever tolerance that is) I still cannot find the technical bulletin anywhere, exhausting the Campagnolo site For all Ekar information. (and google searches) suspect signing in as a service centre must give you access to information not available to others Here's the rub--- I suspect not all LBS send technicians for specialist training with Campagnolo Service centres and even if they did you would not have time to train for all tech bulletins issues. Surely from Paul's observations a skilled experienced bike mechanic and more, who himself was unaware of spacer issue, shows withholding information of a known issue to campagnolo , does not help anybody, all it achieves in this age of instant information/misinformation is distrust of product (especially expensive products) and can spill into the brand itself I myself am stuck , having stacked up on expensive Ekar spare parts in advance of stock shortages in the future. A likely mistake as I suspect there will plenty of Ekar spares on Ebay My copy of bulletin was obtained from forum when a LBS could not fix the Ekar noisy/poor shifting cassette after multiple attempts, they finally went to Campagnolo who forwarded the Bulletin, The document was given to customer show why an expected simple job turned into something different. I am against withholding information to protect product or create more work for LBS , good all round service equals more bikes purchased
Been running Ekar for 10 months now on my gravel set up right through the North Wales winter. My experience has been quite different. Shifting has been flawless, not had any issue with noise or ergonomics of the shift levers and really happy with the brakes and their overall strength and modulation. Not noticed the jumps in the climbing sprockets (running 10-44) you have, but will keep a closer eye on that. Having the 10 makes a big difference when you are barrelling along a road or downhill. One thing I don't particularly like is the transition between the bar and levers/hoods - no matter how the tape is wrapped there is a significant bump/gap between the bar and levers which you don't get on SRAM or Shimano.
Yeah, I‘ve had the same experience with mine… flawless for a mechanical group set. I‘ve run it for 18 months now. I really like Campy style shifters… almost miss them on other bikes…and this is my first bike with Campy. The brakes are just impressive. Reminded me of MTB brakes - lots of power.
I ended up adding 3 layers of bar tape into the step down gap behind the edge of the good. It's still not great, but liveable. The 12 speed shifters have much the same problem. It's almost as if they got lucky with the ergo of 11 spd. My biggest complaint is their taking away multi upshift. I guess they thought that was too subtle for bumpy gravel riding, but for me, it's emblematic of Campy's differentiation
@@mengmao5033The multi-upshift can be re-enabled - search youtube for it. They disabled it artificially woth the limiter which is just a piece of wire preventing the lever go down more than one click. Removing that enables up to 4 upshifts just like on their road shifter.
Yeah, I understand some of your points. I've been running Ekar for almost 2 years, 9/42 cassette and 40t chainring, for my style of riding it's a perfect setup. The noise you were experiencing is unfortunate, it has to be the quietest running drivetrain I've ever used, even when worn, I'm on my second cassette now and 3rd chain, does get a bit expensive. I love the shape of the levers, just suits my hand I guess. I've learned to twist my wrist to change gear when on the hoods and the 'frequency' of your shift makes a difference. I think Ekar has a longer 'learning process' than SRAM or Shimano, in my experience anyway. Enjoying the content.
Was scared to watch this video because I ordered Canyon Grizl with Ekar month ago and it came this week. I was really debating what groupset to get. And you have good rational opinions. Maybe I would change my mind after watching this video…🙂BUT! I did first 80km with Ekar this weekend in different gravel and road terrains. Bear in mind - I am quite new hobby cyclist and had only Shimano Sora before so I don’t have to much to compare. I have to say that hoods are much better than Shimano for me as a female, they are smaller and reach to brake levers is perfect. The thumb shifter is also comfortable but I can imagine that for big man hands could be awkward. I don’t ride in groups and especially not extra quickly 😂 so gearing feels fine. (Have 10-44/40) I now have easier gears which I was missing before and on the road I didn’t even get to the smallest sprocket and still riding on the flat road almost 30km/h comfortably. The big jump in a half of cassette was something to get used to but I don’t mind to loose a little speed especially when riding uphill. Maybe for competitors could be bummer. The braking feels perfect, I would say brakes have a lot of modulation. Had to tweak shifting a little bit after unboxing. So after first rides I am really happy with it, but will see how the components last and how much tweaking it will need overtime.
Please up the sound volume.... companies need to listen to constructive criticism from companies at your level of excellence if they don't then they are the losers .
I loved Ekar when I had it on my old bike. I think it works great and the huge ratios of a 1X are so useful. Gears are a bit sensitive to adjustment but that's my only gripe.
I recently subscribed to your channel after watching a video on alloy rim disc wheels. I’ve ridden Campagnolo for 50 years so fairly committed! I actually swapped out Campagnolo Shamals for Pacenti alloy wheels on my gravel bike so I was pleased to hear you rate them. Regarding Ekar, I got my Basso Ekar second hand and did a complete strip / rebuild after early issues with shifting. I appreciate several of your comments and agree that it’s a labour of love to keep the indexing spot on. I’ve had new cables, cassette, applied max torque to the cassette, studied the “clutch” function and specific Ekar mech set up (3mm clear of sprocket). I wax my chains and a rewax tends to throw the set up out for a while. The other thing you mention is the freedom in the callipers as I have often rocked the bike while waiting to set off on a club ride and thought “Is this headset or brakes?” Nevertheless I will stay true to my Ekar gravel, Chorus disc road, Chorus rim groups. Thanks for your thorough and level evaluation of product.
I love my Ekar and never had any issues, I am so glad I chose Campagnolo Ekar over Shimano or sram. The small size of the hoods fit my small hands perfectly. The shifting is precise and smooth, the gearing range is exactly what I was looking for (10 to 44 with a 40 tooth chainring) on a Eddy Merckx Strasbourg 71 Gravel frame. The so called “bump” between the hoods, bar tape and bar is non-existent on my set up. Maybe you wrapped the tape wrong? Mine is almost seamless! Campagnolo is the Apple computer of the bike world and has the same type of haters from the PC crowd. I will take Campagnolo, Apple and Leica over what the carbon copy mainstream crowd goes for any day of the week.
For 1x u get a 40 in front with a massive dinner plate, for the 2x on a bike you get a 50-34 with a small road cassette . So what i did was to buy the 2x option and instead of the 50 , i put on a 40 and kept the 34 so my setup is 34-40 with 11-34 cassette.. no massive jumps in the back and great for climbing and on the road ( gravel tyre have a lager diameter the road tyres) , like it a lot
Absolutely my thoughts and experience after puting a Ekar equiped 3T Exploro thru its paces for a week on Teneriffa in February - and I am a Campagnolo devoted rider for quite a while …😢
almost forgot to mention the brake problems I experienced while riding for a week on Teneriffa - there’s a lot of down hill - some of them quite fast … So the front brake started to rub - easy - take the wheel out and push the pistons back - yes road side with a screwdriver while the pads were in there - smiling for the sun was shining … Didn’t help a bit so I went to the rental shop in El Medano and the mechanic started to work on it while I went for a coffee -1 hour later - still not good… In the end they replaced the front brake because the piston seals had seized …😢 Yes OK it was a rental bike but isn’t that a goid testing ground ?
As a long term owner of a gravel with ekar I can say that the only point that i get from your review is the cassette being a little noisy in the middle range. For the rest: fantastic gear ratio, perfect for gravel riding, fantastic levers, perfect for gravel riding and really ergonomic, fantastic brakes. Maybe 10 day are not enough for you to move from Shimano/Sram to Campy and get used to it
Honestly: Ekar has no ergonomical improvement whatsover over 2006 Super Record. It still feels the same, looks largely the same and is bombproof on the same level. …which is why I love it! 👍👌
I had the same problem until today when I added two links to the chain. All of a sudden the rear derailleur has started to work flawlessly and the cassette has become silent. Apparently, the group is very sensitive to the chain length.
I bought a Impulso Pro with Ekar. When I got the bike there was some noise in the middle gear when riding. It was the cassette being not tightened to spec. I mostly ride the road. Over 500 miles and I love it. 10-44 with 40t chainring is perfect for me.
Paul the ‘call it how you see it’ approach works for me especially so when you explain exactly where you feel the shortcomings with Ekar exist. It’s a great strength of the channel and the consequent opinions it draws from contributors who have direct knowledge. From the comments, you nailed the issues as clearly vindicated by habitual users of the Ekar group set. Saved many of us considerable grief. Shifting that cannot tolerate real world realities (holding its adjustment and working quietly, ease of practical use) is never going to be a happy long term relationship. Underpinning it all is simply some of the physics is lacking on Ekar and there are better alternatives out there, depending on where we each choose our individual area of compromise. Incisive work as always. Great stuff 👋👋👋. Cheers
I have an Ekar-Cervelo Aspero-5. Beautiful machine. The Campy Ekar group set works so much better than my Shimano Ultegra group set on my road bike! I really don’t get the reviewer’s hostility.
As a long time Campagnolo user, I appreciate your insight and intellectual honesty. I suspect the reality is that the product engineering groups at Shimano and Sram are significantly better staffed and Campaganolo is forced to design Ekar very closely to their road groups simply to keep costs down. It's unfortunate because most of your concerns could be readily addressed. And it's even more unfortunate because I personally find their 12 speed road groups to be the best mechanical groups ever produced. Hopefully Campagnolo pays attention to customer feedback in a timely fashion or Ekar will go the way of their ill-fated mountain bike groups. Cheers
I quite like ekar, have it on gravel bike and I often ride with mates on road outings and keep up with no issue . I love the braking which is miles better than sram axs rival on my other bike - has a lovely smooth feeling to it - also the shape of the brake levers is lovely. The gear shifting has been rock solid for me too over last 5 months. My only gripe is the shifter thing which u have to adjust your hands for as you say - but I don't find this a major issue. It's my first ever campag group set so not a campy fan in any way
Rode a Campy Ekar demo bike off and on for a year. Had most of your issues took ages to work out the really annoying cassette creaking issue highlighted in comments eventually figured it out. Greasing between the blocks generally worked (for a while). Had to swap rotors a couple of times issue was in the rivets in there, and pad movement. Didn't find a problem ergonomically. But cost of cassette/rotors/pads ongoing compared to GRX I'm back to Ultegra Di2 even on the gravel bike and would just go GRX for a gravel groupset. Gears work, brakes work well, much cheaper replacement parts.
I’m about to start rolling the Ekar group I bought last year. I ended up deciding to forego mounting the Ekar crank, in favour of a SRAM I have lots of oval rings for. This enables use of an AXS Flat top chain. My buddy, one of our region’s best mechanics, was sceptical, so he tried an AXS chain on an Ekar bike in stock at his shop, and took a video for me. He was impressed that it shifted and ran BETTER than with the EKAR chain. Others have said the same from their experience riding this combo. What a wild ‘upgrade’, eh?
Nice video. My experience with Ekar over 2,000 miles on my gravel bike has been much more positive than yours. In particular I think the modulation and power of the brakes is the best I've experienced. I've found it can be difficult to adjust the RD to get perfect shifting through all the gears, but when it's set up right, it shifts great.
I had owned a Chorus for a few years. But, one day, just after I had my hands back on the hoods of my old Shimano (Ultegra 6700, installed in 2009) equipped bike, the smoothness of the gear-shifting from the previous generation overwhelmed me. From that day, I can be sure that I was not using this "Italian art" wrong; it just didn't work that way, the smooth way, at least for non-artisan, ordinary people. When I swapped to the Dura Ace 9100, I felt reborn. So, for me, it's not surprising to see that someone finally starts to question if the Italian artisan engineers' work is really serious.
I own a Campagnolo Potenza on my wilier and a shimano ultegra 6600 on my old Road Bike i use for zwift and commuting, rainy days etc. You are absolutly right about the quality Shimano archived with this old groups. But if can, i'll stick with campa in the future. Here is why: The potenza works absolutly fine, has way better ergonomics and most importantly: It is made here in europe. During the pandemic, you just didn't get sram or shimano parts here. I wasn't able to get a new cassette or chain for my GX eagle. Campagnolo just didn't had this problems here. My next dream roadbike is from basso (frames made in europe) with campy Chorus (brakes made by magura, a german brand with their production here in germany).
