Waynos has this pretty much right. Campagnolo, by high pricing and no availability at the low end, has created for itself a niche market and removed itself from actual competition with SRAM, Shimano, and the up-and-coming Chinese offerings. A butt-ugly, clunky, and grossly over-priced groupset that essentially mimics SRAM and Shimano--but with fewer customization options and a much higher price--from Campagnolo is going to fail because people who consider going Campagnolo tend to be the more low-tech, classic, rim brake, accessible cabling, fully mechanical, 23mm tires crowd. That's the real Campagnolo market, and we can see this in the fact that the world tour road racing teams have all (save I believe one) switched to SRAM or Shimano. If I were Campagnolo in 2023, I'd be re-releasing "90 Anni" engraved fully mechanical 2x11 Potenza, 2x11 and 2x12 Chorus, 2x12 Record, and 2x12 Super Record with a choice of brake types and in polished silver or gloss black. Maybe even add some of the older groupsets, the ones people still need for restoring beloved older bikes but can't find in decent condition. There's a massive market for those, perhaps not an OEM market, but certainly a private builder market. No retooling or R&D required--just go back to making the kinds of groupsets at the level of quality that made people love the brand. Campgnolo, this new Super Record monstrosity proves you can no longer compete with SRAM and Shimano in the "latest tech" market, so stop trying.
Agree, I’m one of those people looking for a modern high quality polished silver groupset for my Pinarello Vuelta to replace the Dura-ace 7700 I have now.
@@rosomak8244 Of course. And almost none of them are on Campy because Shimano and SRAM are offering to provide components in exchange for exposure. This is also why the world tour teams are all on disk brakes. It's far more profitable to sell a new disk brake bike to a person whose current bike has rim brakes than to sell a set of brake pads for a perfectly good rim brake bike. If cyclists see their favorite pros riding bikes with rim brakes, they'll think rim brakes are still fine, and the bike makers can't have that. The same concept applied to motorized shifting, wide tires, invisible cabling, etc. It's all designed and displayed by the pros to get you to buy a new bike.
Campy is going backwards instead of going Forward.. I see a lot of that are Campy fans are not going to buy such a group set way to over priced the rear derailleur and the front derailleur are too big.. and to let you know who ever will be reading this in the tour the France there will be only one team that is riding campy that is agtr the rest of them will be 14 teams that are Shimano and 2 teams that are SRAM
Totally agree with everything you said I love my Campagnolo but a bit disappointed after looking into it properly. I think they have made quite a few mistakes and the price. 😮I was hoping they would at least come in at the same price as everyone else to at least breakthrough a bit more I also think it looks a bit average for Campagnolo.
The fact that this groupset was tested by the AG2R riders & the fact that Campy anyway comes out with the ultra compact chainset design ala Sram just shows that not only are they poor at marketing but also lacking in business acumen as well. Pro racers dislike this trend towards ultra compact gearing & Sram relented & offers normal crankset gearing. So why has Campy followed suit?? When Campy was asked if they would be offering normal chainset gearing ala Sram...they replied yes. Also with the new freehub design...yes it is 13 speed but also backwards compatible as well with all other cassettes down to even 9 speed. However, with the new Super Record WS, it is only compatible with the 3 new 12 speed cassette combos only. Supposedly it will not work with any of the previous generation 12 speed cassettes according to Campy. The thinking behind this groupset mystifies me.
Campy hasn't been relevant for many years. Pro tour? 1 team...go to a shop and try to find a campy chain.. after all these years they FINALLY went with a quick link!! Talking about being behind the times.. they are now like rolls royce..you see them in magazines but do you know anyone with one? That rear der. looks like it was made in Yugaslavia in 1952..Italy can make cars but so can Japan s h i m a n o
Wayno the photo industry is even crazier. Look at the cost of cameras now days. An how little are sold anymore. Campagnolo was never an OEM brand like Shimano or SRAM. They have always been in the buy the frame buy the parts market. Which is a much smaller market niche than where Shimano and SRAM play in. I see Shimano and SRAM will have to deal with the rise of the Chinese group sets on OEM bikes.
The difference in the photo industry is that actual digital cameras got superseded with phone for regular people. It's now a natural niche market. However bikes are still all around us.
@@waynosfotos It's not even esp. precise of expensive technology. Everything could have been done already about 50 years ago. A comparison with the automobile industry is revealing in this regard.
