Raleigh Pioneer Trail

[Nightvision Chimpanzee]

I recently aquired a 1992 or so Ralegih Pioneer Trail and it has a full suntour XCT groupset. It has a Reynolds 501 Double Butted Frame and Fork. But it cost £30 and has a broken thumb shifter, but the previous owner had pulled the derailleur across and tightened the cable so that the front derailleur is always forced into the largest sprocket. Just a couple of questions would shimano 7 speed altus shifters be compatable with the 7 speed suntour cassette as I have a pair lying around and also how high end was the suntour XCT groupset because so far as build quality it seems to be alivio level in my opinion but going by suntour's current range of forks where they retain the XCT name it seems quite low end.

 

[Xesh]

Shimano shifters should work but may need a bit of patience to adjust properly.

The Pioneer Trail was about £250-300 new iIrc and was pretty much one of the higher end hybrids at the time. This was when hybrids were seen as the choice of the old man (most people would go for these new fangled mountain bike things).

 

[hydorah]

Suntour

I'd place XCT around the 300/400/500LX mark and they are from that time

The forks are pretty poor but your Suntour drivetrain is good

These come up a LOT on ebay

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SunTour-XC-Pro-th ... 19c4182a08

You can also use STi style jobbies called 'Xpress' made by Suntour none around at the mo, but they come up a lot - you won't have any compatibility woes then!

 

[Mark south wales]

little bit on the trail 501

 

[Bluejohn]

I love my Pioneer - it's my winter commuter of choice. It came with shimano twist shifters but I hate those with a passion so swapped them out for a set of shimano SL-MT62 thumbies. Those are brilliant because they can run either indexed (7sp and up to 8sp with a "hidden" click) or in friction mode - this means they can run pretty much any drivetrain in friction mode which is how I tend to run mine most of the time.