Spotted aboard Team Europcar’s Colnago C60 road bikes at the Giro d’Italia, this wild looking new Campagnolo group (presumably Super Record) is a major departure from their heretofore traditional designs.
It’s not just the asymmetric, four pronged crankarm for the drive side that’s so different, it’s the chainrings, front derailleur and rear derailleur, too. Shift through for closer up pics and speculation…
Visually, the parallelogram linkages’ zig-zag shape is the most striking change. The other noticeable difference between all of Campy’s current rear derailleurs is the move to an internally set rear linkage for the parallelogram. Currently, the outer plate runs over the B-knuckle, with the pinned pivot visible. Here, they’re moving to a larger B-knuckle that captures the parallelogram’s rear pivot inside. We’re guessing this will make the part much stiffer and lead to crisper shifting. Both knuckles look to be UD carbon, but the pulley cage seems to be metal for now.
The cranks could be Campy’s departure from the standard 5-bolt chainring pattern to a proprietary, asymmetric design. The chainrings are also new, with the big ring being a bit deeper than current gen Super Record…likely to increase stiffness since there are fewer attachment points.
The front derailleur, somewhat cut off in this shot provided by an anonymous tipster, has a much taller arm off the top, similar to current Dura-Ace, providing more leverage for easier shift feel at the front and, likely, faster and more direct feeling upshifts. That could mean a complete redesign of the levers, too, in order to accommodate a change in cable pull.
Of course, all this is speculation, but with parts being used in a UCI race, we predict things aren’t too far off. When we spotted the limited edition Super Record RS earlier this year, Campy’s reps told us more new stuff would be coming later this year.
