Campy 11 speed with Shimano cassette - your experiences

[Blown Reek]

Same wheel, different freehub. It's the freehub that makes a wheel either Shimano or Campagnolo compatible.

[fa63]

Thanks everyone.

I realize the Campy UK head tech has a vested interest in saying what he said, but he strikes me as an honest person so I wanted to get some feedback here as well. There are some pictures in that thread I linked to also, which show some differences in the cassettes, but it sounds like it is not an issue in real life.

[jpritchet74]

I was using a Shimano 11s wheel with a Dura-Ace cassette with my Campy 11s EPS and it worked perfectly.

[ChainNoise]

I have run two different campy 11 setups on 2 different bikes using DA/XG1190 cassettes (all 11-25 and 11-28s) with zero issues:

2007 Cervelo R3, '15+ SR11 shifters and ders
2003 Serotta Fierte, '15+ SR11 shifters, Chorus ders

[AKTed]

I ran an Ultegra 11-32 with a Chorus 11s group on my Ritchey Ti Breakaway with no problems. The regular cage worked fine. Chain wrap was just barely adequate. I just changed out the derailleur for the new Chorus HO medium cage and all works well with plenty of chain wrap. I’ve Got an 11-34 I’m going to try out sometime.

[Shoeman]

I'm running a Sram/Rival 11-26, converted to 10s 12-26. I don't have a 11s Shimano wheelset, this all works perfectly with 2015 Chorus shifters derailleurs.

[R3awak3n]

that thread is funny, wow people on weight weenies really look up to some people huh?

It is true that spacing is not exactly the same and sure, maybe the shifters aren't 100% perfect but are 95% which is good enough for most people. Like I mentioned I noticed no difference what so ever... Shifted perfectly everytime, was quite too.... so much that I sold my last campy wheel and now only running shim/sram free hubs.

I say get your centaur, it will be just fine

[mpken]

Originally Posted by AKTed

I ran an Ultegra 11-32 with a Chorus 11s group on my Ritchey Ti Breakaway with no problems. The regular cage worked fine. Chain wrap was just barely adequate. I just changed out the derailleur for the new Chorus HO medium cage and all works well with plenty of chain wrap. I’ve Got an 11-34 I’m going to try out sometime.

Did you eventually try the 11-34 with the Chorus 11s HO medium cage? That is an intriguing option, if viable. I ask since I'm looking for Campy 11s cassettes and the available options are limited and/or super expensive. Thanks

[s4life]

I ran campy SR11 with SRAM 1190 11-30 cassette in my Meivici, really smooth, no noticeable difference when compared to my other rigs running campy cassettes ^^

[AKTed]

Yes, I’m running an Ultegra 11-34 CS-HG800-11 cassette with the Chorus HO medium cage derailleur. Works fine.

[vespasianus]

Add me to the list. Two bikes, one H11/Chorus running a Shimano cassette and a Centaur groupset running a Shimano cassette.

Both work fine. Recommend either a campag or KMC chain as they are better than the SRAM/SHimano stuff.

[primov8]

I've been using wheelsets with shim/sram free hubs for the last 7-8 years with Campy and never ran into any issues. For the last 3 years, I've gone with Sun Race cassettes; their black cassettes are reasonably priced. On my most recent build, Sun Race 11-32 with Centaur 11 med cage and still a nice, quiet, smooth shifting drivetrain.

[cgolvin]

Joining the "it works fine" chorus (sorry).

I have two wheelsets for my Ottrott, which has a pre 2015 SR shift group using a Campy (Potenza, right now) chain.

My clincher set has a Campy Chorus 12-29 cassette and my tubular set has an Ultegra 11-30 cassette. I switch between these two wheelsets and don't notice much difference in the shifting.

[slowpoke]

Just to throw in another data point for some "obsolete" 11 speed stuff. My personal experience with an Athena long cage derailleur + 2015 Athena shifter and Shimano CS-6800 cassette is that it all works "pretty well".

For anyone who wants to get into the details, I reached out to a UK Campy Technician who also frequents Paceline and this is what he wrote:

The problem is sprocket spacings. Athena pre- and post-2015 is cross-compatible within Athena. It's only CH, RE and SR where the pre / post 2015 issue crops up.

I've said it over and over again on various forums - Campag and Shimano 11s are not spaced exactly the same and the wider the ratios (i.e. the closer you get to the capacity of the rear gear) the less likely things are to work correctly.

No-one ever believes me because they've all read that Shimano cassettes and Campag 11s shift systems work together. The truth is that up to a point they are an acceptable mix but it's never spot on.

If you are running an 11-up cassette, the gaps between the 11, 12 and 13 on Shimano are the same. On Campagnolo they aren't, (nor are they on a 12-13-14 cassette in fact) which changes the spring tension on the RD which has to be balanced by the tension in the gear cable.

Campagnolo shift levers are designed to balance this correctly, Shimano levers are not.

By the time you have traversed the whole width of the cassette - with hanger alignment dead on and really accurate adjustment - the error is of the order of 0.3mm in alignment. Sometimes the shift is "tolerable" but wear and tear and any inaccuracy anywhere else in the set up and the shift quality decays.

You can sometimes get around it to some extent by adjusting cable tension on the middle sprocket of the cassette on the middle chainring so that the errors generated are halved in each direction but shifting will never be perfect.

[barnabyjones]

Campagnolo drivetrain with Shimano cassette: clunky but accurate
Shimano drivetrain with Campagnolo cassette: less clunky more accurate
Campagnolo drivetrain with SRAM 1090: crisp