I remember when Record OR was touted as the best thing since sliced bread with lots of options and custom set-ups. Then disappeared without trace. Have had Record 8spd which lasted well but could be finicky. I have Veloce/Centaur 10spd on my Bianchi steel which has served me well until the front ergo shifter failed,needs a part inside. So the systems are not perfect and need more adjustments than others. I think the problem with 12&13 speed mechanical is the spacing is too close together which is why Shimano do not offer this. Thankyou for your honest critique of Ekar.
To gently correct you - Shimano do offer 12s, electronic and mechanical on their road and offroad groups. Rotor offer 13s offroad with hydraulic shifting. SRAM offer 12s offroad. Campagnolo needs no more adjustment than any other system if it's built properly in the first place - but many people build it as if it was Shimano and have issues, or use inappropriate parts and have issues. That's not Campagnolo's fault - they publish technical information on their website and whilst I accept it's sometimes not the most intuitive website to use, all the info is there and available. In terms of the lever failure you suffered, I have and i am sure many other shops have, a whole heap of Shimano shifters that have internal component failures - because no product is ever perfect, nor lasts for ever. All of the OR groups were discontinued fundamentally because Campagnolo preferred to keep manufacture in Europe, whereas most MTBs from the late 1980s onwards, were (and still are) assembled in the Far East. This caused - and continues to cause - all sorts of problems related to Import / Export tariffs and the eventual cost of completely assembled bicycles (the advent of the MTB also marked a time when "serious" bicycles were starting to be bought as complete bikes rather than custom-assembled), all of which made Campagnolo OR products obsolete. I know the exact circumstances because at the time, I was more deeply involved than I am now, on the commercial side of Campagnolo in the UK - and watched it unfold. It was not a happy time - but it had little to do with the technical aspects of the product. There were some aesthetic issues - the brake levers were judged too big and the thumb shift was likewise, significantly bulkier than Shimano's - but both items worked at least as well as the opposition's and offered some technical features that neither Shimano nor Suntour did, at the time.
@@Mapdec No, from our information, 105 12v mechanical looks almost certain, given that it's been ranged by at least one bicycle manufacturer for MY2024. At any rate, it's already present in off-road format 1 x 12.
We have had the same experience with Ekar at our shop. Runs smooth in the stand and awful in actual riding. Probably have sold around 50 bikes with it on, and we have had about 15-20 owners who have come back and asked for us to change to a Shimano/Sram group because they don't like it. The spacing between the cogs is just too close on 13 speed, any cable stretch/mech hanger alignment issues and all the gears are instantly out.
Do you find the B tension is a wild ass guess to set? Sometimes it'll be fine, sometimes the jockey wheels will just decide to clash with the cassette on the way up. Likewise getting into and out of the 42t gear is a gamble, it'll do it until you're under power struggling up a hill then it'll just nope out, until you completely let off pedaling at which point it shifts fine. (From a design/use case perspective I don't think there's many times on an off-road groupset the rider will be completely letting off pedaling/coasting going into an ultra low gear)
I agree with a number of your points, but I still love Ekar. The jumps in the cassette definitely take a lot of getting used to, but I found the ratios worked much better on the 10-44 than the 9-42. I've definitely had to get much more comfortable with an expanded "ideal" cadence range, which was weird coming from 2x. The brakes definitely bite HARD! Ekar is the first hydro disc system I've used; I had to be careful to not go over the handle bars on my first few hills because I was so used to rim brakes. I love the shifting and miss it every time I hop on my other bike which has 8000 series Ultegra. SRAM made a big deal about being able to shift under load with Transmission, and I imagine it's nice, but Ekar still blows Ultegra out of the water on that front. Super useful if you're touring or bikepacking, you don't have to worry about losing all your momentum while soft pedaling. I like the hoods better on Ultegra though, but different people are just going to find different things more or less comfortable.
That's such a shame as my Centaur has been faultless for about 3 years now. Could the wear issue be to do with it being 13 speed perhaps? Thinner cassettes will surely wear out quicker.
Found the exact same brake pad/rotor movement that felt like a loose headset on a recent Super Record build. Not a fan at all. Thankfully, the frame (Reilly Titanium) had external cable routing with nice smooth cable runs. Eveen then the index required perfect barrel adjustment. I'd hate to try and get the same on a frane with internal cable routing and awkward cable guides around the bottom bracket.
I have Ekar on my bike, and there's two major issues I've found (and managed to fix/work around). 1. The rear mech tension. The spring is so strong it pulls the mech hanger slightly out of position when the axle is out, meaning you have to let the tension on the mech/chain completely off to put the mech hanger in the right place to get the axle to screw in. This also threw the mech hanger off alignment after a few 1,000ks for me, not enough it should matter but enough it made a difference for 13s indexing. 2. The braking. This has been hell for many reasons, first is the stock rotors do not mesh well with centerlock on DT Swiss hubs, and unless you use two shims they have an unusable amount of play. The pads are so-so at best for gravel and heavier terrain, great for road, but any hydro system can lock up with road to be fair. My solution for the best braking performance has been to swap the pads and rotors to Swiss Stop RS pads and Swiss Stop Catalyst rotors. I've tried Galfer pads, and they had bite but they squealed immensely. I've also found that the 6 bolt rotors appeared to centre in the calipers better than centerlock, so less chance of rubbing with thicker rotors. Finally, rebleeding (with Magura royal blood) and using thinner blocks (10mm vs 10.5mm) again helped with the bite point and getting that "close lever feel" that road/gravel disc often lacks (long time rim brake fan here...). In terms of indexing, I found the Jagwire elite sealed (the 5mm outer with the inner sheath) shifts much nicer than the maximum smoothness. But you need to buy the Campy/aftermarket campy cables if you go that route as the kits are SRAM/Shimano only.
@@Mapdec Yes, unfortunately it is a great groupset that feels a bit half baked. I can only imagine the pandemic drove them to release a product a bit too early, and the high demand coupled with low supply meant that they didn't really bother to refine it as it was unviable to re-engineer (or re-call) due to budget, resource, or management reasons. Once the brakes are dialled they feel great. Shifting is never perfect for more than one ride, but when it does shift it does have a satisfying Campy clunk. I suspect this will be a groupset that will get canned by Campy in a few years once the bike industry finds its next fad. I dare say unlucky number 13 may hold true into groupsets too!
@@robhayes3399 I'd beg to differ. We have 5 EKAR bikes on hand that we use for rider demos. If I were to believe everything I read here, we'd be non-stop in the Service Course correcting issues. Yes, we have seen the creaky cassette problem, yes we replaced the spacers as Campagnolo suggest (under the warranty) along with the top 4 sprockets and yes, that fixed the issue on the 25 bikes that suffered it. I do think that there is a general problem with mechanics being careless in set up - youo can't treat Campagnolo as if it was Shimano, because it isn't. You can't set GRX up as if it was Ekar - because it isn't. There are differences, highlighted in the freely available technical literature, that will help a mechanic to work through the issues. Users also have the option to contact the Service Centres, we will always try to assist any customer - for sure, we prefer to work through the retail network because if we can educate one shop, they are in a position to help far more final customers than we reasonably have time to assist.
I guess the cadence aspect is really a personal thing. I know i would be perfectly happy with a 10-44 13 speed. Actually i do most of my road riding with a 1X 11 speed setup 11-36 and i'm very happy with it. I do CX and gravel with a 1X 11 GRX and i absolutely love it. 1X is certainly not as big of an upgrade on the road than offroad but it has its benefit. Your other gripes definitely made me ditch the iodea of ever using an ekar groupset.
I had Ekar put on a new build and it was nothing but trouble I went to 4 different bike shops to try and put it right at best it ran 80% ok I managed to sell the bike to a Campagnolo fan and started again this time getting a top of the range Canyon Grail complete off the shelf with Sram red I’ve had it just over a year now and it’s brilliant couldn’t be more happy !
Interesting assessment. It seems I may have dodged a bullet choosing GRX over Ekar. I’ve got a couple of Campagnolo equipped bikes and they require some commitment to operate. The Shimano equipped bikes do not, they just get on with things. And with gravel you don’t want to be fighting the gruppo. This is the way.
I've built a couple of bikes with it. I really wanted to like it, but it looks way higher quality than it feels as you ride it. The shift quality rapidly declines as you use it, and it never feels very smooth even straight of the box. I disagree with the gearing assessment, I actually found the way you describe your experience with ekar to be true for sram. On ekar, all shifts are within a 7-11% change in gearing, while on sram towards the bottom of the cassette you have two tooth jumps, that make it really difficult to find an appropriate gear for higher speeds. The brakes are nicer on their road groupsets, but shimano feels far grabbier to me than ekar. While not perfect, I prefer it over sram or shimano. I actually have rotor's 1x13 groupset on my bike right now and while it definitely lacks refinement in a lot of areas, but functionally it is far superior to ekar. Reviews do not reflect that, though. Campy seems to be cut a lot of slack, which seems uncharacteristic for a road purist brand releasing a gravel groupset.
interesting yet i know what you mean. I bought a mason bokeh dec 2020 as a lock down project - the only group set i could source was Ekar. Used campag before & nothing against it. Ekar looks & feels great. Some 35k miles later the cassette is still a bu88er to index .... its so, well - Italian (temperamental). Its like the little Italian sports car ... a pain to live with all year but then 1 day/year it works .... perfectly. Gears (adventure) ratios i like .... but the 13 sprockets i think is too much & so sensitive to heat expansion of the cable. If it was electronic it 'may' be a little more reliable. The novelty of missing gears has long since passed. Looking at SRAM Axs rival or force 2x as a replacement. I maybe pinging you soon so see if you can help me change/swap out the groupset.
I agree, with the gear ratio problems. I rode Ekar on my road bike for the past year, cadence was the issue, either over or under geared. Never was able to find that Sweet spot, always loosing the wheel. The hoods felt small, no real grip & changing into an Easier gear just didn’t feel right. It’s a beautiful looking group set, but a case of “form over function” I was seduced, but now going back to the wife (Shimano 2x) 😂
Hold it.. So you put Ekar on a road bike and had difficulties with your cadence, according to the second sentence in your posting?? Have you ever seen a cassette for road use? Rgr
I’ve had an Ekar + Ratio Technology mash-up for almost 18 months now and I’m simply disappointed. The gear ratios DO work wonderfully for me, but the actual shifting is not that great and the 3 largest cogs constantly creak when riding up steep grades. I’m seriously considering going back to SRAM 1x 11 speed.
Interesting to hear. I had an ongoing nightmare with ekar set up for a customer. I won’t mention the bike brand but someone else has done. The issue was that it used around 1.8mtrs of housing, internally routed and through the bars. I concluded that there was just too many bends. I ended up routing the housing under the bars instead of through them. This just about allowed the inner to move freely enough to index properly, I say properly, still wasn’t as smooth as I would have liked, as you say 13spds needs perfect adjustment. Hands up I didn’t try the campag “maximum smoothness” cable set and maybe that would have helped.
Max Smoothness inners would probably have helped (they do have something round 15% lower friction than the standard stainless wire - they are finer braided, double die drawn and are teflon impregnated, not teflon coated as some has inaccurately suggested - and there is a world of difference, as anyone who has suffered Shimano "hairy" teflon cables will tell you) but at 1.8m including through the bars) but to be fair, that length of internal run with all the choke points of routes through the bars is always going to be a struggle! I am not surprised you had difficulties. There are some frames that we know, it's just not advisable to try and assemble with some groupsets. That holds true for SRAM and Shimano too. Some, there are just basic technical mis-matches. Unfortunately, as a component maker, you can't always be in control of everything - frame design needs to be within general parameters that in Campagnolo's case are publically available in the Technical Manuals and which are supplied to all OEMs.
