I had a set of Enve 3.4 clinchers built up with this rear hub and what a nightmare. It turns out that the CK R45 hub is not compatible with the Campagnolo STANDARD rear hub dimensions. This effectively means that you must make major adjustments to the rear derailleur when switching between a wheel with this CK hub and any other NORMAL Campy compatible hub. CK makes no apologies for this. This makes it a total PITA to use this hub and renders it useless for racing since a neutral wheel change is not practical. This is absolutely absurd for a premium aftermarket hub and is a very painful and expensive lesson. I wound up destroying a Super Record RD and Campy rear wheel switching them in and having the RD get caught in the spokes. Plus, I will now have to have to wheel rebuilt with a compatible hub, which wont match the front. Expert lesson in how to totally piss off your customers.
My wheel builder contacted CK directly. They confirmed this and made zero apologies for it - its the way we do things. Nice attitude.
They claim that they didn’t know this about the CK Hub. They called CK and were surprised to learn this about the hubs. In fairness, the builder has been great to deal with.
Campy compatible only means that the cassette body it, there is no spec for the flange with is what for you. Every manufactures hubs are built slightly different and you run the risk of that happening every time you change hub types. It use to not be a big deal, but as the manufactures have added gears the cassettes have gotten closer to the spokes so you have less margin of error.
I never put a new wheel in and ride without checking that clearance on the spokes in the large cog.
To be clear, I am not looking for perfect compatibility, but 10 - 15 mins to reset the limit screws and adjust the barrel is not acceptable. If I need to swap out the wheel in a hurry its not that it shifts poorly, it doesn’t work on more than 2 cogs at all. Even the wheelbuilder, which is one of the largest wheelbuilders in the US was rather shocked by how different the spacing is vs the standard spacing. Yes, my bad for not checking carefully when I swapped wheels, but the magnitude of the difference is nothing I’ve seen before. Even if you view this as a “minor” inconvenience, with all the high quality hub choices available why torture yourself with a brand that is this far out of standard spec? If you find this acceptable, then you clearly don’t do any racing. This summer I flatted in the first 40 minutes of a 3.5 hr road race (one of the hardest and hilliest in the NE US) and had to ride 2+hrs with only two rear cogs functioning - suffer through that and let me know your opinion then.
Here is the actual email from my wheelbuilder:
Thanks for your patience as we were investigating your issues with the wheel.
Unbeknownst to me, Chris King’s freehub body edge is about a 0.026" inward when compared to the Campagnolo standard. That is a major difference when swapping wheels. We contacted Chris King and it is a known difference so there is nothing actually wrong with the hub.
So what we came up with as one solution would be to run a spacer on the freehub body before you install the cassette. The spacer measures out to be 0.013", so that would cut the difference in half. You will have to make sure that the lockring fully engages the hub. We hope that the barrel nut adjustment will be all that is required.
Again, there is nothing wrong with the hub as it is Chris King’s proprietary design. This is par for the course as they march to the beat of their own drum. This is evident from their high-engagement internal gear box, their proprietary bearings, anodizing process, cult following, etc.
If you took 5 shimano compatible wheels from 5 different manufacturers none of them would have the exact same spacing and would need some adjustment. It is not Chris Kings concern that anyone should have to readjust their derailleur when using a competitors hub, even if it is Campy. They license the spline pattern and orientate the freehub in a manner that will work best with their internals. Being off by 3/4 of a mm compared to a Record hub sounds very reasonable and seems like something that can be fixed. My shop used to have a whole bunch of .25mm shims for such issues. We would get racers and tri people who swap wheels a bunch that wanted everything to be exact and we could do it.
This does not sound like a CK issue. Some variance is expected even when using the same hub brand and wheel. 10 - 15 minutes to adjust? Sounds like time for a new mechanic. A good mechanic would have the adjustment complete in a minute or two.
Let’s put it this way - the adjustment required is enough such that you have to adjust the RD limit screw and the barrel significantly. It is not practical to do this if swapping out the wheel during a race since the wheel change time will take too long. So, if you don’t mind the adjustment and don’t race at all then you’ll be fine, otherwise it will be a major PITA.
Let’s put it this way - the adjustment required is enough such that you have to adjust the RD limit screw and the barrel significantly.Is there a reason why you’re ignoring the simple and common fix of shimming your cassettes so they’re all close-enough?
Seriously, it’s 0.6604mm!! From the tone of your comments, one would think the discrepancy was on the order of a full centimeter or more! That discrepancy is quite normal between hubs. Shim the cassette if it vexes you so.
Why does it take so long to adjust your limit screws? Once you figure out how much is required, you should be able to memorize it and it should take all of ten seconds.
This is not a Chris King Issue. This is a shop issue for not telling you that spacing on most hubs is different. Most shops even small shops can shim hubs. I bet once you get all your wheels spaced right you will be happy with your King wheel. They make really nice stuff. Just a heads up. Do not throw away your broke Campy or King. Campy and King are both fixable. A lot of shops can rebuild pretty quickly.