First, the big news is that all Campagnolo 9- and 10-speed "QS" trademarked front derailleurs for 2008 will work with both standard and a compact crankset. Happy days. No more having to buy crankset-specific front derailleurs.
Richard at the Campagnolo booth at Interbike showed me the new design of the Record and Chorus front derailleurs. The 2008 change in design facilitates smoother shifting by using the wider part of the derailleur cage, located closer to the derailleur attachment point, to contact and shift the chain. This is a change from the exisiting design, which employed the thinner part of the cage located further away from the attachment point. Campy has changed the cage, the brace, and the fixing clamp of the Record for 2008.
Campy 2008 front derailleurs have a 16-tooth maximum capacity for shifting difference between the chainrings. So, add 16T to the smallest ring on your crankset, and that is the largest ring you can use. The largest chainring the front derailleur can accomodate is 55T and the smallest is 34T. (For example, you can't use a 55Tx34T, since you have to add 16T to the smallest ring, which is 34T + 16T = 50T largest ring. But you could, theoretically make a 55Tx39T, but I am not sure why you would want to do this.)
Record front derailleurs are made of aluminum alloy and composite. Chorus is made of aluminum alloy. The other groupsets use stainless steel for their front derailleur material. Front derailleurs are kind of "dumb" components with one job to do, move the chain. But I can see how reducing the stress on the cage by shortening the lever arm created by the contact point of the cage might be especially helpful to racers executing quick shifts under substantial load. If you are racing with Campy record, and you buy yourself a Record 2008 front derailleur, and let us know if the upgrade in shifting performance was worth the coin.
Photos taken by Wheelgirl at Interbike in Vegas 2007. The extremely ugly pics are usually taken through plastic display cases.
