Suntour S1

Just seen this from this link:

http://www.mtb-kataloge.de/Bikekataloge ... Tour93.pdf

This completely passed me by at the time.

What's the advantage?
Has anyone ever used one?
How does it mount to the frame?
Is this what bankrupted Suntour? Or was it the multitude of gear shifters available (5, according to that link)

Crazy. In a good way. I heart the 90s.

Here's some more info: http://www.disraeligears.co.uk/Site/Sun ... 00%29.html

When I first got into cycling in the early 80s you bought Suntour and Shimano if you couldn't afford Campagnolo, but I really liked Suntour stuff I had, it was well made, nicely finished and worked well and reliably. I also thought that Suntour components looked smarter than the Shimano products of a similar price, which I always thought looked a bit fugly.

I still think a lot of Shimano components are not exactly pretty. I have an XT rear derailleur, it works well enough, but apart from the "X" shaped outer parallelogram plate it's quite utilitarian and hardly a thing of beauty:



SRAM stuff is no prettier:



I had one of these back in the day:



The long cage version weighed 170g, about 55g lighter than a modern XT M-772, so not sure what real development happened in the 30 years between the two models. :roll:

It's a shame Suntour didn't survive, it'd be interesting to see what they came up with if they had.

> "mounting on a braze-on under the chainstay"

this explains why I've never seen any. As a concept, it was never going to work if it needed frame builders' buy-in, no matter how good it was.

Agree about later/current Shimano stuff - it ain't pretty. But personally I quite like the dainty/spidery SRAM stuff.

And as for c.1990 stuff - yes I think Suntour probably has the edge in terms of aesthetics. Campag is on another planet though - and so are their 2nd hand prices.

xerxes":2v1b4yo7 said:

The long cage version weighed 170g, about 55g lighter than a modern XT M-772, so not sure what real development happened in the 30 years between the two models. :roll:

Click to expand...

I suspect it's mainly development of a huge marketing department and the pretence that bicycle technology is moving at the same speed as the semiconductor industry. When all is said and done it's metal-bashing.