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TECH NEWS
Campagnolo Centaur - rear mech.jpgCampagnolo patent suggest a 12-speed groupset on the way... So is an extra sprocket going to be a thing worth having?
Campagnolo was the first groupset manufacturer to launch road 11-speed back in 2009, and patents filed in the US last year suggests that the Italian company might be set to be the first company to launch a 12-speed road bike groupset.
When Campagnolo launched 11-speed and people asked why its response was “why not?” And the same could probably be said of the new 12-speed groupset. Shimano and SRAM were swift to follow suit and now 11-speed is commonplace on most mid-range to high-end groupsets.
SRAM has already gone to 12-speed in the mountain bike world with its Eagle wide-range cassette intended to replicate the range of a double chainset with a single ring setup. Where SRAM has gone to 12-speed to increase the gear range to compensate for the single front chainring, it looks like Campagnolo has added an extra sprocket to reduce the gaps in a 12-speed cassette intended to be used with a regular double chainset.
The prevailing trend in cassettes in recent years has been to increase range, at the cost of bigger gaps between certain sprockets, especially in the easier gears. The addition of a 12th sprocket will allow the gaps to be minimised whilst maintaining the same wide range.
However, it doesn't look like Campagnolo has added the extra sprocket for that reason, and shows the company's clear race focus. The five cassettes listed in the patent maxes out at 11-27t, the same as is currently available, but with smaller gaps. It's almost one-tooth increments right across the cassette.
Those five cassettes are:
- 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23
- 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 25
- 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27
- 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25
- 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27
It also looks like Campagnolo has managed to develop a 12-speed cassette that fits a current frame, with the wording “the aforementioned sprocket assembly can be housed in a conventional bicycle having wheels and frame of standardised size” perhaps suggesting no major changes or introduction of new standards are needed. Fitting a 12-speed cassette onto an current road bike wheelset would certainly be attractive for obvious reasons.
We don’t know any more details at this stage, and while we could contact Campagnolo for an official response we probably wont' get a reply straight away because they are currently busy hosting Jack somewhere sunny...
David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes.
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29 comments
Great. Chains that will last less than 1000km.
“the same as is currently available, but with smaller gaps”
Gap. You get one smaller gap with one extra sprocket. You don’t magic the other 11 to be closer, you just fill one gap.
This is would be quite good though, when I use a 12-27 I really miss the 16 so tend to ride on a 12-25 because I miss the 27 less generally (but when I do, I’m cursing)
I may be the only person here who thinks campag just totally missed the point and invented something useless to 90 percent of people. A 12 speed that still needs a front mech and only goes up to a 27 tooth sprocket...
This is reminiscent of when they "went to 11". Shimano (prioritising engineering) and SRAM had gone to thru axles and external BBs (Campag was still on square taper) and were on their way to electronic shifting. The marketing team at Campag (driven by a desire to have an afternoon nap after a long lunch, including a fine Barolo) said "basta already to that old bollocks! let's just add another cog!"
CVT transmissions for bikes do actually exist. Possibly not very cheap or efficient though?
I'd love it if there was a competitive Continuosly Variable Transmission for bikes.
I was just reading the Wikipedia page for the NuVinci (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuVinci_Continuously_Variable_Transmission) and apparently the manufacturers declined to give any efficiency numbers. It's also a bit heavy (2.45kg) so they're mainly targetting e-bikes.
Belt driven CVTs are around 88% efficient, so that's a good 10% loss compared to traditional gear setups. What's needed is a breakthrough design that's efficient and light - I think traditional gears will be with us for a while yet.
Instead of adding more and more sprockets at the back and end up with chains so thin they struggle to make it to the end of your road before they're worn out, wouldn't it make sense to invent some sort of CVT system and do away with chains and sprockets altogether?
Look at Pinion, Rohloff or Nuvinci. it exists, it's just heavier than Shimano (still)
"I was under the impression that Shimano patented a 14 speed set up a couple of years ago. Perhaps they will spring this upon us the day after Campag's system is introduced."