Excellent video, Waynos! It’s an end to an era. It’s sad. I’m very much into classic framesets and components. It’s a loss when an iconic brand loses it’s prestige. Just like Carrera (Chiappuci-Pantani era), Rossin, Tommaso, Lemond (pre-Trek), Merckx, and countless iconic brands from the past that are now super generic, Campagnolo is a shell of what is once was. Your review of this Campagnolo Super Record groupset was savage, but fair and accurate. I’ll keep scouring eBay for 90’s Campagnolo Record to keep the love alive. If it was good enough for Sean Kelly…Lastly, there are many of us on UA-cam that look forward to your personal take on the current state of cycling (in between Hambini’s reamings) so please keep the content coming. Best Regards,
The big advantage of the smaller chainrings and smaller cassettes is range. It's pretty hilly where I live, and SRAM etap easily gives you gear ratios below 1:1. And when you're going up big hills, those low gears are really nice. Except campy went smaller, and only goes up to a 29-tooth cog. Why? You're getting all the cons of going smaller and none of the pros
Hi Waynos, another important issue with small cassette cogs is "ratio gap". The smaller the cogs, the bigger the gap per tooth. This is a key performance issue you would not expect Campagnolo to overlook. For years they refused to go below 13 teeth because they appeared to understood this. It would have been much better to increase the number of teeth on the larger cogs and stick to 53/39 front rings.
Sigh...Campag are further on the road to oblivioni. Unholy macaroni,they continue to make poor decisions... I miss the polished alloy parts and titanium bits they use to make,where parts were compatible with previous gruppos,etc,etc.
It's just not pretty. Campy is supposed to be jewelry for your bike. Elegant. Aside from the chainset being pretty, but not as pretty as the last iteration, the rest looks clunky. Front mech is huge. Rear mech is HUGE, and the shifters are blocky, and don't have buttons on the hoods( Ultegra, Force), or the options of blip-shifter buttons. There's nothing graceful, aesthetically, about this groupset. Gearing is just weird. I've got 10speed Record on an old, loved Klein Q Pro, and it's freakin' BLING! This, is not that. Don't even get me started on the cost! Great stuff as always Wayno!
Part of what I always loved about campy from the old days was the mirror-like polished alloy crank. I would love them to bring that option back. Campy's fancy carbon cranks are surely more expensive to make than a Dura ace crank, and I suspect that might be part of the reason campy is more pricey. Campy better do something soon, only AG2R are riding campy on pro tour right now.
@@rosomak8244 tell that to Colnago! You know you will pay more for a carbon crank than an aluminum one and that's my suspicion for campy being more $$$.
@@barriem5318I believe there's one more, Team UAE, or a rider therein, but as AG2R fades into history with the new sponsorship deal from Decathlon, I doubt they might continue done Campag's path
Campagnolo quality is going downhill too. I worked on a Chorus 12 speed mechanical with hydraulic disc brakes, so the latest Chorus group set to date right, and something I found out is the shift cables are breaking in the track in the hoods at a quicker rate. The break is something that always happened before even with older Chorus but now this means you have to replace that cable more often and being 12 speeds the cable replacement is a $45 cable with a special coating. Then I saw the chain ring bolts come loose. But they didn't come loose, they were actually stripped threads. I read in the Campy service manual that if you take the bolts loose for any reason you can't reuse them. And that is what I saw from the other bolts that hadn't stripped. So I ordered a pack of chainring bolts and the new ones looked like junk. They only bite using a couple of threads. Campy used to be able to ask a premium because their stuff was durable and rebuildable and lasted a long time, but none of this is true anymore and I am going to say I feel they are on par with SRAM. So how does the Campagnolo stuff get to ask a premium price that's higher than any other brand? They don't! And I won't buy any more of it accept for NOS on older parts. The new Campy can suck goat balls.
Hmm…disappointed with the new groupset. The marketing strategy totally went down the hill, thinking that pricing it high will give the product a higher value. When the product can’t even make it to the benchmarks.
Perhaps campy's new super record is going the way of the Colnago c68? A non-racing boutique category of product not unlike a Gucci handbag, or Prada shoes.
I have Record 12 mech on my gravel bike and SR12 EPS on my road bike. There isn’t too much difference between how they both shift or if there is I don’t notice. I was admittedly underwhelmed when I made the move from mech to EPS. That thumb button is the only reason I justify the pricing and all the irritating compatibility, availability, crappy MyCampy app, proprietary steps at every corner, and general setup issues we live with as Campy fans. Now I’m just banking on this stuff lasting forever because there’s no longer a reason for me to go through this much pain again in the future if this new SR really is what the future holds.
yeah....don't understand why they designed this way , i mean what wrong with that old designed and it like so much issued on this new super record and it always hold me back buying campagnolo because of the price $$$$$ at $7,500 SGD that no good.
