Campagnolo Ekar on Polygon Bend R5

Here is the final post on the Campagnolo Ekar groupset! This 1x13 speed groupset has been installed on the Polygon Bend R5 gravel bike. Check out the pictures below.

Start with the full bike picture. This frame has a really tall head tube and a very sloped top tube, which gives an upright riding posture and a relatively low standover height.

Campagnolo Ekar shifters. This left side shifter only has the hydraulic brake parts and no shifting mechanism.

Here is the right side of the Campagnolo Ekar shifters. This side has shifting levers to activate the 13 speed mechanism.

Here is the 1x13 speed drivetrain! 

Rear derailleur and cassette. The long loop of the shifter outer casing is not ideal, but it is unavoidable due to the cable fixing point on the rear derailleur.

Campagnolo Ekar 13 speed rear derailleur! Traditional construction with old school cable fixing point and linkage design. Cage design is modern with an offset guide pulley and large pulleys.

13 speed 9-42T Campagnolo Ekar cassette, with a super wide 466% gear range.

Campagnolo Ekar carbon crankset, with a 38T chain ring.

Campagnolo Ekar hydraulic brake calipers and rotors! 160 mm rotor at the front.

Also 160 mm rotors at the rear. Strangely, a Size 5 Allen key is used for the rear thru axle, as opposed to the Size 6 Allen key for the front thru axle.

Continental Terra Speed 700c x 40 gravel tires on the Fulcrum Rapid Red 300 wheelset.

Check out the HUGE fork clearance even with the large 700c x 40 mm tires!

Safe clearance at the rear, between the tire and seat tube.

Also good clearance between the tire and the chain stay. Normally this would be the bottleneck for tire clearance.

Another view of the full bike from the other side.

When I ride this gravel bike, one word comes to mind: Indestructible. With the strong wheelset and sturdy aluminium frame, it feels way more solid than most road bikes.

The downside of being indestructible is that it is also heavy. The aluminium frame is pretty heavy itself, along with the aluminium handlebar, seat post, and wheelset. Good thing that the wide gear range enables slow climbing due to the low gears available.

It rolls pretty well once you get up to speed, due to the Continental Terra Speed tires. Braking performance is excellent, with great modulation offered by the Campagnolo brakes. During pad contact, the brake lever still feels a bit soft, as compared to the firm feeling of Shimano brakes. This is OK as I can feel the modulation.

The gear shifters are not ideal, due to the stiff and clunky thumb release lever. It takes quite a bit of effort to push the release lever, and it is intentionally limited to one gear release at a time, unlike on road groupsets where 4 gears can be released at one go. This is likely due to the wide gear range, which increases the chance of a chain drop if multiple gears are released at one go.

Shifter ergonomics are OK, with the hood shape and brake lever shape being quite comfortable. Still not as good as the Shimano road Di2 shifters though.

Gear adjustment is very finicky, due to the narrow tolerances and sensitivity of the 13 speed cassette, chain and rear derailleur. It was impossible to find a sweet spot where all the 13 gears can shift up and down smoothly without delay. Ultimately it was a compromise to minimize the shifting delays, but not eliminate completely.

The carbon Ekar crankset didn't seem to add any value to this groupset, as it was not really lighter or cheaper than an aluminium crankset. In fact, I thought the wide and flat carbon crankarm design didn't match the other components at all.

This Campagnolo Ekar groupset and bike build was done as part of a project, it is not my bike. If you ask me, the only part of the groupset that I would use on my own bike is the 13 speed cassette. For braking and shifting performance, the GRX groupset on the Cervelo Aspero is more appealing to me.