Does anyone remember when Suntour began

[ridelover9941]

I have the first edition of a bicycle history book called Dancing Chain by a fellow man named Frank Berto. Frank mentions that when Suntour began it was somewhere in the 1920s but he never said the actual year which is confusing me. If any of you have any knowledge of the exact year when Suntour began, can you tell me? I am a huge sucker for Suntour rear derailleurs.

 

[Drago]

They were founded in 1912 as the Maeda Iron Works manufacturing freewheel and sprockets. They soon expanded their repertoire, and in 1964 they invented the slant parallelogram rear derailleur, which is a pretty big deal. When the company finally passed away all the tooling for the lovely derailleurs was sold for scrap, so we'll never see their likes again as reproduction parts.

I do like the Suntour VXGT on my Claud. It works very nicely, looks lovely, and it ain't Shimano.

 

[I like Skol]

You could always ask Google (which is exactly what @Drago will have done) the information and much, much more is freely available from many sources (Wiki, Sheldon Brown, etc).

 

[Alan O]

For anyone who hasn't yet found it, Disraeli Gears has a big list of SunTour models and some old documents.

It seems that my two Vx models are the plain Vx and a Vx S. The former is on a road bike with 14-24 block (and 36/48 front), and the latter is on my tourer with 14-28 (and 28/38/48 Biopace triple).

 

[Cycleops]

Remember?! Why, some of our members might even have been there .

 

[Globalti]

I always used to fit Suntour XC Pro thumb shifters to my mountain bikes because I loved their simplicity, light weight and slick design. I was once in my LBS and spotted a brand new pair in the back of a drawer, which I grabbed, to the shopkeeper's surprise. I have several pairs in my box of bits because unfortunately the ratchet on the LH (front) shifter used to wear out and I haven't figured out how to repair it. I will do one day.

 

[GuyBoden]

I always used to fit Suntour XC Pro thumb shifters to my mountain bikes because I loved their simplicity, light weight and slick design. I was once in my LBS and spotted a brand new pair in the back of a drawer, which I grabbed, to the shopkeeper's surprise. I have several pairs in my box of bits because unfortunately the ratchet on the LH (front) shifter used to wear out and I haven't figured out how to repair it. I will do one day.

Interesting design, using ball bearings for indexing.
Apparently, to fix the mechanism you need to grind the disc flat and re-drill the ball bearing pits.

Info is here:
http://euphras.blogspot.com/2011/10/how-to-touch-up-vintage-suntour-index.html

 

[Globalti]

That's the RH, rear shifter, they carry on working forever. My problem is the friction device on the LH, front shifter, which is a simple grooved pawl pressing against a grooved disc. Eventually the grooves wear out and the lever loses its ability to stay in position no matter how hard you crank down the friction adjuster.

 

[GuyBoden]

That's the RH, rear shifter, they carry on working forever. My problem is the friction device on the LH, front shifter, which is a simple grooved pawl pressing against a grooved disc. Eventually the grooves wear out and the lever loses its ability to stay in position no matter how hard you crank down the friction adjuster.

I have the same problem with a Suntour Power Shifter, the Ratchet Spring that presses against the Ratchet wheel has snapped. That's why I was very interested in your post.

See part 6 on the diagram below, it's the Ratchet spring. A DIY piece of curled clock spring might work.

 

[Globalti]

This is the best picture I can find and I don't think these are the XC Pro version. The ratchet mechanism of the non-indexed LH shifter (on the right here) is very simple, just a tiny brass or plastic block with grooves milled in the face which is pressed by a spring against a collar with equivalent milled grooves.

 

[froze]

I think Suntour is the company that should have stayed in business and Shimano had gone out of business...but Shimano was and still is a HUGE business that does other things besides bike parts, and the size of the company simply crushed Suntour financially because they could afford lots of R & D that Suntour could not, and once the patent ran out on the slant parallelogram invention Shimano grabbed it and ran with it.

I've had several bikes over the years with Suntour, my first racing bike was a Trek 412 with VXgt, and that derailleur was rated the best shifting derailleur money could buy by Consumer Reports back in the day, even though that bike was not a typical racing bike, because it was cheap, I did quite well with it.

The 412 got crunched so I got a (84) Trek 660 frame and fork and had all Suntour Superbe Tech system put on; that rear derailleur would shift under FULL load hammering up a mountain road! It made a banging sound when it shifted while hammering but it would go, and when I was racing with it that shifting under load enabled me to keep my speed up without reducing a bit to shift like Shimano and Campy users had to do; I still have that bike, and after over 160,000 miles the Superbe Tech still shifts great. A side story; after I bought the Trek I heard about 6 months later two things, first was Suntour was having financial problems and could go under; the second was that the Superbe Tech rear derailleur was having major issues; so I went and bought another Superbe Tech derailleur along with a front and pedals just in case a part failed I would have spares...the first Superbe tech never failed! I still have the other stuff brand new in their boxes! I did recently put the Superbe pedals on my Fuji Club because the original pedals were crappy. It's too bad with the advantage of shifting under loads while racing I didn't win more races! LOL!!

Speaking of the (84) Fuji Club that bike has Suntour ARx, I bought it used for $40 with only 5 miles on it about 5 years ago, this bike was so unused the derailleurs weren't even broken in! So at first I thought the ARx was a crappy derailleur because it didn't shift fast like the Superbe Tech did, but after about 200 miles it finally started to work faster, it still isn't as fast as the Superbe Tech probably more on par with the VXgt derailleur which is very good.

My last bike with Suntour is a (85) Schwinn Le Tour Luxe which I also bought used for $60 and it only had 250 miles on it; the derailleur system is Suntour Mountech...crap this a fantastic derailleur, it also shifts under load, in fact it shifts climbing grades with 50 pounds of gear on the bike and I don't have to let up on the pedals to shift, it bangs into gear like the Superbe Tech does.

Keep in mind all those Suntour derailleurs I've had or currently have are ALL friction, and they will shift as fast as my Shimano STI Ultegra!

I also have several bikes with mid 80's era Shimano SIS from Dura Ace and 105, these will not shift under load, I have to back off a bit to shift, and the SIS system isn't as fast as the Suntour friction stuff I have which most people will doubt but that's ok, that's just my experience with them. But what's really weird, even though the SIS shifts a tad slower it actually shifts a tad faster than the STI or even the Ergo I once had! There is a reason for that most people don't realize, STI is nothing more than SIS, the only difference is Shimano moved the shifting point to the brake lever, and due to the longer cable and more turns it doesn't shift quite as fast.

Needless to say due to my experience is the reason why I said I wish Suntour had stayed and Shimano left.