The battery issue can be sorted with a reovable lead allowing the rear derailleur to use front battery juice, reverse charge or power share, not ideal but would get you home in an emergency. Not a Campag fan so don't really care, even less now since they ditched rim brakes as well. Time to stash away a set of rim brake AXS shifters.
Hard to argue with Shimano Ultegra DI2...got in on 2 bikes now for 5 years ...still flawless...and competitively priced...not sure what Campag are up to...but thing s just seem to be going from bad to worse...the whole groupset looks like plastic...and is a crazy price....think they need to change their CEO
I bet you the thumb shifter delete has to do with the added battery to make the shifter wireless. iirc the battery is at or near the thumb shifter location. The freehub is the N3W freehub so I think it’s their new freehub design. As stated before the Campagnolo is keeping their mechanical rim brake offering for super record.
As soon as I could and supply chain recovered (late last year) I secured SR12 EPS for a restoration, because I wanted to make sure I had it. What I was afraid of for the new SR, was 13sp (different spacing on the rear because of thru axle) which caused issues on the 2014 Raleigh RXC I restored with Ekar, and also a lack of rim brakes. My fears were half right! lol I got it a year earlier than needed to make sure I could still get it. Ironically it was $400 cheaper than Dura Ace, and now the new group will likely be somewhere between that and $1000 more?! I love Campy, but they're smoking crack if they think that's a good idea...
Waynos has this pretty much right. Campagnolo, by high pricing and no availability at the low end, has created for itself a niche market and removed itself from actual competition with SRAM, Shimano, and the up-and-coming Chinese offerings. A butt-ugly, clunky, and grossly over-priced groupset that essentially mimics SRAM and Shimano--but with fewer customization options and a much higher price--from Campagnolo is going to fail because people who consider going Campagnolo tend to be the more low-tech, classic, rim brake, accessible cabling, fully mechanical, 23mm tires crowd. That's the real Campagnolo market, and we can see this in the fact that the world tour road racing teams have all (save I believe one) switched to SRAM or Shimano.
If I were Campagnolo in 2023, I'd be re-releasing "90 Anni" engraved fully mechanical 2x11 Potenza, 2x11 and 2x12 Chorus, 2x12 Record, and 2x12 Super Record with a choice of brake types and in polished silver or gloss black. Maybe even add some of the older groupsets, the ones people still need for restoring beloved older bikes but can't find in decent condition. There's a massive market for those, perhaps not an OEM market, but certainly a private builder market. No retooling or R&D required--just go back to making the kinds of groupsets at the level of quality that made people love the brand. Campgnolo, this new Super Record monstrosity proves you can no longer compete with SRAM and Shimano in the "latest tech" market, so stop trying.
Agree, I’m one of those people looking for a modern high quality polished silver groupset for my Pinarello Vuelta to replace the Dura-ace 7700 I have now.
What the professional teams ride depends only on for what they get paid.
@@rosomak8244 Of course. And almost none of them are on Campy because Shimano and SRAM are offering to provide components in exchange for exposure. This is also why the world tour teams are all on disk brakes. It's far more profitable to sell a new disk brake bike to a person whose current bike has rim brakes than to sell a set of brake pads for a perfectly good rim brake bike. If cyclists see their favorite pros riding bikes with rim brakes, they'll think rim brakes are still fine, and the bike makers can't have that. The same concept applied to motorized shifting, wide tires, invisible cabling, etc. It's all designed and displayed by the pros to get you to buy a new bike.
Campy is going backwards instead of going Forward.. I see a lot of that are Campy fans are not going to buy such a group set way to over priced the rear derailleur and the front derailleur are too big.. and to let you know who ever will be reading this in the tour the France there will be only one team that is riding campy that is agtr the rest of them will be 14 teams that are Shimano and 2 teams that are SRAM
Totally agree with everything you said I love my Campagnolo but a bit disappointed after looking into it properly. I think they have made quite a few mistakes and the price. 😮I was hoping they would at least come in at the same price as everyone else to at least breakthrough a bit more I also think it looks a bit average for Campagnolo.
The fact that this groupset was tested by the AG2R riders & the fact that Campy anyway comes out with the ultra compact chainset design ala Sram just shows that not only are they poor at marketing but also lacking in business acumen as well. Pro racers dislike this trend towards ultra compact gearing & Sram relented & offers normal crankset gearing. So why has Campy followed suit?? When Campy was asked if they would be offering normal chainset gearing ala Sram...they replied yes.
