Yes, Campy’s new ultra-premium Super Record electronic groupset is new totally wireless – Campagnolo Super Record Wireless. And those thumb shift levers are gone. But equally big news may be the fact that Campy has gone the sub-compact route of SRAM and paired smaller chainrings to a smaller 10T cog out back, for what claims to be improved gear ratio steps with bigger range.
A whole lot has changed besides the very obvious lack of wires. Let’s dig into the details…
Campagnolo Super Record Wireless electronic 2 x 12-speed
For decades Campagnolo has been first to market among the big drivetrain behemoths at many road groupset milestones – like 1st 10sp, 11sp & 12sp groupsets… plus 1st 13-speed if we want to include gravel and ignore Rotor. They even went back and forth with Shimano, then Campy, then SRAM for electrifying 10, 11 & 12sp. But like their delayed adoption of road disc brakes, wireless has been a long-time coming.
Interestingly enough, we pretty much had a drawing of this new Super Record Wireless derailleur on our homepage more than a year ago, as Campagnolo was hyped on Ekar success and the wireless next-gen of their road racing groupset was a hot topic in the rumor mill. We’ve been speculating about this gruppo for three years now, based on our patent patrol finds.
Now, we’ve got our fingers crossed that it will be as solid a performance as that late disc braking!
What’s New?
First off, it’s completely wireless. Replaceable batteries in each shifter, different rechargeable batteries in each derailleur that can be charged on or off the bike.
There are also all-new 2-button fingertip shift controls, wider grip ergonomics, smaller compact crankset gearing that takes advantage of smaller cogs on their N3W freehub, new smaller 12-speed cassettes with 10T smallest cogs, a power meter-ready carbon crankset option, and even some upgraded brake pads.
Plus, there’s plenty of known and trusted Campy tech – modern angular aesthetics mixing Super Record and even Ekar heritage, tons of carbon, plenty of titanium, machined aluminum & steel, ceramic bearings, the same 12-speed spacing you already have (even if Campy doesn’t suggest any mixing-and-matching), and some of the best-performing disc brakes on the road.
Tech details: New Ergopower levers
Let’s start with the shifters. Gone is the long-running thumb downshift lever and the ‘One Lever, One Action‘ ethos (and Campy’s technologies page that explained why that was more intuitive to use). Instead, you get 2 shift buttons behind the brake lever that look a bit like Di2-style, but with some extra spacing in between them and a different tactile finish on each to make it harder to accidentally hit the wrong lever.
The new levers are said to be easy to adapt to, shifting the upper button with the tip of your index finger, and shifting the lower button with your middle finger. Campagnolo says they moved away from their classic inner thumb-shifter design to appeal to a broader pool of cyclists, some who had trouble operating the inner shift lever, especially those with smaller hands.
Looking both from the side profile and head-on, it’s clear that these new Ergopower hoods are both wider and larger volume than previous generations of Record & Super Record.
Presumably, that was a conscious decision to create a more comfortable place to rest your hands based on Campy’s first comments to us, since we’d expect electronics to take up less space inside than mechanical shift internals. But, compared to the EPS system – now Campagnolo Super Record Wireless levers have to pack processing power, communications hardware, and the replaceable CR2032 battery into the same same where there was just a switch before.
On the insides of the new Ergopower levers, Campagnolo does add a bit more tech, too.
Up top is a Mode button that is designed to be used during setup and diagnostics. Below is the Power or Wak-Up button that again has a mostly setup & adjust function. But Campagnolo has mentioned that it is possible to customize at least one of these buttons on each shifter to control a connected Garmin GPS device.
We asked if it could be configured as a shift button to replicate classic Campy shift dynamics, but Campagnolo managed to not give a definitive answer.
The other dot there is a LED indicator that will flash red warning of low battery when there is <15% charge remaining. Campagnolo says that in regular use, riders should get 1.5-2 years of battery life out of the non-rechargeable button-cell battery in each shifter.
MyCampy in-app shift customization
Of course, one of the biggest benefits to electronic – and even more so, wireless – shifting is the ability to customize its controls. Campy didn’t share much about the new functionality of the updated MyCampy app other than to say that you can customize shift dynamics.
Standard factory settings do use the idea of the right lever controlling the rear derailleur, the left lever controlling the front derailleur, top buttons to a harder gear, bottom buttons to an easier gear. But it is up to you.
A couple of screengrabs from Campagnolo’s Super Record Wireless presentation suggest some curious combinations. That one on the right looks like it might recreate the One Lever, One Action concept with the right levers making gears easier, and left levers harder? And the image on the left looks like it might be Goblin Mode, just push shifters and hope for the best.
New battery-powered wireless derailleurs
OK, so new wireless Ergopowers are key, but they have to control something, right?
Now they talk directly and independently to two new battery-powered wireless derailleurs.
The rear derailleur is mostly carbon as we’ve seen before from the Super Record level, with its electronic motor and removable battery tucked underneath the parallelogram – just no more wired connection.
The front derailleur is much the same with a similar electronic motor up top and a removable battery on its front – no more wires.
An important note here is that both use different batteries, and both have a different mechanism to secure the battery in place. This was apparently a direct work around SRAM AXS patents.
The big innovation here though, is that Campagnolo includes charging contacts for a magnetic USB-powered charger so you can either charge the batteries on the bike, or quickly pull them off and charge them on your desktop.
Quoted battery life for the derailleurs is >750km for a race-level user, or more than 1000km for a regular cyclist. Recharge time is said to be super fast too, so something like a 75% recharge from flat in 30 mins.
New compact crankset sizes
New smaller 12sp cassettes with 10T cog
Carry-over chain & brakes
Claimed weight – lightweight or ultralight?
In the end, Campagnolo Super Record Wireless claims to effectively weigh the same as the outgoing wired Super Record EPS at 2520g for the complete setup. Campy has not yet clarified to us what that includes. It is lightweight, but essentially the same as the top Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 or SRAM Red AXS groups which have all coalesced around that same real 2.5kg weight target in their latest iterations.
Are you ready to rethink Campy shifting? Wireless electronic shifting is only available at the Super Record level for now (this year?), but Campy effectively confirmed that they are working on bringing wireless electronic shifting to other groupsets, as well – an important shift from the previous generation of EPS that abandoned electronic shifting at Record & Chorus levels. Fingers crossed that Ekar Wireless will be next!
2023 Campagnolo Super Record Wireless – Pricing & Availability
Officially the new 2023 Campagnolo Super Record Wireless gruppo goes on sale today for 5200€ for a complete 2×12 wireless-shift, hydraulic sic brake groupset with your choice of gearing. Campagnolo assures us that the new Super Record Wireless group is actually available starting today, and there will likely be a number of complete bike from brands including Canyon, Pinarello, Specialized, Wilier, and more that are available to order starting today. But beyond the high pricetag of the new group which will likely limit the number of people who can afford a new Super Record Wireless setup, Campy says the new groupset will be available in relatively limited numbers as production ramps up fully to meet demand.
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