@@graemefk6519 the customer was happy enough with the result and didn’t want to try the max smooth as you suggested to me. I looked at the shifter manual early on and it did look like the routing through the bars didn’t meet campag spec which is why I routed it differently. So definitely a case of the manufacturer not working to the component spec.
@@philipbutler8958 Ultimately, if the customer doesn't want to use the parts specified by the manufacturer, they shouldn't be too surprised that the end result isn't what the manufacturer expects.
12:33 Hope rotors will be quiet, minimal noise when braking, can barely hear it, in most sceneries you won't hear it, unless you just gently drag the bra you just hear the pads biting, no unusual cat fight screaming noises. Hope rotors perform well, slow wear. nice rotors, but after years of use they might gett creaking in the rivets. But that was the MTB rotors, I've not tried the Hope RX rotors. They have same rivet design, but the braking surface is completely round. The design on Hope is very different, rivets are between the braking surface and the spider, where as on Campagnolo the braking surface is riveted on top of the spider, so more steel. I've never tried this type of rotor.
I am a fan of Hope rotors. Originally bought a pair for my road bike during the first year of the pandemic because it was all they had. They are now my go to for road and gravel.
@@Mapdec A thing I forgot to mention is they will require you to have the caliper about 1mm off centre both with Shimano and Sram due to the rivets, for them to not hit, but that's easy to do, I've tried it with Shimano Deore M615, M6100.
This is what I mean about Shimano. Everyone is just oh ho hum with them and they don’t appreciate how good it is, and the engineering effort they put in constantly, until you come upon something that’s not right like this Ekar, and then you realize the depth of Shimano’s engineering. If Campo were smart, they would of poached a few engineers from Shimano beforehand.
This my friend is silly. Do campy cranks split in half? Hell they are carbon like they should be at those prices opposed to glued painted aluminum. Is campy outsourcing to China to maximize profit? Nope they pay European people a living wage and quality is by far better.
@@dylangrantz8124 To me, the problem is that WHEN companies makes a poor product, they STAND by it, and CORRECTS it. Note the message from Paul Wallace as above. Shimano on the splitting cranks? TOTAL silence and IGNORANCE!! And it keeps on going with 12speed cranks.. Shame on you, Shimano, SHAME!! Rgr
I've been using Ekar for about a year now. I'm pretty happy with it. But it has to be said, it is finicky to set up and it needs to be maintained and looked after to work flawlessly. After all, tolerances on a 13sp mechanical groupset are probably very small. As with all 1X groupsets, chainstay length makes a big difference in how hard or easy it is to index, IME. I have a rather longish rear end which works very well with 1X. A friend of mine has very short chainstays on his and his Sram 1X is pretty hard to get indexed right due to pretty extreme chain angles. My verdict on Ekar is: It's the roadies' gravel groupset. If you're looking for something that will endure mud and the worst conditions day in day out, maybe even on a bikepacking trip, I'm not sure you'd be happy with it. Objectively, it's not the best nor is it the worst. Pretty hard to beat Shimano GRX when it comes to value for money.
My feedback on your issues with gearing and ergonomics: I'm using a 38 chainring + 9/36 cassette. Coming from SRAM 1X with 10-42 and a 42 chainring, I actually like this way better. Very small cadence jumps. Biggest gear is about 60-65 kph and the easiest is still easy enough unless you're bikepacking or riding up super hard trails, which I don't. Ergonomics: I agree that the thumb lever idea in general is not ideal for offroad. Ergonomics are a very personal thing. I for one get along with the brake lever shape much better than with SRAM. Then again, I get along with almost anything. :)
Interestingly I bought a gravel bike... came with SRAM Red ETAP...after a couple of months I hated it. So fitted Campag Record 2x11 groupo,along with Paul Klamper mechanical disc brakes. LOVE IT. Anyone want to buy a SRAM Red ETAP 2x11 speed groupset. Excellent condition.....(Campag kit first generation 11 speed ,bought S/H 5 years ago)
Yes, after a year on the Ekar, I have to agree to most of your points. I could be so much more and I wonder why the engineers did put it out like that. It is beautiful and very well made. The cassette is terrible, it creaks again and again in the low gears under high load. Yes, there are many instructions on how to grease it and the noise will go away. And guess what? After some time, it comes back. I do like the gear spacing on it though. Why on earth did they design it with no interface between the two parts? I mean you kind of test those things before production. The levers are strange: there is this pronounced notch between the lever and the bar. That is just sloppy execution. Then, the thumb shifter that leaves your hand only one precise place on the hood. No sliding back and forth. And, you need to twist your hand for every shift. Also, the upshift lever easily has you over shift the gear or going in between, especially when you are tired. I do love the power and modulation though. All in all, I wanted to love Ekar because it is the only complete one-by mechanical groupset and it does have some features that mechanical GRX or Force don't have. I also think GRX 11 speed was a plain lazy move from Shimano settling on the outdated MTB cassettes, even if it works flawlessly. And Sram doesn't update their mechanical stuff anymore anyhow. So, sorry Campag, Sram Xplr is waiting in its boxes to replace you.
My experience exactly with Ekar. I got rid of it after two months, I just couldn't take it anymore. And I hated that upshift lever which, being about 2-3 hours into a ride, fatigue means you'll never get an accurate shift. The braking was outstanding though. The thumb shifter for me was only really functional from the hoods. From the drops it was just way too awkward to continuously use. I went to GRX 2x Di2 and haven't looked back.
Sińce I've started my story with bikes, in XC somewhere around 2004 I was dreaming about road bike with full Campag Super Record. My first road bike was full Dura-Ace, now I'm on Red eTap AXS, and to be honest. Campag just doesn't fit me. I love lower gearing in RED 48/35 with 10-33 cassette, cause I'm high cadence rider, Campag is still conservative about it. And about the leavers. That's my main issue with Campag, I'm 182cm(5'11") but I have small hands comparing to my size, I'm literally not able to comfortably change gears on Campag. On Red im able to do it comfortable, same with Shimano, docent matter if it's Di2 or old mechanic dual control. ofc DC was less comfy but still better than campag.
its an amazing system with no flaws or niggles in 1500miles or so. I ran it down here in Florida on an aero road bike with 40t front. you'll never run out of gear descending with a 44t on it and the 40 has more range than my current new dura ace bike with 52/34 11-30.
The braking surface is riveted to an aluminium spider that connects to rmrhe wheel. The rivets are designed to be a loose fit to allow for expansion. However, when cold they knock back and forth.
Only had Ekar for a few months but I have to say, I’ve found it fantastic. Yes I’ve had to trim the shifting using the adjuster a couple of times but I find the ergonomics fantastic and the braking has been outstanding.
Lets see what happens in the next chapter of Campy's story when the new Wireless Super Record hits the market in the next few months! As for EKAR forget it!
I’ve installed many groupsets, I was really disappointed in the level of quality on the components. Then when it can to installation, it was pretty easy. But the customer hasn’t really been happy with the quality of shifting. Great in the stand, bad on the road.
@@Mapdec It is strange reading these comments, we build an amazing amount of bikes with both GRX and Campagnolo Ekar. GRX is al Shimano fine and I love the looks of the limited edition and we even build 8 bikes with this ltd group set (couldn't get anymore of them). But, here is the big but, we never experienced the problem like you described. No bikes coming back with any of these issues. We love to work with both brand but our main mechanic want Ekar for his gravel bike and not Shimano, says something I guess. For me as an avid Shimano fan it was the Ekar group set that sparkled my interest in the Campa brand. I always take a bike out of our demo fleet to do my riding and if I have the choice (size and availability) I always pick the one with the Ekar. for the road bikes I have less preference between Shimano or Campa. I like mechanical shifting cause I'm an old bloke but the sheer luxury of the current Ultegra Di2 is worth a smile on my face when using it. So to wrap things up I'm really curious what goes wrong?
What is the consensus about disc brakes.. are we seeing more highlighting of crashes especially in the wet due to how powerful they are.. (just me hoping the market doesn’t drown out rim brakes) There is even a suggestion of ABS braking technology… (💰💰💰💰)
@@Mapdec i actually don’t mind they are, but when many folks like myself having 1 or 2 high end rim braked bikes.. they will be become redundant and worthless, we will be forced to buy new frames ☹️
Mine has been spectacular no issues with cassettes at all. I don't get the real issues you had mine works perfectly and has thousands of miles. I am a bit crazy about a clean drivetrain and I assume yours had to be clean so that is not it. I get it is not new sram stuff that is great by the way but some bikes don't need wireless. My build is on a steel gravel adventure bike. Mostly used for camping and travel. It is a rodeo labs light years different than that time. Probably ride differently from you and don't shift all the freaking time. I thing older riders from the era of six speed freewheels in our youth don't tend complain about jumps in gear as much and cadence change. Without talking about the best brakes in the industry you are selling it really short as a group. Considering the cost has dropped and it is made in Europe and the finish is second to none and comes with a proper carbon crank it is the right call for many.
His complaint about the gear jumps isn't just gear jumps, but that they are very inconsistent. The lower portion has small jumps and then, all of a sudden big jumps.
Sadly, not much of EKAR is made in EU...most of the boxes have Made-in-Taiwan marked on them. Even if it's all the same Asian crap, the Campagnolo ergonomics make it my choice. GRX is OK but I'll never, ever buy anything with SRAM's name on it.
@@larryt.atcycleitalia5786 exact opposite. With the multiple crank fucks that company gave me before the recall they will not get my dollars. Sram and campy for me I have also tried ltwoo pretty great for price
Campy should stick to road bike gruppos. Plain and simple. Bravo for branching out but really it just doesn't seem to be worth it. I almost specced my new build with Ekar but I felt a bit, mmm, that feeling when you're about to turn into a side street and you're like, nah, it's a bit dodge, and go the other way, that's what I felt when I was going to buy it. Went with SRAM Force AXS 1x instead.
Until rear axle spacing is increased to a new, wider industry standard, we can't just keep increasing the number of cogs, because the downside is narrower (weaker) chains. Just going to 12 speed on road bikes, I'm noticing a lot more broken chains in the pro peloton. 1 x 11 is already an incredible strain on the chain vs 2 x 11. Is 13 cogs and a skinny ass chain a good idea on a remote gravel ride? Better bring a chain breaker and a few quick links along!
I'm a Campy 'fan boy' due to years of experience with their road groups. Love their mechanical and EPS 11 feel is just amazing. Ultra torque BB works great. So I really want to like this for gravel where 1x is ideal, having 13 does sounds great.. but there might be too much compromise here with set up, maintenance and sourcing parts. All this might be ok for Sunday best but gravel? But what are my other options? SRAM XPLR - issues with the bb86 and Dub on my chosen frame. 1x12 etap looks good in theory, criticisms on quality -seems built to a price. Shimano - GRX 1x12 still only mechanical?? Assume that means the old swinging brake lever cum shifter. If so I'm out! Might have to just go for older 2x11 grx di2, knowing that it will simply 'work' ? Pick your poison I guess
Seems the biggest failing is the cassettes offered don't offer low enough gearing for steep climbs while balancing speed on the flats. With Sram you can have 40 or 42 up front with 10 or 11-52 out back. No brainer!
Campagnolo released a technical note some time ago regarding the issue with the cassette. There are two thing. One is the interface between the large cluster and the small cluster. Here, I would recommend putting some light grease where the cassettes clusters touch each other. The other issue is with the large cluster. It's a single piece, empty on the inside. Basically a truncated cone. The only engagement with the freehub is with the spider at the back. Now there is a black or grey metal ring inside the cassette. This ring is in contact with the small end of the large cluster on one side and with the spider on the other. I assume the reason why this thing is there, is to avoid that the large cluster deforms too much under the assembly torque. What you need to do is the following. Remove the spider and remove the little ring. Grease all the interfaces (I used some very thick SKF bearing grease in the hope it would stay there longer). Reassemble everything (putting some little grease on the spider bolts, which in my case had none) and lock the cassette to 60Nm. In my case this solved the issue (so far at least). I agree on the fact that the design is not the best for the cassette in this respect. I hope they will provide an improved version at some point in time
Please note that really, this is a warranty job and final customers should not be doing it. It's a Service Centre job. It is not immediately obvious but there is a correct orientation for the spider to be reassembled to the cluster, so that it engages correctly with the top 3 or 4 sprocket cluster. The indexing marks are there but the mechanic has to know to look for them. The bolts are not, as you say, greased and nor should they be. Grease will negate the effect of the Loctite that is used to retain the bolts. Anti-Galvanic protection is supplied by the Loctite - the torque setting which is given for those bolts (10nm) is based on use of Loctite in the threads, not grease. Your analysis of why the spacer is there is correct ... the cassettes made since approx 05/22 have had the new grey spacer installed - this corrects a problem (which does not happen in every case, anyway) of out-of-spec dimensions in this spacer.
