Recently Chris King announced that they would cease production of their Campagnolo-compatible driveshells as they focused their attentions on parts that were in greater demand. This comes as a blow to those of us who want to run Campagnolo drivetrains and want hubs to match the look and quality of our Chris King headsets, but it's not hard to understand from Chris King's perspective.
The Campagnolo driveshells have always been a very small part of the King's hub line, and as we've seen with the drastic reduction of the mountain bike hub options last year, the company is focusing more on its main products rather than offering every option. It's also worth considering that the amount of options within each hub, headset, and bottom bracket is huge when you think about how many colors each comes in. So it's not simply a matter of making a single hub, but rather one of making nine hubs!
There's been speculation about other reasons for this move, including the potential of the new chain catcher tabs on the back of Campagnolo's 12 speed cassettes interfering with spokes on some hubs–possibly including those from King–which would necessitate not just a different driveshell, but a completely different hubshell. Chris King hubs do tend to have a wide center-to-flange measurement on the drive side (which contributes to the strength of the wheels built with these hubs, even if only to a small degree), so it's possible that they would have less ability to make room for the new tabs on Campagnolo's cassettes.
In any case, we're happy to say that you still have many good options when it comes to Campagnolo-compatible hubs!
Currently we have the following options that are compatible with Campagnolo cassettes:
The beauty of Phil Wood and White Industries is that both companies make their freehubs compatible across all hubs, so swapping is no problem, no matter what. And you don't even have to worry about having mis-matched headset and hubs, because both companies make beautiful headsets!
Do you have questions about what's going to work on your bike? We're here to help, so drop us a line.
