Campy Athena 11 shifting

[parco]

I test rode a bike today with a new Athena 11spd group. It work well enough although I wasn't really impressed with the shifting of the front derailleur. Has anyone had similar experiences ? Would it be worth it to upgrade to a Chorus FD?

[biker72]

I upgraded to Chorus shifters. Much better....:)

[Brian Cdn]

No probs with the Athena 11 FD on mine. I couldn't tell or feel the diff after I replaced the Athena FD with a Record.


The Athena shifters are, in my experience, a little less crisp than Campy's older siblings. Although they work quite nicely.

Cheers

[MadRocketSci]

Current Athena is powershift correct so if it's anything like the 2008 centaur escape mechanism then stay away. I blame that POS method of front shifting for my chain suck issues on my pegoretti. It's fast and violent to drop from big to small and if pedaling under a small load the chain sucks right into the chain stay. Now before people start telling me it isn't set up/adjust correctly I had Tom Jelmyer look at it and then Jim Potter rebuilt the whole bike when I moved to CO. I asked him to keep the chain suck in mind when building/testing it. It still did it within the first few rides. I attribute it to some incompatibility between the escape mechanism and my peg and maybe it being a compact crank 50-34. Like i said, dropping the chain down is an overly fast and violent action IMO. I think that is part of the problem.

Just my experience. I don't even shift into the big on that bike anymore and will get back to regular campy ultrashift action sometime soon hopefully.

[oldpotatoe]

I test rode a bike today with a new Athena 11spd group. It work well enough although I wasn't really impressed with the shifting of the front derailleur. Has anyone had similar experiences ? Would it be worth it to upgrade to a Chorus FD?

No, same dimension but carbon, not as durable. 2014 as well, 2015 chorus not compatible. I'd say fder adjust. Should be 3 clicks and up to big ring.

[bigbill]

I've got full Athena alloy on my red GT. The FD shifts as well as my two Record bikes. If the FD shifted badly for you, it might be how it was set up. VeloMine has all alloy Athena for $900 BTW.

[FlashUNC]

No, same dimension but carbon, not as durable. 2014 as well, 2015 chorus not compatible. I'd say fder adjust. Should be 3 clicks and up to big ring.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember 11 spd Chorus FD being alloy. Record and Super Record are carbon, no?

Fwiw, the big change would come from the shifters. I used Chorus shifters with Athena FD and it works great.

[ik2280]

The Chorus 11 FD on my 585 is aluminum.

Have an Athena mini-group that I'm going to try soon, curious to see how it compares to Chorus. Sure it'll be good enough for me, at least.

[Black Dog]

There is no functional difference between the Athena and Chorus FD. The shifters are different at least as far as rear shifting goes but I think the front shifter is the same. I run two bikes with Chorus shifters, one with a chorus FD and the other with an Athena FD; zero difference once they are set up properly. If it does not shift from the small ring to the big with 3 clicks then it is not set up properly. The front shifting is very good and fast once set up properly.

[ultraman6970]

What do you mean 2015 not compatible???

No, same dimension but carbon, not as durable. 2014 as well, 2015 chorus not compatible. I'd say fder adjust. Should be 3 clicks and up to big ring.

[FlashUNC]

What do you mean 2015 not compatible???

Campy's changed the design on the levers and derailleurs. Not compatible from 2015 to earlier 11 speed stuff.

[tedski]

I have Athena 11 shifter and FD, also experience similar issue but not as bad. Dropping from the big ring to small ring seems OK but as MadRocketSci refers, it is violent. Come up from the small ring to big ring takes a lot of effort. Not sure is because I have Q-rings. It does shift up in 3 clicks but just takes a lot of effort, which compare to my Chorus 10 shifter, it is like butter. I am going to put in a new set of Chorus 11 shifters to see if that will solve the issue and the Athena 11 is going to my CX bike with a single front ring setup.

[oldpotatoe]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember 11 spd Chorus FD being alloy. Record and Super Record are carbon, no?

Fwiw, the big change would come from the shifters. I used Chorus shifters with Athena FD and it works great.

You are right, looked it up..Chorus is metal like Athena but dimensions of the FD are the same as Athena. And yes, Ultrashift shifters are easier to set up than the 'escape' type innards of 2011+ Athena/Centaur/Veloce, 2007/8 Centaur, Veloce.

[oldpotatoe]

What do you mean 2015 not compatible???

I'd like to check but the new design front and rear ders are not supposed to be backwards compatible. I'll bet the front is, maybe the rear. I'd like to also take the 2015 Chorus and above levers apart, to see the real differences between them and previous.

[ultraman6970]

Asked because I really dont see the difference if the 2014 is used in a record or chorus 2009 for example...

[gone]

The shifters are different at least as far as rear shifting goes but I think the front shifter is the same.
Not so. The Athena front shifter (like the rear) is Powertorque which means two distinct pushes on the thumb lever to go from big ring to small on a triple whereas with Ultratorque (Chorus, Record, ...) a single long push of the lever will dump all the way from big to small. This is perhaps not noticeable on a double but is very much so on a triple.

[oldpotatoe]

Asked because I really dont see the difference if the 2014 is used in a record or chorus 2009 for example...

2009-2014 SR/Record/Chorus shifter guts all the same, as is 2009/2010 Athena/Centaur/Veloce. Except 10s vs 11s 'disc', of course. I think 2015 basic design is the same with mods to take up spool but gotta break one down to see.

[nm87710]

Works just fine. Good Luck

[FlashUNC]

You are right, looked it up..Chorus is metal like Athena but dimensions of the FD are the same as Athena. And yes, Ultrashift shifters are easier to set up than the 'escape' type innards of 2011+ Athena/Centaur/Veloce, 2007/8 Centaur, Veloce.

I'll mark this down as likely the only time I'll correct you on what's coming out of the House of Tullio.