Also with the new freehub design...yes it is 13 speed but also backwards compatible as well with all other cassettes down to even 9 speed. However, with the new Super Record WS, it is only compatible with the 3 new 12 speed cassette combos only. Supposedly it will not work with any of the previous generation 12 speed cassettes according to Campy. The thinking behind this groupset mystifies me.
Campy hasn't been relevant for many years. Pro tour? 1 team...go to a shop and try to find a campy chain.. after all these years they FINALLY went with a quick link!! Talking about being behind the times.. they are now like rolls royce..you see them in magazines but do you know anyone with one? That rear der. looks like it was made in Yugaslavia in 1952..Italy can make cars but so can Japan s h i m a n o
Its getting out of hand. Top end groupsets will cost more than gold soon. Stick with what you've got!
Wayno the photo industry is even crazier. Look at the cost of cameras now days. An how little are sold anymore.
Campagnolo was never an OEM brand like Shimano or SRAM. They have always been in the buy the frame buy the parts market. Which is a much smaller market niche than where Shimano and SRAM play in. I see Shimano and SRAM will have to deal with the rise of the Chinese group sets on OEM bikes.
The difference in the photo industry is that actual digital cameras got superseded with phone for regular people. It's now a natural niche market. However bikes are still all around us.
@@rosomak8244 the type of bike Campagnolo equips is a niche market. The average person doesn’t use a racing bicycle.
I can tell you right now, my camera has a lot more sophisticated tech for a similar price. What is in a bike groupset is not leading edge technology.
@@waynosfotos It's not even esp. precise of expensive technology. Everything could have been done already about 50 years ago. A comparison with the automobile industry is revealing in this regard.
Did you say Camp-ag-no-li-o? I guess its better than GCN's Cam-ag-yo-lo.
Excellent video, Waynos! It’s an end to an era. It’s sad. I’m very much into classic framesets and components. It’s a loss when an iconic brand loses it’s prestige. Just like Carrera (Chiappuci-Pantani era), Rossin, Tommaso, Lemond (pre-Trek), Merckx, and countless iconic brands from the past that are now super generic, Campagnolo is a shell of what is once was. Your review of this Campagnolo Super Record groupset was savage, but fair and accurate. I’ll keep scouring eBay for 90’s Campagnolo Record to keep the love alive. If it was good enough for Sean Kelly…Lastly, there are many of us on UA-cam that look forward to your personal take on the current state of cycling (in between Hambini’s reamings) so please keep the content coming. Best Regards,
Thank you
The big advantage of the smaller chainrings and smaller cassettes is range. It's pretty hilly where I live, and SRAM etap easily gives you gear ratios below 1:1. And when you're going up big hills, those low gears are really nice. Except campy went smaller, and only goes up to a 29-tooth cog. Why? You're getting all the cons of going smaller and none of the pros
Hi Waynos, another important issue with small cassette cogs is "ratio gap". The smaller the cogs, the bigger the gap per tooth. This is a key performance issue you would not expect Campagnolo to overlook. For years they refused to go below 13 teeth because they appeared to understood this. It would have been much better to increase the number of teeth on the larger cogs and stick to 53/39 front rings.
Agreed 👍
Sigh...Campag are further on the road to oblivioni.
Unholy macaroni,they continue to make poor decisions...
I miss the polished alloy parts and titanium bits they use to make,where parts were compatible with previous gruppos,etc,etc.
I still using Campagnolo Nuovo Record with DTS technologies ( Down tube shifter )
It's just not pretty. Campy is supposed to be jewelry for your bike. Elegant. Aside from the chainset being pretty, but not as pretty as the last iteration, the rest looks clunky. Front mech is huge. Rear mech is HUGE, and the shifters are blocky, and don't have buttons on the hoods( Ultegra, Force), or the options of blip-shifter buttons. There's nothing graceful, aesthetically, about this groupset. Gearing is just weird. I've got 10speed Record on an old, loved Klein Q Pro, and it's freakin' BLING! This, is not that. Don't even get me started on the cost! Great stuff as always Wayno!
I’m just glad I got EPS 12 version with the thumb shifters and rim brakes before Campagnolo eliminated them.
