Campagnolo is back with a next-gen Ekar GT gravel bike groupset, bringing their popular 13-speed made-in-Europe drivetrain down in price thanks to a swap to more aluminum in place of carbon. At the same time as cutting costs, it gets several upgrades and tweaks for better chain retention and wider gearing range options. You save 15% on the price tag, and it’s only a couple hundred grams heavier, making it still lighter and more affordable than other second-tier gravel groups…
Oh yeah, new affordable alloy Zonda GT gravel wheels, too!
Campagnolo Ekar GT is a more affordable alloy 13sp gravel group
Campy’s most successful all-new product launch in years had been their Ekar gravel groupset. Debuting Campagnolo’s first 1x groupset and first modern drivetrain not focused on road racing, Ekar’s gravel 1x 13-speed setup was a huge departure for the Italian company. But with mechanical simplicity, benchmark lightweight, reliable braking, competitive pricing, and real made-in-Europe construction, the gravel niche ate it up.
Now Campy is back with a new Ekar GT that is even more accessible. Swapping in an aluminum crankset and a simplified rear derailleur, they manage to drop more than two hundred euros off the price, while only adding 300g. It’s still competitively as light or lighter than Shimano or SRAM’s second-tier groups, while being cheaper, and EU-made.
So what’s new?
The most obvious change is the new simple forged alloy crankset – now with 151mm Q-factor. It still shares the same proprietary 4-bolt design as the original Ekar, but adds a 5th, smaller chainring size for riding steeper terrain.
Pick from 44, 42, 40, 38, and now also a 36T chainring. You don’t even have to remove the cranks to swap rings. It features a classic Campy Ultra-Torque BB spindle, split in the middle with half of the axle a part of each crank arm.
The brake levers also shift to alloy lever blades to lower costs stick with carbon lever blades, contrary to what Capagnolo originally told us. In fact, the Ekar GT Ergopower controls are noticeably lighter than the original Ekar. They retain the same proven Campagnolo Ekar ergonomics, including the thumb upshift lever and reach adjustability. The rubber hoods are slightly reshaped however for better grip when riding up top.
Out back the Campagnolo Ekar GT group features a new rear derailleur. This updated design is mostly the same as the original but simplified construction of its non-adjustable clutch. Plus “improved durability”. It moves to more conventional engineered plastic knuckles instead of the carbon-reinforced elements of original Ekar. It also swaps to derailleur pulleys with larger window cutouts to reduce mud clogging, and make it easier to clean.
The new Ekar GT also gets revised cassettes. They now get a few more loose cogs to save costs with more shared parts. But they also add a new wider 480% range 10-48T cassette. In addition to the original Endurance 9-36T (400%), Gravel Race 9-42T (467%) & Gravel Adventure 10-44T (440%).
The total claimed groupset weight is now 2700g (That’s up from 2385g claimed for the lightest original Ekar configuration. But our gravel race build had a real 2751g total weight, anyway.)
New Zonda GT wheels too…
In addition to the new GT gravel group, there’s a matching set of more affordable GT gravel wheels too. With lots of solid Campy wheel tech, the 1690g Zonda GT wheels are 23mm internal with a tubeless-ready rim bed devoid of spoke holes (or the need for tubeless tape. 24 spokes in G3 groupings promise equal spoke tension and long-term durability, plus milling between the spokes to shave a few grams. The 29mm deep Zonda GTs come with an N3W freehub ready for Campy 13-speed (or 10-12sp) and AFS centerlock disc brake rotor interface
Campagnolo Ekar GT & Zonda GT – Pricing & availability
The new ‘winged-wheel’ logo Campagnolo Ekar GT gravel groupset officially retails for $1600 / 1490€ (compare that to 1700€ for the original.) Campy has been quiet about real-world availability so far, although we have been told that you should be able to order complete bikes built up with Ekar GT this week. We’ve also not had it in our hands yet, either.
The new alloy Zonda GT wheels are also relatively affordable at $750 / 690€.
Historically, Campagnolo has only released new groupsets when the products were already in shops or in-transit on the way to retailers. So far we haven’t heard of anyone with them in stock ahead of the launch.
But fingers crossed that Ekar GT will be available very soon, at least in limited numbers at first.
Ekar was a game-changer for the legacy Italian drivetrain maker. And a more affordable version only compromising a bit on weight seems like it offers a lot of potential for Campy Ekar GT to bring 1×13 mechanical simplicity to a lot more gravel bikes.
Update: We got a groupset in hand now to test. Check out our intial weigh-in here!
