Replaced the KMC chain on the road bike, but I left it too long and the new chain runs pretty roughly, so I can only assume rings and cassette need replacing. Was somewhat horrified that a 50T and 34T athena ring will set me back over £100. Merlin are doing a full carbon athena cset for £150!

Anyone know of another brand that I could switch too instead of having campag ones?

I spotted these, but am confused by the description. Campag 11 speed compatible chainrings for Shimano 7900 Dura Ace. Does not make any sense.

http://www.tredz.co.uk/.FSA-Campag-11-Speed-Compatible-Chainrings-for-Shimano-7900-Dura-Ace-Cranks_46280.htm

Thanks

I use TA chain rings on both 10 & 11 speed systems – wear well and work well too.
Herself uses 10 speed chain rings on 11 speed Chorus, and has done for 5 years with absolutely no problems.

I’d be surprised if the chainrings are worn if this is the first chain/cassette.

Try cassette only first.

If needed, check the BCD of the chain rings, you will probably be able to use any brand (unless they’ve chosen a different bcd).

Most Campag chainrings have an offset 5th bolt so only Campag pattern fit.

I’d be surprised if the chainrings are worn if this is the first chain/cassette.

Sorry. It’s not the first cassette / chain replacement. I think it’s about the 5th chain and 2nd cassette.

That is interesting regarding the rings. They are 110mm BCD. I always assumed you had to use campy rings.

aP seems to know about their fantastic proprietary fitting standard.

Don’t be painful Al, you may work in a bike shop but you don’t necessarily know about everything. 😉

TA

I don’t know about campag, hardly any bike mfrs spec it.

I don’t know about campag, hardly any bike mfrs spec it.

Decathalon do (B’Twin), and there was Pinarello in my local Halfords last night with a Veloce Groupset, to start you off, can’t get much more mainstream than them. Planet X and Ribble both offer Campag builds

I-Ride and ChickenCycleKit for parts, not exactly hard to find…

Good.

BBB also make chainrings to fit. Just make sure you buy the Campag ones.
Challenge will be finding any in stock though…

If you’re looking at £100 for a Campag set, it doesn’t seem the TA ones will be much cheaper http://www.wiggle.co.uk/ta-110-pcd-nerius-11-ct-campagnolo-outer-chainring/

Stronglight do campag compatible rings too.

Have a look at strong light zircal at ribble. Might be worth a shot.

Btw. I use TA chain rings on my non compact campagnolo set up. They re good if you can find the right ones

Here you go: inner and outer (although 50t is out of stock)…
But they come to £70 rather than £100. So it can be done .

Chaingring become worn when you can feel pointy teeth. If yoj have nod changed the cassette i would do that before shelling out on new rings. Ta rkngs are as good and campagnlolo own. Rings normally last 10,000 to 20,000 miles campag rings are not made of cheese. Stronglight rings are fine but may not last as long.

Those stronglight rings say they’re compatible with Ultra Torque chainsets, Athena is Power torque.

Ref the FSA rings – following the link, it looks as if they are shaped to match the aesthetic of the Shimano 7900 chainset (sort of …) and are 130 BCD so not a match in any case for a Campag chainset – the “Campag 11s comaptible ” may refer to the fact that Campagnolo space their 11s chainrings effectively closer together (by offsetting the teeth on the inner ring) than do Shimano. Just a guess.

UltraTorque compatibility – you have to be careful about the year, as in 2011, Campagnolo swapped to a threaded inner ring for UtraTorque only – so it may be that which Stronglight are alluding to.

It’s only the compact-pattern rings that use an offset “5th bolt” – standard rings (42/52, 42/53 and 39/52 & 39/53 pairs) did not use the offset bolt, which is there to hold the rings in a fixed orientation relative to each other. The orientation matters because of the way that Campagnolo ramp the inside of their inner ring – the ramping is deigned to work in a very specific way with the leading edge of their own chains – the inner ring has to be able to “let go” of the chain to let the lift pin and ramp guide it up to the outer ring, at a specific time. Hence the orientation of inner to outer matters.

The ramping is more critical on Compact ring combinations and especially on 34/50 because of the big step that the derailleur is trying to force the chain to take.

Manufacturer’s own data shows that changes made to chainring shaping (and stiffness) have most influence on compact-type systems’ shifting and between the “normal” compact combinations of 34/50 and 36/52, the biggest difference is seen in 34/50 as this is where the %age difference in ring size is greatest.

If you are running a KMC chain this won’t work properly anyway as KMC use a different shape on the outer plates and the shaping lacks the chamfer that (in Campag’s case) is designed to mate to the ramps and lift pins. All that will mean is that the upshift won’t work, in all circumstances, as well as it would with an all Campag system. The same would be true in a Shimano system or a SRAM system – all these things are increasingly designed to be used very much as a system, which is not to say that they won’t *work* … the question is, how close to the designed parameters will it work & how much does it matter to you, as an individual user?

On ring prices vs full chainset prices – well, that’s pretty normal. Firstly, chainsets are sold in large numbers and are very heavily discounted – chainrings are more troublesome to stock & to stock control and so are generally not so heavily discounted.
Secondly, in many cases, very cheap complete groupset components are sold into the aftermarket through “grey” channels (they may be OE units sent out to bike manufacturers / assemblers, rather than after-market units, for instance) wheras all spares are sold as AM items and so subject to a different distribution and pricing structure.
Thirdly, spare parts usually appear disproportionately expensive against buying a full item in very many manufactured goods – inventory costs, shipping costs, rate of turnover, the margin required to deal with technical queries around which part suits what and why, all contribute to the final price. When I was dealing with spares at a national wholesaler, we found that complete unit turnover ran at about 15 x the spares turnover … and at the end of each year, our profit on spares was, in effect, sitting on the shelf as stock because of the number of spares that we had to stock “just in case”.

I’m fairly sure it’s actually a spacing issue – because the 5th bolt is tucked away inside the crankarm it needs to be a bit further out to have clearance from the crankarm. Certainly no reason I can see why the orientation needs to be enforced in this way – all chainrings are designed to be run in a particular orientation and have this marked. Why would Campag go to the trouble and expense of this difference when enforcing the orientation has no real benefit to them? If it was important, even if orientation isn’t so critical on standard rings it’s surely still not unimportant, so why wouldn’t they also do it with those?

If you are running a KMC chain this won’t work properly anyway as KMC use a different shape on the outer plates and the shaping lacks the chamfer that (in Campag’s case) is designed to mate to the ramps and lift pins.

Oh! Have never noticed a problem with the upshift – to be honest it works better than on any of my Shimano equipped bikes with standard rings.