11 Speed Campag/Shimano

[Little Jim]

Does anyone have any experience of running 11 speed Campag groupset with a Shimano cassette?  I need to change the groupset on my bike, 9 speed Ultegra at the moment so I may as well bite the bullet and go to 11 speed.  I quite like the feel of the Campag hoods and like the way that the brake lever does not change the gear, but I don't want to change the rear wheel which is a fairly new 11 speed hub with a spacer on at the moment to take the 9 speed cassette.

I thought that the spacings on the cogs on 11 speed cassettes were the same whether it was Shimano or Campag, but a chap who really should know what he is talking about told LJ Jr earlier this year that it does work, but is just not as good as all Campag or all Shimano.

[Brucey]

shimano road 11s sprocket pitch is allegedly slightly over 0.1mm smaller than campag 11s. So yes it will work but on the extreme gears they will behave as if the mech is slightly out of adjustment.

cheers

[Little Jim]

That explains it then - thank you.

[zigzag]

in practice it works fine, i'm quite particular about the stuff working properly and can't tell the difference

[Brucey]

supposing the alignment is 'perfect' in gear 6; the biggest error is then in gear 2 and gear 10, and is nearly half a millimetre. [In gear 1 and gear 11 the mech position is defined by the mech  limit screws, not the indexing per se.] Weirdly because of the effect of wear on the system, and the kinds of angle that the chain runs at, if the rear mech and/or chain is slightly worn, the shifting might be fractionally better on a shimano cassette than a campag one, even though it is 'wrong'. It does have to be more precisely adjusted though; basically you have used up all the inbuilt tolerance in the system before you have started.

cheers

[sojournermike]

Sinn says this works fine.

I built my daughters Audax bike with 10 speed campag cassette and Shimano mech/shifter and that works fine (though you need to make sure the mech hanger is straight!). 11 speed is much closer in dimensions, so should be a doddle

[Ian gaggiaport]

Yes .
I'm using Athena with Shimano cassette.
It works fine.. LEL and a tour of Provence.
All faultless..