@@soapowejazz No. As I pointed out, the spider needs to be correctly oriented. There is an indexing mark but it is not obvious, unless you know to look for it and understand why it is there. If the spider is incorrectly oriented, you don't get correct shifting between sprockets 3 and 4 o the 10-up cassettes, and sprockets $ and 5 on the 9-up cassettes. The torques for the 5 x fixing screws are also important as is the preparation of the screws before they are fitted / refitted. The compression generated by those screws needs to be even all the way around the spider. At the SC, we also check that the free clearance at the ends of the spacer is what it should be - we don't just put the new spacer in and push the cassette out the door again. That just leads to further issues, in the event that there is an error in that dimension. I know that some mechanics outside of the trade like to think that they know better than the SCs do, but in the case of many of the responses in this thread, they are lacking information to make a good call.
I have set up two campagnolo ekars by following campag directions and in both cases every week it needs readjusting. And considering it's a groupset made to be used in mud and crap it's really not acceptable. It should have been made electronic only
Clearly an awful drivetrain. What about a MTB cassette and rear derailleur? I think you should look into Garbaruk, they offer 11 spd 11-50T HG and 12 speed Microspline and XD drive, it's lighter than Shimano and Sram's top options, and cheaper. But i don't know which drop bar shifter, brakes would work with which rear derailleur when it comes to pull ratio. The Garbaruk cassette will shift even smoother as it wears in.
@@Mapdec have you figured out which rear derail and shifter combo to use? Or any idea son options? Do you have to go to Shimano GRX? is it different pull ratio than Deore m6100 for example? Which is wha ti have on my enduro bike. That won't matter anyway if you go electronic with Archers D1xtrail the new version released worldwide few days ago maybe two weeks now or more,ehat eve rit was doe snot matter it's out now. Pull ratio doe snot matter.
I've been using Campagnolo for over 20 years from their first Chorus 10 speed offering with square taper BB to 12-Speed Record with Ultra-torque BB and hydraulic discs, and almost always paired with Campagnolo wheels. So when I decided to get a gravel bike Ekar with Levante wheels seemed to be a natural choice... I wanted to love it, but regret to say it's not good, and I have to say if this was my first experience with Campagnolo, it would probably be my last. My main complaint is with the cassette noise. It's unacceptable and unbearable. I got the 9-42 and the 10-44 and the 10-44 has been OK after torquing it to 55 nM per the advice of a Campagnolo NA rep. The 9-42 is a nightmare. Straight out of the box it is almost the same scenario that you describe where the bottom cogs are OK, the cogs closest to the junction of the two pieces of the cassette are loudest and the top two are OK again. Because this happened immediately with me I don't think it is a wear issue as the people from Time suggested to you. In my opinion there should be carriers engaging the splines of the freehub along the entire width of the cassette, because where the cassette isn't making noise the splines of the freehub are engaged with the carriers of the cassette. The the 9-42 is flat at the interface of the two cassette pieces, but the 10-44 has a ridge at the interface that allows the two pieces to interlock a bit better, and the center cogs are better supported by this extra engagement and don't make so much noise. I even thought that there is no way reviewers haven't encountered this, but you are the first person to mention this either in video or in print. The other complaint I had is with the BB and the ridged bearings. Again, straight out of the box on each down stroke under heavy load I got a loud crack noise. I took the crank off and found the bearings were riding over the ridge in the BB shell and wearing the anodized surface away AFTER ONE RIDE!!!! This was solved easily enough with with some used Record cups and bearings I had in my used parts box. Again, unacceptable. Since I'm in sunny southern California, and basically use the bike for fire roads and dirt roads (I'll never do mud) I don't feel I need the extra sealing the Ekar BB and bearings give against the elements, but this wouldn't last any time for a someone wanting to do serious off roading. I find the ergonomics fine, again because I'm not doing serious off road, and I've used Campy for years. I find the brakes work flawlessly for me, and I don't mind the gear ratios. Oh, and the Levante wheels are fantastic!
On the BB, the only time we have ever had that reported at the UK Service Centre it was the result of incorrect assembly. Can I ask who did the assembly for you? For sure, the bearing does need to be fully pressed home so that extra seal on the bearing engages the channel in the cup fully. If it doesn't, on the drive-side, the clip that retains the crankset in position can't engage properly. This will produce exactly the symptom you describe.
@@Norm0770 Thanks for the reply - appreciated. I don't know what their position is, with regard to technical training - not our market. It's not an unusual error - we point out the possible problem, in the technical training that we give in the UK and the presence of the channel for the seal to sit into is highlighted in the factory technical training literature.
Put it on properly mate be alright 😉 jokes aside, shame they bunged it up, i love the super record road groupseta from the nibali era but this just ain't it, i reckon they need to get off the espressos for a couple of days and come back to the drawing board with fresh and clear minds about designing somwthing that works AND looks cool, seems they can only do one or the other atm
NEW territory for Campagnolo maybe ? Give them a couple of years and they will either be on top of the game with gravel or they will stay road only !!! Long live Campagnolo
I also think, they should have stayed in building racing groups. This is their home and they should keep this focus. But anyway they withdraw from Pro-Racing. 😢... So I'm aifraid they could get reamed between Shimano, Sram and maybe Ltwoo, etc.... forever... That would be really boring and sad. 😢
Full disclosure: I am a Campagnolo Fan. I have been using their systems since the 80's. All my bikes have Campy groupos. In clouding my Tandem. I have the new 11 speed and 12 speed. I am nowhere near impressed with their new equipment. It's still better than ALL others on the market except maybe Dura Ace( which is far from perfect). I don't see " gravel" as a bike class so I'd never buy the Ekar Groupo. But I am not suprised by your honest disappointment in that segment offering. I keep hoping they'll (Campagnolo) do better. But look at Colnago. They sold out to the Saudi's. All great things eventually come to an end.
There are quite a few bike brands that are now making gravel bikes. It fits the niche between mountain bikes and road bikes. You should look into them. I'd be willing to bet some brands out there sell more "gravel" bikes than "road" bikes.
@David Connor No, sir, we started making bikes a little more stout in the early 80's, to take off road. Now that evolution has gone all the way to mountain bikes with full front and rear suspension. A "gravel" bike is a heavy road bike that is kess capable than a mountain bike. The pros have been racing Paris Roubaix on road bikes for 100 years. There really is no need for a "gravel" bike. It's just a marketing scheme. A marketing Scheme that's working to unload lots of money from the average "Joe" who doesn't see through the fog.
@@victorrodriguez2806 I think there's a wide enough range between road and mountain bikes to have something in that middle zone. It's marketing, but sometimes the gimmicks end up being worthwhile. Gravel bikes, disc brakes, index shifting, suspension, etc. Have you seen the new Specialized Sirrus? 😆
@David Connor I have Not. But two weeks ago, while in Japan, I saw a full mechanical groupo with rim brakes. ( WAY OVER PRICED) It just goes to show what demand will do to pricing. And I saw Tons of New bikes in shops wearing rim brakes. The US market is not friendly to the bike enthusiasts. They are cramming crap down our throats that we just don't want or need. There is absolutely no need for hyrolic disc brakes on a road bike. It's all about giving bike shops a new avenue to the consumers' wallet. Sponsors and manufacturers are keeping a hush on the pro peleton. But most will tell you they prefer rim brakes. Sorry, I wandered quite far from the subject of Gravel bikes. If your desire is a gravel bike, so be it. I have no interest, and the bike industry doesn't care what I think or what I want. I'm willing to spend $17,000 on a new bike. But there are no manufacturers that make what I want. I'll sit on the sidelines until something good changes in the industry. But for now, in my opinion, it's all fluff.
The technical bulletin dated 28/8/2021 TBSC-005-21 regarding Ekar sprocket cassette spacer update clarifies the issue
Introduction
It is possible that there is a slight, sporadic creaking noise from the cassette of the Ekar groupset, particularly when pushing on the pedals. This noise does not affect the functionality or safety of the cassette. (WRONG) This is more likely to happen when the rear derailleur is positioned in the sprockets next to the area where the two parts of the sprocket cassette come into contact, so for the 9-36 and 9-42 sprocket cassette in the 4th and 5th sprockets (the 1st being the smallest sprocket). In the 10-44 sprocket
cassette in the 3rd and 4th sprockets
The cause of this problem is the spacer between the sprocket support and the largest sprockets of the sprocket cassette .It is possible that the contact surface is not perfectly flat (IT'S NOT FLAT} so that noise is generated due to relative movement between sprockets - spacer - support.
PROCEDURE TO RESOLVE PROBLEM
An immediate, but temporary, solution may be to close the sprocket cassette locknut to a higher torque than indicated on the locknut itself, i.e. 60 Nm. The definitive solution, however, is to replace it with a spacer featuring a perfectly flat contact
surface. To this end, upgraded spacers that can be recognised by their grey colour have been produced to replace the black spacers that may cause the above-mentioned noise.
A replacement spacer has also been created, part number R7160440 which can already be ordered. (GOOD LUCK WITH THAT- NOT WITH a GOOGLE SEARCH)
PAUL- My cassette had black spacer , I torqued to 60nm as stated, it cleared the fault
600miles later still OK (threads survived).
I could not find the grey spacer part number R7160440, you might have better luck with Campnagnolo rep/dealership
I ordered Ekar cassette from Wiggles they checked outstanding stock , all items had good grey spacer fitted
If noise re-occurs I will swap cassette and eventually use grey spacer in original ( check spacer alignment on fit )
Overpriced smooth gear cable lasted 800 miles before no down shift I clean bike all the time
My first introduction to campnagnolo. Quirky/expensive, the shifting is not great even when it works
Good info Paul. Thanks for sharing.
60nm. will the freehubody can take that kind of torque after lock/unlock few times maintenance?
some thread of alloy freehubody may crack? i saw this kind of things happen
Sold two Van Nicholas's with Ekar. Both of them had the spacer piece changed because of the creaking/ticking sound. Got them straight from Van Nicholas.
@@NeoPayneHK Yes, easily.
Stripping torque is tested at in excess of 90nm dry.
Graeme FK -your Service Centre input ,reply here and replies to Thewhiterabbit thread are enlightening and very helpful, a warranty repair would be the way to go, slightly annoying going to Stoke ,the nearest Campagnolo authorised service centre, from North Wales
I have the PDF technical Bulletin TBSC-005-21 which show pictures for correct alignment of spider/rear sprocket when replacing black spacer for grey, as you rightly say , it is not obvious, especially if fitted incorrectly in the first instance. (No mention in my version of tech bulletin for checking spacer seating tolerance, whatever tolerance that is)
I still cannot find the technical bulletin anywhere, exhausting the Campagnolo site For all Ekar information. (and google searches) suspect signing in as a service centre must give you access to information not available to others
Here's the rub--- I suspect not all LBS send technicians for specialist training with Campagnolo Service centres and even if they did you would not have time to train for all tech bulletins issues.
