RiceAWay

I have been told several places that Campy groups are not inter-compatible. Does anyone know if this is really so and why? I can't see why this would be true since they all have the same lever "pull" ratio and the same distance between cogs of the cassettes. From what I can see it appears to me that the higher end groups have lower spring tension so that the Super Record might have problems shifting the Athena rear derailleur but I really couldn't say.

Does anyone have the straight scoop?

CliffordK

One of the things that happened mid release of the 11-speed was a change to the front derailleur design.





I've been successful with using the newer upright arm derailleur with the older white label shifters, and I have done some mixing and matching with Chorus, Record, and Super Record. I haven't used any of the lower groupsets, Potenza, etc. Nor do I have many of the newer generation 11-speed components (other than the one Chorus front derailleur).

Polaris OBark

Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will answer, but the one thing I can tell you is that Athena 11 speed requires quite a lot of user input to shift to a larger cog or chainring, enough so that I often find I don't get there with the chainring on the first up-shift attempt.

easyupbug 

CliffordK mention the big change I have seen and I think as you suggest some is over blown but the 2015 and later upper end derailleurs higher torsion spring rates cause problems with Potenza even though the cable pull is the same.

CrowSeph

I'm currently using on my roadbike a full campy veloce 2007 (10v) and a campy athena 2014 rear derailleur (11s).
When i destroyed my derailleur hanger (and more) the replacement available in the nearest shop were a new version of the campy veloce 2011 for around 85$ and an used athena for 25$ (last one for that price included a full set of cable and cable housing).
Since then my drivetrain is working precise as a clock. (wow , it's passed almost 6 years ago!).

edit: also on my vintage roadbike i have a mixed record/gran sport mixed parts and never had a problem.

Oldguyonoldbike

As mentioned above, the design of the front derailleur changed around 2015 or 2016. I understand that earlier shifters are not compatible with the new front derailleurs.

Among lower level groups (the ones I can afford) Campagnolo also claims that the older shifters (Athena) are incompatible with newer rear derailleurs (Centaur, Potenza), but I doubt that is entirely the case.

Dan Burkhart 

I'm wondering how that would be an issue given that Campy front shifters are not indexed.

Oldguyonoldbike

I'm just spitballing here, but you see in CliffordK's pictures how the upper arm is much longer in on the newer derailleurs (lower pic) than on the older ones. My guess is that the older shifters don't give enough cable travel to shift properly. It might work, but you might have to push the lever more than the traditional three clicks in order to get it to shift.
I'm just bored enough that I might go out to the shed and swap out a Potenza shifter for an Athena one and see what happens (I have one bike with Athena and one with Potenza).

RGMN

11 spd SR/Record/Chorus changed in 2015. The updated parts have an "A" in a box on them, and are compatible with the pre-2015 parts as follows:

I'm not sure what the cross-compatibility with Centaur/Athena/Potenza is.

Homebrew01

Is there a department at Campagnolo that's responsible for obfuscation & confusion ?