You wait years for a new Chris King product and then two of them come along at once. Campagnolo 11-speed freehub body and ceramic bearings come together in the latest incarnation of the light, bright and fast R45 road hub; is this the best road hub on the market? Probably...at a price (about £480, since you asked).
We built a pair of these mini masterpieces up with Enve 65 rims and de-rigeur Sapim CX-Rays for an all-black, no excuses wheelset. The front wheel had to settle for standard stainless steel bearings but the rear is fully kitted out with the new ceramic option and it shows, give it a spin and watch it go, you could brew a pot of tea before it stops.
One thing which nearly caught us out is the cassette lockring. The R45 Campag-compatible hubs include a beautiful shiny aluminium lockring (check it out in the gallery photos below) but you need to choose which size smallest sprocket you're going to run, and at the moment they are only shipping with 11T-fitting lockrings. If you try to fit a 12T cassette, the lockring won't do any locking (it fits inside the 12T). And the standard Campag lockring supplied with 11sp cassettes won't work either; the threads aren't long enough. So for the moment you'd better break out the strong legs and stick an 11T on there. Not that that's a problem with 10 other gears to get you out of trouble. It might all work fine with the shorter cog stack of 10-sp Campag and a normal lockring, but we haven't got any around to try.
A brief word on the availability of all these options. 12T lockrings are likely to be available in 2 weeks, maybe longer, the latest news is that Chris King have just made them. The ceramic bearings are also available as an option on the "traditional" Shimano 8/9/10 speed compatible hubs. And finally, Campagnolo cassette bodies are interchangeable with Shimano ones in case you make the switch one way or the other.
