thewalrus

Translated from French

After the firsts Shimano 2007 news, some rumours about Campagnolo are spreading on the internet.
It is said that Campagnolo cranksets will be totally redesigned for the next year. They'll use a system similar to Shimano because of the external bearings but they will be ultra-narrow to lower the Q-Factor.
The crank/bottom bracket is different than the Shimano in that the crank is 2 “L” shaped items that fit together mechnically in the center of the bottom bracket spindle.
Still according to rumours, Campagnolo would be working closely with FRM and the first bikes equipped with the new cranksets would already be under tests on the road.

Negmass cranksets are using something that may look like what Campagnolo will be using next year:

CPcyclist

Cool Can't wait for this to be on the market. just wondering how the cups will get tightened down.

roadfix

must be one long crank bolt to tighten those two halves together.....

Grasschopper

Which sort of sucks because that will add weight...hmm lets get out engineering hats on and think of a way to pull this off and keep the weight low.

DieselDan

Campy could thread the ends of the crank axle to thread together inside the shell instead of running a bolt down the middle. Campy could still use the current BB/cassette lockring tool for assembley and disassembly. The engineering would have to be uber-percise.

55/Rad

Superglue - it's strong and light and can be made to come in colors.

55/Rad

Jakey

Carbon fiber bolts!

diddidit

Looks like the pipe is keyed together in the middle. If the bearings and bearing cups are secured to the cranks, threading the bearing cups into the BB housing could be all the side-to-side retention the thing needs. But then, to remove a crank, you'd have to unscrew the bearing cups.

did

my58vw

Can we all say.... SHEER STRESS! ... no CF bolts! I like the idea of a treaded outer section vs a bolt!

fmw

What a shame to say goodbye to the wonderful Record bottom brackets! Ah well, I assume they know what they're doing.

gcasillo

Don't like it. Don't like small Q-factors, and I especially don't like that joint in the middle of a part that gets super stressed.

Grasschopper

Well the word over at Campy only is that there are actually 3-4 designs on the drawing baord.

merlinextraligh

So is Campy tacitly acknowledging that external bearing bb's are a superior deisgn or just yielding to market pressure?

2Rodies

My guess is a little of both, but probably more to marketing pressure than anything else.

mingsta

Great, yet another standard on top of ISIS, Square Taper, Octalink, HTII etc. Well I guess its all in the name of progress, but I'm not buying any more sodding BB tools, uh-uh.

That joint looks like a bad idea, as does the idea of ulta narrow bearings doesn't seem like a good idea for longevity. Is this all in the name of differentiating themselves from Shimano? I'd kinda wished that they'd gone down the HTII route so that things could be standardised, but that was never going to happen I guess.

Incidentally, what kind or BB does the SRAM chainset use?

Grasschopper

Well since SRAM=Truvativ I would place a heafty bet that the BB will identical to those in the external bearing Truvativ cranks. https://www.sram.com/en/truvativ/index_content.php

DocRay

Amazing how many responses don't think this is a good idea based on eyeballing. I think Campagnolo has some experience with bike parts, I think they also employ an engineer or two.

I'll go out on a limb and guess that the 07 Record set will be lighter, stronger and more reliable than the current set, unless Campy decides to contradict the 74 year old philosophy of the company.

mellowdave

I still dont understand what the problem is with square taper. I've never had a single failure, misalignment, or any other issue with aplain old square taper crank/BB.

roadfix

ALL my bike are equipped with square taper BB's. I'll continue to use and replace them unless my next crankset of choice 'forces' me to use splined or other types of BB.....I don't have a problem with that also....

DocRay

Cool. That's it. Cool.

Seriously, bicycles have not had any real changes in the last decade or two, therefore, in order to market effectively, it doesn't have to be better, just different.
Compact cranks are a good example of this.

Campy is going to this setup for weight. Record is still the lightest groupset, but the heavy aspect has been the cranks. Record in 07 will be lighter.

roadracer13

I have known about this (or a similar design) since Interbike. DocRay is correct... Campy's new design is in the neighborhood of 20 - 30% lighter than what is available now, and it is significantly stronger.

People who look at this picture and say... "oh it's not a good design" don't have any idea what they are talking about. The basic idea is to create less pieces in the crank area. Two pieces is better than three. Less can go wrong.

Campagnolo is a very conservative company by nature. They have stuck with the square taper bottom bracket for a reason. Some say it is outdated and bla bla bla... but ask world champion Tom Boonen what he thinks about his winning sprint last fall. It works and works well. Campy has sent the last couple of years working on this design. I am confident that this new design will not make it to market unless it is strong, light, spins well and last a long time.

gcasillo

Vuelta, Stage 2.

That was an isolated incident. There were many successes in the 2005 campaign with the new Dura Ace design. Please understand that I am not trying to flame. Just illustrating that things _can_ go wrong.

I'm sure Campagnolo will get it right. Being conservative has its advantages. They'll take the time to get it right before going to production with the design.

Still...

*sets out to horde every last Campy square taper BB and crankset he can find*

*hugs his current square taper Centaur BB*

lotek 

a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

I agree on the weight aspect of it but other than that
square taper just plain works

the good thing is that those square taper BBs and cranks the gcasillo is going to
start hoarding are gonna get dumped by the boatload by all the racerboy wannabes.
Ebay ought to be chockablock about a month or two after the final design is released.

pete!

can campy carbon get more expensive?

cs1

There are race cars making 1000 HP and use a U-Joint to transmit the power to the rear. I don't think most humans can't exert enough power to snap axles on any kind of consistent basis, actually anytime at all.


Tim