Classic & Vintage - pre-Xmas poll: your fave gruppo? why?

What is your favorite gruppo? Why...looks? performance?.
My favorite is early nineties Suntour Superbe Pro. Personally I have a thing for anything Suntour. Superbe Pro is the most fully realized of the Suntour line. I recently swapped out Superbe Pro for the stock GTX on my RB-1. Polished calipers and cranks (similar to the old Campy C-record) and great performance and since there is no more Suntour , a certain cache

I concur with your choice. However, if price is no object, there is nothing like a vintage Campag. Record hubset, and the Campag. shifters and derailleurs are beautifully made and durable, even though the old parallelogram Record rear does indeed shift late compared to any slant plano unit, including vintage SunTour.

Old Shimano 600 groupo. Just beautiful filigree and works like a charm. Found this groupo on eBay, and got it for a song. Cleaned it up a bit, put it on an old Nishiki I restored for my daughter, and it turned out to be great! Some day, I'll land me another groupo like that for some project I'll keep around!!

Well my vintage ride sports Campy S. Record and I've got to say the black anodizing with Campagnolo in script onn the rear der. is beautiful. Works pretty well too. Can't say that for the brakes though which is why my otherwise vintage bike has modern dual pivots.

I too must say a ST Superbe group is about as good as it got in the "old days" and is still pretty desirable. Better brakes than vintage Campy w/o doubt.

Another Suntour Superbe vote here, but I prefer the
1st or 2nd generation gruppo. I also liked the cyclone
gruppo.
For asthetics only I'd have to say Campy Croce D'Aune
Other than that Campy Nuovo or Super Record pat84.

Marty

I like everyone's choices, and am fine with all that stuff. Wouldn't mind having some of it, though I tend towards Frankenbike messos on my bikes, which have a mix of Campy, Shimano, Suntour, Stronglight, and Simplex on them. The only high end component I'm real, real picky about is this:

On my better bikes, I always, always, put Simplex Retrofriction Shifters on 'em. Best friction shifters ever made, by a long, long shot. Beautiful, as well.

Suntour Superbe vote here as well. In fact my main ride I pieced mealed together starting in 1979 with the Superbe hubs, they now have over 140,000 miles; in 80 I put on Superbe brakes; 81 Superbe pedals were added; 82 Superbe BB and crankset were added; 84 replaced frame and at that time replaced the front and rear derailleurs (friction), shifters, headset and seat post (seatpost was in storage till about 3 years ago when the old TTT seatpost failed) with Superbe; these last components have about 80,000 miles. During all that time I have not had to rebuild or repair anything! Of course I have to maintain the stuff.

In 87 I heard Suntour was going out of business, so I went to a bike shop and bought front and rear derailleurs and pedals because in the event of an accident those seem to get damaged or need repair and was afraid those parts would not be around, (at the time could not afford the entire group). I still have those parts brand new in their boxes.

don't think sun tour is out? I was going to buy a set of sus forks for my mtb from them- I looked quick at a website but it was all forks? perhaps they have shifted product lines? ( this was 2 months ago) I'd check, but i'm going to bed..anybody ever heard of suntour forks? I got the item info @ my LBS...soo I assume suntour still tours?

Isn't the Suntour Superbe crank back in production? I heard it was even being OEM spec'd on some road bikes maybe last year or the year before.

I also heard Suntour was also comteplating making copies of the vintage Campy stuff we all know and love. I think this would be a good idea because there seems to be a demand for it. Anybody heard this?

Speaking of vintage, I think Suntour or some other company (Miche? SRAM?) should remanufacture the beautiful Huret Jubilee deraillers or maybe something similar that works with modern cassettes, indexing and such.

I'd have to vote for Campy NR but I agree with nebill the early Shimano 600 group is beautiful & it gives the most bang for your buck plus there's still some N.O.S. left out there. Don

My vote is for the Wald gruppo. Hard to beat technology that has no need to change after 50 years.

The original Suntour company owned by Meada since 1912 went out of business in 1995, the company was purchased by Mori Industries in 1995 who restructured it's debts and closed all it's US offices, but in 96 reopened a sales office in the US under the SR name. Old Suntour perfected the friction shifting rear derailleur design and they had the best and fastest shifting derailleur in the world. But they were too small of a company and could not keep up with R&D when index shifting came along from Shimano and other concepts that Shimano introduced, even Campy had trouble keeping up with Shimano, Campy waited nearly 7 years to intro their version of index shifting whereas Suntour was only 2 years late. By the time Shimano intro the index system in 85 they had been experiencing a explosion financially due to other products they also made including fishing tackle. They are still a financial giant today compared to Campy. If you want more detail see: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~hadland/page35.htm


SR Suntour is indeed remaking the last generation of Superbe chainwheels, whether not this is an indication that they will make some of the other stuff is yet to be seen. see: http://www.srsuntour-cycling.com/

I'm a Campy fan.

I'm a Campy fan because the stuff never fails, looks great, and holds it value.

-the mid- 80's Mavic SSC stuff was pretty, durable and held together with circlips, rather than rivets. The hubs, retrofriction gear levers and (badged Modolo)brakes were as good as anything available, in the era immediately before indexing.