Exclusive First Look: Campagnolo Athena EPS

It's partly about horses for courses.

EPS & Di2 both allow for a different kind of shifting. With a directly-actuated, motor driven shift, Campagnolo or Shimano, there are several things that become possible, which are extremely difficult if not impossible with mechanical shift as we have it now.

Examples:

Shifting, front or rear, up or down, under full gas is possible and very predictable - much harder to do with mechanical.

Wide ratio shifts at the front end become easier to facilitate - so 52/36 is an option, and easier to actuate, even for those with small hands, or those who suffer badly in the cold.

Exact re-alignment with a correctly matched cassette following a wheel change which displaces the cassette left or right relative to the frame ... you can't do that with a mechanical system quickly, and definitely not in the saddle whilst riding. With an electronic (EPS) or electro-mechanical (Di2 / Ui2) system you can.

Routine maintenance is reduced, in so far as there is no degradation of shift caused by degradation of cable inners and outers. OK, the battery needs to be charged, so that might be seen as an additional maintenance hassle not present with mechanical, so maybe that's a neutral point.

On the flip, there is a weight penalty, and not all riders will find the above characteristics useful, or sufficient reason to change.

Riders for whom weight is paramount will probably continue to use mechanical systems. Riders who need other characteristics now have the option of looking at EPS and Di2.

Personally, as someone who was very, very skeptical, having been a wires and springs man for all of my 30 years as a mechanic, I am now a convert to the benefits where they apply ... even though being involved with the inner workings of EPS took me well outside of my comfort zone.

I'd say ride it, draw up a pros and cons list, then make your choice, but don't dismiss it until you have had opportunity to ride a significant distance over some varying terrian.

OOPs, your Shimano history is off.
Here is their catalog view for track only 10mm pitch parts.
http://sheldonbrown.com/shimano1982/pages/11.html

dave_atkinson wrote:

to be fair to campag, shimano's first two groupsets weren't compatible either

True, but at least Shimano has an excuse - the new DI2 uses CAN bus, which eliminated the need for a central processing unit. It's an improvment over the older DI2, and is why the car industry moved to CAN bus. How is reversed polarity an improvement?

pedalingparamedic wrote:

"Unfortunately, for anyone hoping to mix some Athena parts with Record or Super Record, Campagnolo have reversed the polarity so they are not compatible."

Oh yes, we wouldn't want any of that nasty, convenient compatibility creeping into anything!!

Typical Campag. F***wits. Japanese (and now Americans) leaving them for dead again by providing boring old consistency.

G-bitch wrote:

Typical Campag. F***wits. Japanese (and now Americans) leaving them for dead again by providing boring old consistency.

Typical f***wit. Doesn't know anything about Di2.

There are also some small changes in the software that require compatible interface and power units - these changes will also flow across to Record / Super Record. This is a part of the reason for wanting to ensure that complete systems are sold, and sold to dealers with access to compatibility information.

The changes are not mission-critical, they are very small tweaks related to increasing battery life under some circumstances and a very small change to the shift protocol in top gear. They require an interaction of the PU and the interface, but if one of the two partners carries older software, that's OK - the changes degrade gracefully, as the IT bods put it.

Campag would, however, prefer the system to behave as well as they can make it behave, so prefer to avoid a mix-and-match approach.