Surely from Paul's observations a skilled experienced bike mechanic and more, who himself was unaware of spacer issue, shows withholding information of a known issue to campagnolo , does not help anybody, all it achieves in this age of instant information/misinformation is distrust of product (especially expensive products) and can spill into the brand itself
I myself am stuck , having stacked up on expensive Ekar spare parts in advance of stock shortages in the future. A likely mistake as I suspect there will plenty of Ekar spares on Ebay
My copy of bulletin was obtained from forum when a LBS could not fix the Ekar noisy/poor shifting cassette after multiple attempts, they finally went to Campagnolo who forwarded the Bulletin, The document was given to customer show why an expected simple job turned into something different.
I am against withholding information to protect product or create more work for LBS , good all round service equals more bikes purchased
Been running Ekar for 10 months now on my gravel set up right through the North Wales winter. My experience has been quite different. Shifting has been flawless, not had any issue with noise or ergonomics of the shift levers and really happy with the brakes and their overall strength and modulation. Not noticed the jumps in the climbing sprockets (running 10-44) you have, but will keep a closer eye on that. Having the 10 makes a big difference when you are barrelling along a road or downhill. One thing I don't particularly like is the transition between the bar and levers/hoods - no matter how the tape is wrapped there is a significant bump/gap between the bar and levers which you don't get on SRAM or Shimano.
that bump is the reason i sent the groupset back, the grx is so much more comfortable
Yeah, I‘ve had the same experience with mine… flawless for a mechanical group set. I‘ve run it for 18 months now. I really like Campy style shifters… almost miss them on other bikes…and this is my first bike with Campy. The brakes are just impressive. Reminded me of MTB brakes - lots of power.
I ended up adding 3 layers of bar tape into the step down gap behind the edge of the good. It's still not great, but liveable. The 12 speed shifters have much the same problem. It's almost as if they got lucky with the ergo of 11 spd.
My biggest complaint is their taking away multi upshift. I guess they thought that was too subtle for bumpy gravel riding, but for me, it's emblematic of Campy's differentiation
@@mengmao5033The multi-upshift can be re-enabled - search youtube for it. They disabled it artificially woth the limiter which is just a piece of wire preventing the lever go down more than one click. Removing that enables up to 4 upshifts just like on their road shifter.
@@alexeydanilchenko434never have I been more elated to be out of the loop
Bike mechanic here, I’ve had lots of issues with Ekar, from skipping chains to fiddly indexing, it’s been a real headache.
Yeah, I understand some of your points. I've been running Ekar for almost 2 years, 9/42 cassette and 40t chainring, for my style of riding it's a perfect setup. The noise you were experiencing is unfortunate, it has to be the quietest running drivetrain I've ever used, even when worn, I'm on my second cassette now and 3rd chain, does get a bit expensive. I love the shape of the levers, just suits my hand I guess. I've learned to twist my wrist to change gear when on the hoods and the 'frequency' of your shift makes a difference. I think Ekar has a longer 'learning process' than SRAM or Shimano, in my experience anyway. Enjoying the content.
Was scared to watch this video because I ordered Canyon Grizl with Ekar month ago and it came this week. I was really debating what groupset to get. And you have good rational opinions. Maybe I would change my mind after watching this video…🙂BUT!
I did first 80km with Ekar this weekend in different gravel and road terrains. Bear in mind - I am quite new hobby cyclist and had only Shimano Sora before so I don’t have to much to compare. I have to say that hoods are much better than Shimano for me as a female, they are smaller and reach to brake levers is perfect. The thumb shifter is also comfortable but I can imagine that for big man hands could be awkward. I don’t ride in groups and especially not extra quickly 😂 so gearing feels fine. (Have 10-44/40) I now have easier gears which I was missing before and on the road I didn’t even get to the smallest sprocket and still riding on the flat road almost 30km/h comfortably. The big jump in a half of cassette was something to get used to but I don’t mind to loose a little speed especially when riding uphill. Maybe for competitors could be bummer. The braking feels perfect, I would say brakes have a lot of modulation. Had to tweak shifting a little bit after unboxing.
So after first rides I am really happy with it, but will see how the components last and how much tweaking it will need overtime.
Hey. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Please up the sound volume.... companies need to listen to constructive criticism from companies at your level of excellence if they don't then they are the losers .
I nearly bought a gravel bike with Ekar but something about it put me off. Went with SRAM Force 1x in the end. Looks like I made a good decision.
Liking the honest to-the-point review👍🏻
I loved Ekar when I had it on my old bike. I think it works great and the huge ratios of a 1X are so useful. Gears are a bit sensitive to adjustment but that's my only gripe.
I recently subscribed to your channel after watching a video on alloy rim disc wheels.
I’ve ridden Campagnolo for 50 years so fairly committed!
I actually swapped out Campagnolo Shamals for Pacenti alloy wheels on my gravel bike so I was pleased to hear you rate them.
Regarding Ekar, I got my Basso Ekar second hand and did a complete strip / rebuild after early issues with shifting.
I appreciate several of your comments and agree that it’s a labour of love to keep the indexing spot on.
I’ve had new cables, cassette, applied max torque to the cassette, studied the “clutch” function and specific Ekar mech set up (3mm clear of sprocket).
I wax my chains and a rewax tends to throw the set up out for a while.
The other thing you mention is the freedom in the callipers as I have often rocked the bike while waiting to set off on a club ride and thought “Is this headset or brakes?”
Nevertheless I will stay true to my Ekar gravel, Chorus disc road, Chorus rim groups.
Thanks for your thorough and level evaluation of product.
I love my Ekar and never had any issues, I am so glad I chose Campagnolo Ekar over Shimano or sram. The small size of the hoods fit my small hands perfectly. The shifting is precise and smooth, the gearing range is exactly what I was looking for (10 to 44 with a 40 tooth chainring) on a Eddy Merckx Strasbourg 71 Gravel frame. The so called “bump” between the hoods, bar tape and bar is non-existent on my set up. Maybe you wrapped the tape wrong? Mine is almost seamless! Campagnolo is the Apple computer of the bike world and has the same type of haters from the PC crowd. I will take Campagnolo, Apple and Leica over what the carbon copy mainstream crowd goes for any day of the week.
For 1x u get a 40 in front with a massive dinner plate, for the 2x on a bike you get a 50-34 with a small road cassette . So what i did was to buy the 2x option and instead of the 50 , i put on a 40 and kept the 34 so my setup is 34-40 with 11-34 cassette.. no massive jumps in the back and great for climbing and on the road ( gravel tyre have a lager diameter the road tyres) , like it a lot
What kind of spider and chainrings do you have?
Absolutely my thoughts and experience after puting a Ekar equiped 3T Exploro thru its paces for a week on Teneriffa in February - and I am a Campagnolo devoted rider for quite a while …😢
almost forgot to mention the brake problems I experienced while riding for a week on Teneriffa - there’s a lot of down hill - some of them quite fast …
So the front brake started to rub - easy - take the wheel out and push the pistons back - yes road side with a screwdriver while the pads were in there - smiling for the sun was shining …
Didn’t help a bit so I went to the rental shop in El Medano and the mechanic started to work on it while I went for a coffee -1 hour later - still not good…
In the end they replaced the front brake because the piston seals had seized …😢
Yes OK it was a rental bike but isn’t that a goid testing ground ?
As a long term owner of a gravel with ekar I can say that the only point that i get from your review is the cassette being a little noisy in the middle range. For the rest: fantastic gear ratio, perfect for gravel riding, fantastic levers, perfect for gravel riding and really ergonomic, fantastic brakes. Maybe 10 day are not enough for you to move from Shimano/Sram to Campy and get used to it
Maybe. Thanks for adding to the chat.
Honestly: Ekar has no ergonomical improvement whatsover over 2006 Super Record. It still feels the same, looks largely the same and is bombproof on the same level.
…which is why I love it! 👍👌
I had the same problem until today when I added two links to the chain. All of a sudden the rear derailleur has started to work flawlessly and the cassette has become silent. Apparently, the group is very sensitive to the chain length.
Well said 👍
I bought a Impulso Pro with Ekar. When I got the bike there was some noise in the middle gear when riding. It was the cassette being not tightened to spec. I mostly ride the road. Over 500 miles and I love it. 10-44 with 40t chainring is perfect for me.
Thank you. Thats what i wanted to know
Paul the ‘call it how you see it’ approach works for me especially so when you explain exactly where you feel the shortcomings with Ekar exist. It’s a great strength of the channel and the consequent opinions it draws from contributors who have direct knowledge. From the comments, you nailed the issues as clearly vindicated by habitual users of the Ekar group set. Saved many of us considerable grief. Shifting that cannot tolerate real world realities (holding its adjustment and working quietly, ease of practical use) is never going to be a happy long term relationship. Underpinning it all is simply some of the physics is lacking on Ekar and there are better alternatives out there, depending on where we each choose our individual area of compromise. Incisive work as always. Great stuff 👋👋👋. Cheers
Thank you Kevin.
I have an Ekar-Cervelo Aspero-5. Beautiful machine. The Campy Ekar group set works so much better than my Shimano Ultegra group set on my road bike! I really don’t get the reviewer’s hostility.
As a long time Campagnolo user, I appreciate your insight and intellectual honesty. I suspect the reality is that the product engineering groups at Shimano and Sram are significantly better staffed and Campaganolo is forced to design Ekar very closely to their road groups simply to keep costs down. It's unfortunate because most of your concerns could be readily addressed. And it's even more unfortunate because I personally find their 12 speed road groups to be the best mechanical groups ever produced. Hopefully Campagnolo pays attention to customer feedback in a timely fashion or Ekar will go the way of their ill-fated mountain bike groups.
Cheers
I quite like ekar, have it on gravel bike and I often ride with mates on road outings and keep up with no issue . I love the braking which is miles better than sram axs rival on my other bike - has a lovely smooth feeling to it - also the shape of the brake levers is lovely. The gear shifting has been rock solid for me too over last 5 months. My only gripe is the shifter thing which u have to adjust your hands for as you say - but I don't find this a major issue.
It's my first ever campag group set so not a campy fan in any way
Campy is class😊
Rode a Campy Ekar demo bike off and on for a year. Had most of your issues took ages to work out the really annoying cassette creaking issue highlighted in comments eventually figured it out. Greasing between the blocks generally worked (for a while). Had to swap rotors a couple of times issue was in the rivets in there, and pad movement. Didn't find a problem ergonomically. But cost of cassette/rotors/pads ongoing compared to GRX I'm back to Ultegra Di2 even on the gravel bike and would just go GRX for a gravel groupset. Gears work, brakes work well, much cheaper replacement parts.
I’m about to start rolling the Ekar group I bought last year. I ended up deciding to forego mounting the Ekar crank, in favour of a SRAM I have lots of oval rings for. This enables use of an AXS Flat top chain. My buddy, one of our region’s best mechanics, was sceptical, so he tried an AXS chain on an Ekar bike in stock at his shop, and took a video for me. He was impressed that it shifted and ran BETTER than with the EKAR chain. Others have said the same from their experience riding this combo. What a wild ‘upgrade’, eh?
Good knowladge.
I love the shifters
Nice video. My experience with Ekar over 2,000 miles on my gravel bike has been much more positive than yours. In particular I think the modulation and power of the brakes is the best I've experienced. I've found it can be difficult to adjust the RD to get perfect shifting through all the gears, but when it's set up right, it shifts great.
I had owned a Chorus for a few years. But, one day, just after I had my hands back on the hoods of my old Shimano (Ultegra 6700, installed in 2009) equipped bike, the smoothness of the gear-shifting from the previous generation overwhelmed me. From that day, I can be sure that I was not using this "Italian art" wrong; it just didn't work that way, the smooth way, at least for non-artisan, ordinary people. When I swapped to the Dura Ace 9100, I felt reborn. So, for me, it's not surprising to see that someone finally starts to question if the Italian artisan engineers' work is really serious.
I own a Campagnolo Potenza on my wilier and a shimano ultegra 6600 on my old Road Bike i use for zwift and commuting, rainy days etc. You are absolutly right about the quality Shimano archived with this old groups. But if can, i'll stick with campa in the future. Here is why: The potenza works absolutly fine, has way better ergonomics and most importantly: It is made here in europe. During the pandemic, you just didn't get sram or shimano parts here. I wasn't able to get a new cassette or chain for my GX eagle. Campagnolo just didn't had this problems here. My next dream roadbike is from basso (frames made in europe) with campy Chorus (brakes made by magura, a german brand with their production here in germany).