Part of what I always loved about campy from the old days was the mirror-like polished alloy crank. I would love them to bring that option back. Campy's fancy carbon cranks are surely more expensive to make than a Dura ace crank, and I suspect that might be part of the reason campy is more pricey. Campy better do something soon, only AG2R are riding campy on pro tour right now.
It is neither esp. pricy material as a resource nor is the technology used to form it anything out of the ordinary.
@@rosomak8244 tell that to Colnago! You know you will pay more for a carbon crank than an aluminum one and that's my suspicion for campy being more $$$.
@@barriem5318I believe there's one more, Team UAE, or a rider therein, but as AG2R fades into history with the new sponsorship deal from Decathlon, I doubt they might continue done Campag's path
Campagnolo quality is going downhill too. I worked on a Chorus 12 speed mechanical with hydraulic disc brakes, so the latest Chorus group set to date right, and something I found out is the shift cables are breaking in the track in the hoods at a quicker rate. The break is something that always happened before even with older Chorus but now this means you have to replace that cable more often and being 12 speeds the cable replacement is a $45 cable with a special coating. Then I saw the chain ring bolts come loose. But they didn't come loose, they were actually stripped threads. I read in the Campy service manual that if you take the bolts loose for any reason you can't reuse them. And that is what I saw from the other bolts that hadn't stripped. So I ordered a pack of chainring bolts and the new ones looked like junk. They only bite using a couple of threads.
Campy used to be able to ask a premium because their stuff was durable and rebuildable and lasted a long time, but none of this is true anymore and I am going to say I feel they are on par with SRAM. So how does the Campagnolo stuff get to ask a premium price that's higher than any other brand? They don't! And I won't buy any more of it accept for NOS on older parts. The new Campy can suck goat balls.
Campagnolo production does not allow them to be an option for bike assembly. They choose the high end Swiss watch ruote [ Breguet / Rolex / Patek]
Hmm…disappointed with the new groupset. The marketing strategy totally went down the hill, thinking that pricing it high will give the product a higher value. When the product can’t even make it to the benchmarks.
I'm very pleased to see that Campag have gone back to the superior Ultratorqe instead of powertorqe on the chainset.
Perhaps campy's new super record is going the way of the Colnago c68? A non-racing boutique category of product not unlike a Gucci handbag, or Prada shoes.
I think that has already happened
I have Record 12 mech on my gravel bike and SR12 EPS on my road bike. There isn’t too much difference between how they both shift or if there is I don’t notice. I was admittedly underwhelmed when I made the move from mech to EPS. That thumb button is the only reason I justify the pricing and all the irritating compatibility, availability, crappy MyCampy app, proprietary steps at every corner, and general setup issues we live with as Campy fans. Now I’m just banking on this stuff lasting forever because there’s no longer a reason for me to go through this much pain again in the future if this new SR really is what the future holds.
yeah....don't understand why they designed this way , i mean what wrong with that old designed and it like so much issued on this new super record and it always hold me back buying campagnolo because of the price $$$$$ at $7,500 SGD that no good.
The battery issue can be sorted with a reovable lead allowing the rear derailleur to use front battery juice, reverse charge or power share, not ideal but would get you home in an emergency.
Not a Campag fan so don't really care, even less now since they ditched rim brakes as well. Time to stash away a set of rim brake AXS shifters.
Hard to argue with Shimano Ultegra DI2...got in on 2 bikes now for 5 years ...still flawless...and competitively priced...not sure what Campag are up to...but thing s just seem to be going from bad to worse...the whole groupset looks like plastic...and is a crazy price....think they need to change their CEO
So true. I have ultegra 11sp Di2 and it is flawless. The new 12sp version might be the best group for the money out there. Why pay more?
Super Wreckord
Lol
I bet you the thumb shifter delete has to do with the added battery to make the shifter wireless. iirc the battery is at or near the thumb shifter location.
The freehub is the N3W freehub so I think it’s their new freehub design.
As stated before the Campagnolo is keeping their mechanical rim brake offering for super record.
First
Congratulations
@@Damian-ck5lo Thanks! 😀
As soon as I could and supply chain recovered (late last year) I secured SR12 EPS for a restoration, because I wanted to make sure I had it. What I was afraid of for the new SR, was 13sp (different spacing on the rear because of thru axle) which caused issues on the 2014 Raleigh RXC I restored with Ekar, and also a lack of rim brakes. My fears were half right! lol I got it a year earlier than needed to make sure I could still get it. Ironically it was $400 cheaper than Dura Ace, and now the new group will likely be somewhere between that and $1000 more?! I love Campy, but they're smoking crack if they think that's a good idea...