That was an April Fools.
Well I'm gonna go ahead and patent 13 & 14 right now before someone else thinks of it.
You can go 3 x 10 with Shimano Tiagra or 3x11 with Campy.
3x12 seems overkill. 2x12 would be an improvement though. Having another gear in the close-ratio range is only an advantage for just about everyone.
I run an Ultegra 14-28 11-speed cassette on my direct drive trainer and i may go the same on the road bike as it offers the advantages of both 11-28 and 12-25, just without the really small sprockets that you barely ever use properly. I run a compact chainring and I'm a lot quicker than the average cyclist.
13-28 would be awesome. 12-27 very good too.
Most are you are missing the biggest opportunity here....
Run a triple up front and have the most gears ever!
Gearbox triple cranks with a Rohloff!
Or go with a quad chainset and the mostest gears.
a triple with electronic shifter would be great.
the only reason the front mech never went to 4 is that the mechanical setup isn't smart enough to get the alignment right, electronic would be.
The 11-27 must be a typo. Where is the 16?
So what are the odds on SRAM just releasing a code update so existing rear mech will continue to work with 12 cogs?
Or what about an etap triple or di2 triple.
at that point so many extra chainrings at the back could be offset by an extra ring at the front, and the electronic shifter negates the usual problem with triples (accidentally going into the granny ring when you want to bomb it downhill or the opposite)
What's then preventing them from making a 4x9 groupset, or a configuration that makes the groupset lighter.
Looks like approx a decade per sprocket. Campag launched 11-speed in 2009, it says above, and I seem to recall Campag launching 10-speed circa 2000. Both occasions naturally were marked by grumbling about how the extra sprocket was unneeded, was nonsense, etc.
12-speed in the same space as used by 11, 10 and 9 speed though... that would imply new chain and probably chainsets as well as new cassettes, with follow-on tweaks to derailleurs. As they've only just launched new derailleurs and chainsets for disc brake groups I can't see a twelth sprocket arriving in the near future and obsoleting everything. Making the EPS mechs sleeker would be the next area for renovation I would have thought.
only on 1x setups and with a large gear range, ONLY. otherwise, it looks as another marketing scam like the disk brakes, the 29ers then the 27,5ers , the throughs's, then the boosts then the the the the... and all other unnecessary bull...
Completely pointless development - I never needed more than 5 gears when I were a lad.
Mark.
Five? Luxury! My gran used to climb Bristol's hills on a single gear, and she thought a SA three speed was for wimps.
SIngle gear? Your gran had it lucky. When I were a lad we used to have to wheel our bikes up t' Moss without any gears .... or chain. And when we got home our dad would beat us with a bicycle spanner and send us to bed with nowt to eat but the sweat off an old chamois.
I Love a topical joke, me
But seriously, my first 10 speed (with cheap Huret) only had three gears - the front derailleur seized within weeks and the rear was so badly adjusted that it wouldn't go into top or bottom cogs. And I wouldn't have changed it for the world cos it was a TEN SPEED!
What this says about having 12 cogs I do not know
5 GEARS - bloody 5 gears - when I were a lad you couldn't have gears - we we're lucky even to have a bike and if our dad had a caught us namby pambying about with bloody gears he'd a tanned our arses for being so limp wristed - 5 GEARS - bloody kids today they don't know how lucky they are.
that 12-27 looks fantastic, the perfect gear at all the speed/cadence good for climbing good on the flat.
f
I could see 12 speed cassettes being the tipping point for a number of people to switch to a 1x setup.
If I had to make a prediction for this year it would be SRAM launching a new SRAM Red 1x with a 12 speed cassette and heavily pushing it as the future of road cycling.
12 x 2 setups may sem excessive to some but I'm sure they said the same about 11 x 2! The large amount of one tooth gaps on Campy 12 speed cassettes certainly seem very appealing, especially for racers.
Given the limited selection of ranges, perhaps only racers. Just a patent though, no idea what's on the way.