I remember when Record OR was touted as the best thing since sliced bread with lots of options and custom set-ups.
Then disappeared without trace.
Have had Record 8spd which lasted well but could be finicky.
I have Veloce/Centaur 10spd on my Bianchi steel which has served me well until the front ergo shifter failed,needs a part inside.
So the systems are not perfect and need more adjustments than others.
I think the problem with 12&13 speed mechanical is the spacing is too close together which is why Shimano do not offer this.
Thankyou for your honest critique of Ekar.
To gently correct you - Shimano do offer 12s, electronic and mechanical on their road and offroad groups. Rotor offer 13s offroad with hydraulic shifting. SRAM offer 12s offroad.
Campagnolo needs no more adjustment than any other system if it's built properly in the first place - but many people build it as if it was Shimano and have issues, or use inappropriate parts and have issues. That's not Campagnolo's fault - they publish technical information on their website and whilst I accept it's sometimes not the most intuitive website to use, all the info is there and available.
In terms of the lever failure you suffered, I have and i am sure many other shops have, a whole heap of Shimano shifters that have internal component failures - because no product is ever perfect, nor lasts for ever.
All of the OR groups were discontinued fundamentally because Campagnolo preferred to keep manufacture in Europe, whereas most MTBs from the late 1980s onwards, were (and still are) assembled in the Far East. This caused - and continues to cause - all sorts of problems related to Import / Export tariffs and the eventual cost of completely assembled bicycles (the advent of the MTB also marked a time when "serious" bicycles were starting to be bought as complete bikes rather than custom-assembled), all of which made Campagnolo OR products obsolete.
I know the exact circumstances because at the time, I was more deeply involved than I am now, on the commercial side of Campagnolo in the UK - and watched it unfold. It was not a happy time - but it had little to do with the technical aspects of the product. There were some aesthetic issues - the brake levers were judged too big and the thumb shift was likewise, significantly bulkier than Shimano's - but both items worked at least as well as the opposition's and offered some technical features that neither Shimano nor Suntour did, at the time.
I think 12s mechanical Shimano for road is still just a rumour.
@@Mapdec No, from our information, 105 12v mechanical looks almost certain, given that it's been ranged by at least one bicycle manufacturer for MY2024.
At any rate, it's already present in off-road format 1 x 12.
….almost certain. Sounds like a rumour to me 😉
@@Mapdec We shall see. I know what I know and I know where my money is 😀
We have had the same experience with Ekar at our shop. Runs smooth in the stand and awful in actual riding. Probably have sold around 50 bikes with it on, and we have had about 15-20 owners who have come back and asked for us to change to a Shimano/Sram group because they don't like it. The spacing between the cogs is just too close on 13 speed, any cable stretch/mech hanger alignment issues and all the gears are instantly out.
Oh. I bet that’s been annoying for you. Hard to bill for that work.
Do you find the B tension is a wild ass guess to set? Sometimes it'll be fine, sometimes the jockey wheels will just decide to clash with the cassette on the way up. Likewise getting into and out of the 42t gear is a gamble, it'll do it until you're under power struggling up a hill then it'll just nope out, until you completely let off pedaling at which point it shifts fine. (From a design/use case perspective I don't think there's many times on an off-road groupset the rider will be completely letting off pedaling/coasting going into an ultra low gear)
Yeah. The tech docs say something like a 3mm gap. That hardly works
Where is your store?
Within two months of riding Ekar, I lost access to the bottom 4 gears...on a descent. Annoying as hell.
I agree with a number of your points, but I still love Ekar. The jumps in the cassette definitely take a lot of getting used to, but I found the ratios worked much better on the 10-44 than the 9-42. I've definitely had to get much more comfortable with an expanded "ideal" cadence range, which was weird coming from 2x.
The brakes definitely bite HARD! Ekar is the first hydro disc system I've used; I had to be careful to not go over the handle bars on my first few hills because I was so used to rim brakes.
I love the shifting and miss it every time I hop on my other bike which has 8000 series Ultegra. SRAM made a big deal about being able to shift under load with Transmission, and I imagine it's nice, but Ekar still blows Ultegra out of the water on that front. Super useful if you're touring or bikepacking, you don't have to worry about losing all your momentum while soft pedaling. I like the hoods better on Ultegra though, but different people are just going to find different things more or less comfortable.
That's such a shame as my Centaur has been faultless for about 3 years now. Could the wear issue be to do with it being 13 speed perhaps? Thinner cassettes will surely wear out quicker.
Found the exact same brake pad/rotor movement that felt like a loose headset on a recent Super Record build. Not a fan at all.
Thankfully, the frame (Reilly Titanium) had external cable routing with nice smooth cable runs. Eveen then the index required perfect barrel adjustment. I'd hate to try and get the same on a frane with internal cable routing and awkward cable guides around the bottom bracket.
I have Ekar on my bike, and there's two major issues I've found (and managed to fix/work around).
1. The rear mech tension. The spring is so strong it pulls the mech hanger slightly out of position when the axle is out, meaning you have to let the tension on the mech/chain completely off to put the mech hanger in the right place to get the axle to screw in. This also threw the mech hanger off alignment after a few 1,000ks for me, not enough it should matter but enough it made a difference for 13s indexing.
2. The braking. This has been hell for many reasons, first is the stock rotors do not mesh well with centerlock on DT Swiss hubs, and unless you use two shims they have an unusable amount of play. The pads are so-so at best for gravel and heavier terrain, great for road, but any hydro system can lock up with road to be fair.
My solution for the best braking performance has been to swap the pads and rotors to Swiss Stop RS pads and Swiss Stop Catalyst rotors. I've tried Galfer pads, and they had bite but they squealed immensely. I've also found that the 6 bolt rotors appeared to centre in the calipers better than centerlock, so less chance of rubbing with thicker rotors.
Finally, rebleeding (with Magura royal blood) and using thinner blocks (10mm vs 10.5mm) again helped with the bite point and getting that "close lever feel" that road/gravel disc often lacks (long time rim brake fan here...).
In terms of indexing, I found the Jagwire elite sealed (the 5mm outer with the inner sheath) shifts much nicer than the maximum smoothness. But you need to buy the Campy/aftermarket campy cables if you go that route as the kits are SRAM/Shimano only.
Thanks for sharing your experience. These sound like good solutions.
@@Mapdec Yes, unfortunately it is a great groupset that feels a bit half baked. I can only imagine the pandemic drove them to release a product a bit too early, and the high demand coupled with low supply meant that they didn't really bother to refine it as it was unviable to re-engineer (or re-call) due to budget, resource, or management reasons.
Once the brakes are dialled they feel great. Shifting is never perfect for more than one ride, but when it does shift it does have a satisfying Campy clunk. I suspect this will be a groupset that will get canned by Campy in a few years once the bike industry finds its next fad. I dare say unlucky number 13 may hold true into groupsets too!
@@robhayes3399 I'd beg to differ. We have 5 EKAR bikes on hand that we use for rider demos.
If I were to believe everything I read here, we'd be non-stop in the Service Course correcting issues.
Yes, we have seen the creaky cassette problem, yes we replaced the spacers as Campagnolo suggest (under the warranty) along with the top 4 sprockets and yes, that fixed the issue on the 25 bikes that suffered it.
I do think that there is a general problem with mechanics being careless in set up - youo can't treat Campagnolo as if it was Shimano, because it isn't. You can't set GRX up as if it was Ekar - because it isn't. There are differences, highlighted in the freely available technical literature, that will help a mechanic to work through the issues.
Users also have the option to contact the Service Centres, we will always try to assist any customer - for sure, we prefer to work through the retail network because if we can educate one shop, they are in a position to help far more final customers than we reasonably have time to assist.
I guess the cadence aspect is really a personal thing. I know i would be perfectly happy with a 10-44 13 speed. Actually i do most of my road riding with a 1X 11 speed setup 11-36 and i'm very happy with it. I do CX and gravel with a 1X 11 GRX and i absolutely love it. 1X is certainly not as big of an upgrade on the road than offroad but it has its benefit.
Your other gripes definitely made me ditch the iodea of ever using an ekar groupset.
I had Ekar put on a new build and it was nothing but trouble I went to 4 different bike shops to try and put it right at best it ran 80% ok I managed to sell the bike to a Campagnolo fan and started again this time getting a top of the range Canyon Grail complete off the shelf with Sram red I’ve had it just over a year now and it’s brilliant couldn’t be more happy !
Correction;it was the rear Veloce ergo that failed (2006)
Interesting assessment. It seems I may have dodged a bullet choosing GRX over Ekar.
I’ve got a couple of Campagnolo equipped bikes and they require some commitment to operate. The Shimano equipped bikes do not, they just get on with things. And with gravel you don’t want to be fighting the gruppo.
This is the way.
My experience was excellent
I've built a couple of bikes with it. I really wanted to like it, but it looks way higher quality than it feels as you ride it. The shift quality rapidly declines as you use it, and it never feels very smooth even straight of the box.
I disagree with the gearing assessment, I actually found the way you describe your experience with ekar to be true for sram. On ekar, all shifts are within a 7-11% change in gearing, while on sram towards the bottom of the cassette you have two tooth jumps, that make it really difficult to find an appropriate gear for higher speeds.
The brakes are nicer on their road groupsets, but shimano feels far grabbier to me than ekar. While not perfect, I prefer it over sram or shimano.
I actually have rotor's 1x13 groupset on my bike right now and while it definitely lacks refinement in a lot of areas, but functionally it is far superior to ekar. Reviews do not reflect that, though. Campy seems to be cut a lot of slack, which seems uncharacteristic for a road purist brand releasing a gravel groupset.
interesting yet i know what you mean.
I bought a mason bokeh dec 2020 as a lock down project - the only group set i could source was Ekar.
Used campag before & nothing against it. Ekar looks & feels great.
Some 35k miles later the cassette is still a bu88er to index .... its so, well - Italian (temperamental). Its like the little Italian sports car ... a pain to live with all year but then 1 day/year it works .... perfectly.
Gears (adventure) ratios i like .... but the 13 sprockets i think is too much & so sensitive to heat expansion of the cable. If it was electronic it 'may' be a little more reliable.
The novelty of missing gears has long since passed. Looking at SRAM Axs rival or force 2x as a replacement. I maybe pinging you soon so see if you can help me change/swap out the groupset.
I agree, with the gear ratio problems. I rode Ekar on my road bike for the past year, cadence was the issue, either over or under geared. Never was able to find that Sweet spot, always loosing the wheel. The hoods felt small, no real grip & changing into an Easier gear just didn’t feel right. It’s a beautiful looking group set, but a case of “form over function”
I was seduced, but now going back to the wife (Shimano 2x) 😂
😂
Hold it.. So you put Ekar on a road bike and had difficulties with your cadence, according to the second sentence in your posting?? Have you ever seen a cassette for road use? Rgr
Will it be available with EPS?
I’ve had an Ekar + Ratio Technology mash-up for almost 18 months now and I’m simply disappointed. The gear ratios DO work wonderfully for me, but the actual shifting is not that great and the 3 largest cogs constantly creak when riding up steep grades. I’m seriously considering going back to SRAM 1x 11 speed.
Interesting to hear. I had an ongoing nightmare with ekar set up for a customer. I won’t mention the bike brand but someone else has done. The issue was that it used around 1.8mtrs of housing, internally routed and through the bars. I concluded that there was just too many bends. I ended up routing the housing under the bars instead of through them. This just about allowed the inner to move freely enough to index properly, I say properly, still wasn’t as smooth as I would have liked, as you say 13spds needs perfect adjustment. Hands up I didn’t try the campag “maximum smoothness” cable set and maybe that would have helped.
Through the bars cable routing is for brake hoses and Di2 cables only in my book. 1.8m! Wow.
Max Smoothness inners would probably have helped (they do have something round 15% lower friction than the standard stainless wire - they are finer braided, double die drawn and are teflon impregnated, not teflon coated as some has inaccurately suggested - and there is a world of difference, as anyone who has suffered Shimano "hairy" teflon cables will tell you) but at 1.8m including through the bars) but to be fair, that length of internal run with all the choke points of routes through the bars is always going to be a struggle!
I am not surprised you had difficulties. There are some frames that we know, it's just not advisable to try and assemble with some groupsets. That holds true for SRAM and Shimano too. Some, there are just basic technical mis-matches.
Unfortunately, as a component maker, you can't always be in control of everything - frame design needs to be within general parameters that in Campagnolo's case are publically available in the Technical Manuals and which are supplied to all OEMs.
@@graemefk6519 the customer was happy enough with the result and didn’t want to try the max smooth as you suggested to me. I looked at the shifter manual early on and it did look like the routing through the bars didn’t meet campag spec which is why I routed it differently. So definitely a case of the manufacturer not working to the component spec.
@@philipbutler8958 Ultimately, if the customer doesn't want to use the parts specified by the manufacturer, they shouldn't be too surprised that the end result isn't what the manufacturer expects.
12:33 Hope rotors will be quiet, minimal noise when braking, can barely hear it, in most sceneries you won't hear it, unless you just gently drag the bra you just hear the pads biting, no unusual cat fight screaming noises. Hope rotors perform well, slow wear. nice rotors, but after years of use they might gett creaking in the rivets.
But that was the MTB rotors, I've not tried the Hope RX rotors. They have same rivet design, but the braking surface is completely round.
The design on Hope is very different, rivets are between the braking surface and the spider, where as on Campagnolo the braking surface is riveted on top of the spider, so more steel. I've never tried this type of rotor.
Good input. Thank you.
I am a fan of Hope rotors. Originally bought a pair for my road bike during the first year of the pandemic because it was all they had. They are now my go to for road and gravel.
@@Mapdec A thing I forgot to mention is they will require you to have the caliper about 1mm off centre both with Shimano and Sram due to the rivets, for them to not hit, but that's easy to do, I've tried it with Shimano Deore M615, M6100.
This is what I mean about Shimano. Everyone is just oh ho hum with them and they don’t appreciate how good it is, and the engineering effort they put in constantly, until you come upon something that’s not right like this Ekar, and then you realize the depth of Shimano’s engineering. If Campo were smart, they would of poached a few engineers from Shimano beforehand.
This my friend is silly. Do campy cranks split in half? Hell they are carbon like they should be at those prices opposed to glued painted aluminum.
Is campy outsourcing to China to maximize profit? Nope they pay European people a living wage and quality is by far better.
@@dylangrantz8124 To me, the problem is that WHEN companies makes a poor product, they STAND by it, and CORRECTS it. Note the message from Paul Wallace as above. Shimano on the splitting cranks? TOTAL silence and IGNORANCE!! And it keeps on going with 12speed cranks.. Shame on you, Shimano, SHAME!! Rgr
@@borano2031and the Shimano power enters which after 2 generations STILL DONT WORK.
@@Levelochef Correct. Rgr
I've been using Ekar for about a year now. I'm pretty happy with it. But it has to be said, it is finicky to set up and it needs to be maintained and looked after to work flawlessly. After all, tolerances on a 13sp mechanical groupset are probably very small. As with all 1X groupsets, chainstay length makes a big difference in how hard or easy it is to index, IME. I have a rather longish rear end which works very well with 1X. A friend of mine has very short chainstays on his and his Sram 1X is pretty hard to get indexed right due to pretty extreme chain angles. My verdict on Ekar is: It's the roadies' gravel groupset. If you're looking for something that will endure mud and the worst conditions day in day out, maybe even on a bikepacking trip, I'm not sure you'd be happy with it. Objectively, it's not the best nor is it the worst. Pretty hard to beat Shimano GRX when it comes to value for money.
My feedback on your issues with gearing and ergonomics: I'm using a 38 chainring + 9/36 cassette. Coming from SRAM 1X with 10-42 and a 42 chainring, I actually like this way better. Very small cadence jumps. Biggest gear is about 60-65 kph and the easiest is still easy enough unless you're bikepacking or riding up super hard trails, which I don't. Ergonomics: I agree that the thumb lever idea in general is not ideal for offroad. Ergonomics are a very personal thing. I for one get along with the brake lever shape much better than with SRAM. Then again, I get along with almost anything. :)
Interestingly I bought a gravel bike... came with SRAM Red ETAP...after a couple of months I hated it. So fitted Campag Record 2x11 groupo,along with Paul Klamper mechanical disc brakes. LOVE IT. Anyone want to buy a SRAM Red ETAP 2x11 speed groupset. Excellent condition.....(Campag kit first generation 11 speed ,bought S/H 5 years ago)
Is the audio low,?
Yes, after a year on the Ekar, I have to agree to most of your points. I could be so much more and I wonder why the engineers did put it out like that. It is beautiful and very well made. The cassette is terrible, it creaks again and again in the low gears under high load. Yes, there are many instructions on how to grease it and the noise will go away. And guess what? After some time, it comes back. I do like the gear spacing on it though. Why on earth did they design it with no interface between the two parts? I mean you kind of test those things before production.
The levers are strange: there is this pronounced notch between the lever and the bar. That is just sloppy execution. Then, the thumb shifter that leaves your hand only one precise place on the hood. No sliding back and forth. And, you need to twist your hand for every shift. Also, the upshift lever easily has you over shift the gear or going in between, especially when you are tired. I do love the power and modulation though.
All in all, I wanted to love Ekar because it is the only complete one-by mechanical groupset and it does have some features that mechanical GRX or Force don't have. I also think GRX 11 speed was a plain lazy move from Shimano settling on the outdated MTB cassettes, even if it works flawlessly. And Sram doesn't update their mechanical stuff anymore anyhow.
So, sorry Campag, Sram Xplr is waiting in its boxes to replace you.
Great comment. Thank you
You'll love the SRAM XPLR AXS....i love mine. Have it on a gravel rig, and it works phenomenal
My experience exactly with Ekar. I got rid of it after two months, I just couldn't take it anymore. And I hated that upshift lever which, being about 2-3 hours into a ride, fatigue means you'll never get an accurate shift. The braking was outstanding though. The thumb shifter for me was only really functional from the hoods. From the drops it was just way too awkward to continuously use. I went to GRX 2x Di2 and haven't looked back.
Sińce I've started my story with bikes, in XC somewhere around 2004 I was dreaming about road bike with full Campag Super Record. My first road bike was full Dura-Ace, now I'm on Red eTap AXS, and to be honest. Campag just doesn't fit me. I love lower gearing in RED 48/35 with 10-33 cassette, cause I'm high cadence rider, Campag is still conservative about it. And about the leavers. That's my main issue with Campag, I'm 182cm(5'11") but I have small hands comparing to my size, I'm literally not able to comfortably change gears on Campag. On Red im able to do it comfortable, same with Shimano, docent matter if it's Di2 or old mechanic dual control. ofc DC was less comfy but still better than campag.
its an amazing system with no flaws or niggles in 1500miles or so. I ran it down here in Florida on an aero road bike with 40t front. you'll never run out of gear descending with a 44t on it and the 40 has more range than my current new dura ace bike with 52/34 11-30.
What do you mean when you say the rotors float?
The braking surface is riveted to an aluminium spider that connects to rmrhe wheel. The rivets are designed to be a loose fit to allow for expansion. However, when cold they knock back and forth.
Only had Ekar for a few months but I have to say, I’ve found it fantastic. Yes I’ve had to trim the shifting using the adjuster a couple of times but I find the ergonomics fantastic and the braking has been outstanding.
Lets see what happens in the next chapter of Campy's story when the new Wireless Super Record hits the market in the next few months! As for EKAR forget it!
Thanks for your appraisal. I was considering a bike with Ekar but not now.
You won't regret Ekar fir sure.
I’ve installed many groupsets, I was really disappointed in the level of quality on the components. Then when it can to installation, it was pretty easy. But the customer hasn’t really been happy with the quality of shifting. Great in the stand, bad on the road.
I feel sorry for bike shops selling bikes with Ekar. Must be a lot of boomerang bikes to deal with.
@@Mapdec It is strange reading these comments, we build an amazing amount of bikes with both GRX and Campagnolo Ekar. GRX is al Shimano fine and I love the looks of the limited edition and we even build 8 bikes with this ltd group set (couldn't get anymore of them). But, here is the big but, we never experienced the problem like you described. No bikes coming back with any of these issues. We love to work with both brand but our main mechanic want Ekar for his gravel bike and not Shimano, says something I guess. For me as an avid Shimano fan it was the Ekar group set that sparkled my interest in the Campa brand. I always take a bike out of our demo fleet to do my riding and if I have the choice (size and availability) I always pick the one with the Ekar. for the road bikes I have less preference between Shimano or Campa. I like mechanical shifting cause I'm an old bloke but the sheer luxury of the current Ultegra Di2 is worth a smile on my face when using it.
So to wrap things up I'm really curious what goes wrong?
There is a lot of chat in the comments to get your teeth into. Good and bad. Thanks for adding your experience
What is the consensus about disc brakes.. are we seeing more highlighting of crashes especially in the wet due to how powerful they are.. (just me hoping the market doesn’t drown out rim brakes) There is even a suggestion of ABS braking technology… (💰💰💰💰)
I think discs are very much here to stay
@@Mapdec i actually don’t mind they are, but when many folks like myself having 1 or 2 high end rim braked bikes.. they will be become redundant and worthless, we will be forced to buy new frames ☹️
@@PaulFoye I think we are already beyond that point. Lots of amazing rim brake bikes going on eBay for low low prices.
Mine has been spectacular no issues with cassettes at all. I don't get the real issues you had mine works perfectly and has thousands of miles. I am a bit crazy about a clean drivetrain and I assume yours had to be clean so that is not it. I get it is not new sram stuff that is great by the way but some bikes don't need wireless. My build is on a steel gravel adventure bike. Mostly used for camping and travel. It is a rodeo labs light years different than that time. Probably ride differently from you and don't shift all the freaking time. I thing older riders from the era of six speed freewheels in our youth don't tend complain about jumps in gear as much and cadence change. Without talking about the best brakes in the industry you are selling it really short as a group.
Considering the cost has dropped and it is made in Europe and the finish is second to none and comes with a proper carbon crank it is the right call for many.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I think we shift all the time because where we live I don’t think I could find a mile of flat road
His complaint about the gear jumps isn't just gear jumps, but that they are very inconsistent. The lower portion has small jumps and then, all of a sudden big jumps.
Sadly, not much of EKAR is made in EU...most of the boxes have Made-in-Taiwan marked on them. Even if it's all the same Asian crap, the Campagnolo ergonomics make it my choice. GRX is OK but I'll never, ever buy anything with SRAM's name on it.
@@larryt.atcycleitalia5786 exact opposite. With the multiple crank fucks that company gave me before the recall they will not get my dollars. Sram and campy for me I have also tried ltwoo pretty great for price
Campy should stick to road bike gruppos. Plain and simple. Bravo for branching out but really it just doesn't seem to be worth it. I almost specced my new build with Ekar but I felt a bit, mmm, that feeling when you're about to turn into a side street and you're like, nah, it's a bit dodge, and go the other way, that's what I felt when I was going to buy it. Went with SRAM Force AXS 1x instead.
Until rear axle spacing is increased to a new, wider industry standard, we can't just keep increasing the number of cogs, because the downside is narrower (weaker) chains. Just going to 12 speed on road bikes, I'm noticing a lot more broken chains in the pro peloton. 1 x 11 is already an incredible strain on the chain vs 2 x 11. Is 13 cogs and a skinny ass chain a good idea on a remote gravel ride? Better bring a chain breaker and a few quick links along!
Totally agree. 1x12 is just about ok. I think it’s time to see innovation in other areas other than ‘add another cog’
"I'm noticing a lot more broken chains in the pro peloton". Really? Where? Actual data?
I'm a Campy 'fan boy' due to years of experience with their road groups. Love their mechanical and EPS 11 feel is just amazing. Ultra torque BB works great. So I really want to like this for gravel where 1x is ideal, having 13 does sounds great.. but there might be too much compromise here with set up, maintenance and sourcing parts. All this might be ok for Sunday best but gravel?
But what are my other options? SRAM XPLR - issues with the bb86 and Dub on my chosen frame. 1x12 etap looks good in theory, criticisms on quality -seems built to a price. Shimano - GRX 1x12 still only mechanical?? Assume that means the old swinging brake lever cum shifter. If so I'm out! Might have to just go for older 2x11 grx di2, knowing that it will simply 'work' ?
Pick your poison I guess
Di2 GRX won’t be far away
Seems the biggest failing is the cassettes offered don't offer low enough gearing for steep climbs while balancing speed on the flats. With Sram you can have 40 or 42 up front with 10 or 11-52 out back. No brainer!
Friend of mine has Ekar. Has had the devil's own job keeping on top of the indexing, especially going up the cassette. He's not a fan.
13 speed mechanical leaves no wiggleroom for streched wiers and missalignements.
Campagnolo released a technical note some time ago regarding the issue with the cassette. There are two thing. One is the interface between the large cluster and the small cluster. Here, I would recommend putting some light grease where the cassettes clusters touch each other. The other issue is with the large cluster. It's a single piece, empty on the inside. Basically a truncated cone. The only engagement with the freehub is with the spider at the back. Now there is a black or grey metal ring inside the cassette. This ring is in contact with the small end of the large cluster on one side and with the spider on the other. I assume the reason why this thing is there, is to avoid that the large cluster deforms too much under the assembly torque. What you need to do is the following. Remove the spider and remove the little ring. Grease all the interfaces (I used some very thick SKF bearing grease in the hope it would stay there longer). Reassemble everything (putting some little grease on the spider bolts, which in my case had none) and lock the cassette to 60Nm. In my case this solved the issue (so far at least). I agree on the fact that the design is not the best for the cassette in this respect. I hope they will provide an improved version at some point in time
Cool. Can you link me to it? I couldn’t find anything on their website. Seems like quite an important thing for folk to know
Yep Grease and extra torque silenced my 9-42 with the black spacer
Please note that really, this is a warranty job and final customers should not be doing it. It's a Service Centre job.
It is not immediately obvious but there is a correct orientation for the spider to be reassembled to the cluster, so that it engages correctly with the top 3 or 4 sprocket cluster. The indexing marks are there but the mechanic has to know to look for them.
The bolts are not, as you say, greased and nor should they be. Grease will negate the effect of the Loctite that is used to retain the bolts. Anti-Galvanic protection is supplied by the Loctite - the torque setting which is given for those bolts (10nm) is based on use of Loctite in the threads, not grease.
Your analysis of why the spacer is there is correct ... the cassettes made since approx 05/22 have had the new grey spacer installed - this corrects a problem (which does not happen in every case, anyway) of out-of-spec dimensions in this spacer.
Come on, we are taking about removing 5 screws, adding some fat, and putting the screws back on. Not that complicated.
@@soapowejazz No.
As I pointed out, the spider needs to be correctly oriented. There is an indexing mark but it is not obvious, unless you know to look for it and understand why it is there.
If the spider is incorrectly oriented, you don't get correct shifting between sprockets 3 and 4 o the 10-up cassettes, and sprockets $ and 5 on the 9-up cassettes.
The torques for the 5 x fixing screws are also important as is the preparation of the screws before they are fitted / refitted. The compression generated by those screws needs to be even all the way around the spider.
At the SC, we also check that the free clearance at the ends of the spacer is what it should be - we don't just put the new spacer in and push the cassette out the door again. That just leads to further issues, in the event that there is an error in that dimension.
I know that some mechanics outside of the trade like to think that they know better than the SCs do, but in the case of many of the responses in this thread, they are lacking information to make a good call.
I have set up two campagnolo ekars by following campag directions and in both cases every week it needs readjusting. And considering it's a groupset made to be used in mud and crap it's really not acceptable. It should have been made electronic only
Clearly an awful drivetrain. What about a MTB cassette and rear derailleur? I think you should look into Garbaruk, they offer 11 spd 11-50T HG and 12 speed Microspline and XD drive, it's lighter than Shimano and Sram's top options, and cheaper. But i don't know which drop bar shifter, brakes would work with which rear derailleur when it comes to pull ratio.
The Garbaruk cassette will shift even smoother as it wears in.
I’m looking at one of these to lighten the road bike.
@@Mapdec have you figured out which rear derail and shifter combo to use? Or any idea son options? Do you have to go to Shimano GRX? is it different pull ratio than Deore m6100 for example? Which is wha ti have on my enduro bike. That won't matter anyway if you go electronic with Archers D1xtrail the new version released worldwide few days ago maybe two weeks now or more,ehat eve rit was doe snot matter it's
out now. Pull ratio doe snot matter.
Audio levels for your video are way lower than the ads, its rough!
Weird. Sorry.
I've been using Campagnolo for over 20 years from their first Chorus 10 speed offering with square taper BB to 12-Speed Record with Ultra-torque BB and hydraulic discs, and almost always paired with Campagnolo wheels. So when I decided to get a gravel bike Ekar with Levante wheels seemed to be a natural choice... I wanted to love it, but regret to say it's not good, and I have to say if this was my first experience with Campagnolo, it would probably be my last.
My main complaint is with the cassette noise. It's unacceptable and unbearable. I got the 9-42 and the 10-44 and the 10-44 has been OK after torquing it to 55 nM per the advice of a Campagnolo NA rep. The 9-42 is a nightmare.
Straight out of the box it is almost the same scenario that you describe where the bottom cogs are OK, the cogs closest to the junction of the two pieces of the cassette are loudest and the top two are OK again. Because this happened immediately with me I don't think it is a wear issue as the people from Time suggested to you. In my opinion there should be carriers engaging the splines of the freehub along the entire width of the cassette, because where the cassette isn't making noise the splines of the freehub are engaged with the carriers of the cassette. The the 9-42 is flat at the interface of the two cassette pieces, but the 10-44 has a ridge at the interface that allows the two pieces to interlock a bit better, and the center cogs are better supported by this extra engagement and don't make so much noise. I even thought that there is no way reviewers haven't encountered this, but you are the first person to mention this either in video or in print.
The other complaint I had is with the BB and the ridged bearings. Again, straight out of the box on each down stroke under heavy load I got a loud crack noise. I took the crank off and found the bearings were riding over the ridge in the BB shell and wearing the anodized surface away AFTER ONE RIDE!!!! This was solved easily enough with with some used Record cups and bearings I had in my used parts box. Again, unacceptable. Since I'm in sunny southern California, and basically use the bike for fire roads and dirt roads (I'll never do mud) I don't feel I need the extra sealing the Ekar BB and bearings give against the elements, but this wouldn't last any time for a someone wanting to do serious off roading.
I find the ergonomics fine, again because I'm not doing serious off road, and I've used Campy for years. I find the brakes work flawlessly for me, and I don't mind the gear ratios. Oh, and the Levante wheels are fantastic!
On the BB, the only time we have ever had that reported at the UK Service Centre it was the result of incorrect assembly.
Can I ask who did the assembly for you?
For sure, the bearing does need to be fully pressed home so that extra seal on the bearing engages the channel in the cup fully. If it doesn't, on the drive-side, the clip that retains the crankset in position can't engage properly. This will produce exactly the symptom you describe.
@@graemefk6519 I bought the bike from Cicli Corsa in Italy.
@@Norm0770 Thanks for the reply - appreciated.
I don't know what their position is, with regard to technical training - not our market.
It's not an unusual error - we point out the possible problem, in the technical training that we give in the UK and the presence of the channel for the seal to sit into is highlighted in the factory technical training literature.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Put it on properly mate be alright 😉 jokes aside, shame they bunged it up, i love the super record road groupseta from the nibali era but this just ain't it, i reckon they need to get off the espressos for a couple of days and come back to the drawing board with fresh and clear minds about designing somwthing that works AND looks cool, seems they can only do one or the other atm
Never had any interest in Campag equipment, the thumb shifters always put me off
Thats a shame. Had some real opportunity to really innovate but sounds like they stuffed it up. Brakes sound good though for how i like them.
NEW territory for Campagnolo maybe ? Give them a couple of years and they will either be on top of the game with gravel or they will stay road only !!! Long live Campagnolo
Hair seems to be suffering a major void Paul. Don't let Hambini see that 😊😊😊
Time to see my hairdresser
I also think, they should have stayed in building racing groups. This is their home and they should keep this focus. But anyway they withdraw from Pro-Racing. 😢... So I'm aifraid they could get reamed between Shimano, Sram and maybe Ltwoo, etc.... forever... That would be really boring and sad. 😢
Campagnolo is iconic nice on retrov bikes but prefer shimano to ride
Very poor sound on this one. I just gave up.
Full disclosure: I am a Campagnolo Fan. I have been using their systems since the 80's. All my bikes have Campy groupos. In clouding my Tandem.
I have the new 11 speed and 12 speed.
I am nowhere near impressed with their new equipment. It's still better than ALL others on the market except maybe Dura Ace( which is far from perfect).
I don't see " gravel" as a bike class so I'd never buy the Ekar Groupo. But I am not suprised by your honest disappointment in that segment offering.
I keep hoping they'll (Campagnolo) do better. But look at Colnago. They sold out to the Saudi's.
All great things eventually come to an end.
There are quite a few bike brands that are now making gravel bikes. It fits the niche between mountain bikes and road bikes. You should look into them. I'd be willing to bet some brands out there sell more "gravel" bikes than "road" bikes.
@David Connor
No, sir, we started making bikes a little more stout in the early 80's, to take off road.
Now that evolution has gone all the way to mountain bikes with full front and rear suspension. A "gravel" bike is a heavy road bike that is kess capable than a mountain bike. The pros have been racing Paris Roubaix on road bikes for 100 years.
There really is no need for a "gravel" bike.
It's just a marketing scheme. A marketing Scheme that's working to unload lots of money from the average "Joe" who doesn't see through the fog.
@@victorrodriguez2806 I think there's a wide enough range between road and mountain bikes to have something in that middle zone. It's marketing, but sometimes the gimmicks end up being worthwhile. Gravel bikes, disc brakes, index shifting, suspension, etc. Have you seen the new Specialized Sirrus? 😆
@David Connor
I have Not.
But two weeks ago, while in Japan, I saw a full mechanical groupo with rim brakes. ( WAY OVER PRICED) It just goes to show what demand will do to pricing. And I saw Tons of New bikes in shops wearing rim brakes.
The US market is not friendly to the bike enthusiasts. They are cramming crap down our throats that we just don't want or need.
There is absolutely no need for hyrolic disc brakes on a road bike.
It's all about giving bike shops a new avenue to the consumers' wallet.
Sponsors and manufacturers are keeping a hush on the pro peleton. But most will tell you they prefer rim brakes.
Sorry, I wandered quite far from the subject of Gravel bikes. If your desire is a gravel bike, so be it.
I have no interest, and the bike industry doesn't care what I think or what I want.
I'm willing to spend $17,000 on a new bike. But there are no manufacturers that make what I want. I'll sit on the sidelines until something good changes in the industry. But for now, in my opinion, it's all fluff.
Very different here. We live in wet mountains and our riders love and ask for disc brakes.
In dissing Campag i'd be wary of black cats, 3 way crossroads and old ladies bearing clothes pegs if I were you!
Noted… 😳
Rim brakes are breaking superior.
It's pronounced "Campanyolo", you could at least get them basics right.
True. 'Them basics'?
I think it means "the" 😉... doesn't matter. It's pronounced without the "G" ...
damn basics... 😂
I just call it campy
All I know I will never buy sram