Sixty Fiver

Was upgrading my UO8 tonight as I wanted to widen my gear range a little and the little Huret Svelto was not up to the task of handling any more teeth so I opted to go with Suntour and had a lovely V-Luxe at the ready and had already installed a Spirt front d.

Went with Suntour half ratchets (of course) and got everything installed in short order only to find the spring in the V-Luxe was a goner and yes, I tried resetting the pin for more tension.

So what does one do ?

You grab that old Honor derailleur you have been using as a paperweight and install it along with a NOS 14-30 Suntour freewheel you had hanging on the wall instead of a 14-28.

And then you find that once again you are appreciating Suntour... not for making something as exquisite as a Cyclone Mk 1, but for for making what was probably one of the most widely sold and affordable wide range derailleurs of it's time.

From Disraeli Gears...

"The SunTour Honor was the mid range, steel workhorse of the SunTour range for two decades. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t light, it wasn’t sophisticated, being steel it was a touch noisy and it certainly wasn’t going to impress your europhile friends in the local cycling club. But it was cheap, strong, reliable and effective."

It seems to be a perfect match for my under appreciated UO8... and the V-Luxe may have been too pretty for her.

redneckwes

Honor, the AK-47 of derrailleurs.

mickey85

I'm a sucker for Suntour as well. The AR derailers that I've used on bikes are some of the smoothest, easiest to shift pieces I have - to include my Campy NR stuff...

gurry

Yep, just checked my parts bin. Got one! Made in 1977. How come I feel the urgent need to install it quickly?

Sixty Fiver

So true.

CPFITNESS

Cleaned the one on my 83 nishiki century up, put on a new 34 tooth megarange freewheel, made some weeks and voila, she shifts beautifully.

corkscrew

Hrmm, I pulled an Honor out of the dumpster awhile back. Had no idea it was a wide range RD (Short cage and everything??).

scozim 

Cool - I've got one of those sitting around. Guess I'll just have to put it on the late-60's Gitane I'm working on since the original Simplex Prestige is inoperable.

roccobike

NO argument from me. Suntour was the bomb back in the early 80s. They just didn't invest their R&D wisely. Shimano caught Suntour napping with SIS and the rest is history.
I picked up a Cyclone rear derailer the other day and could not believe how light it is. Even the newer Shimano derailers I have are heavier.
Suntour is my vintage favorite, that includes their much unappreciated index shifter with which I've had pretty good success.

Sixty Fiver

I believe that the Cyclone Mk1 short cage is still lighter than the new Dura Ace by a few grams... it is probably the finest lightweight derailleur ever made as although the Huret Jubilee is lighter... it is also fragile.

Sixty Fiver

Berto described the NR as being an extremely solid and dependable derailleur in that it would shift poorly but would do that forever...

When it comes to late seventies and early eighties derailleurs there is no company that could compete with Suntour and it was only a case of Eurosnobbery that kept Campagnolo in the game.

When you look at Shimano's offerings from the same time they were still using the Lark series derailleurs which were a copy of the 50's Campy Gran Sport but have an advantage in that these work with indexed shifters.

So when Campy and Shimano were stuck in the dark ages Suntour invented the first modern derailleur... this is a Suntour Competition from 1965.

John E

SunTour's slant planograph has now been almost universally copied. It was the biggest advance in rear derailleurs since Campagnolo's vertical parallelogram Gran Sport.

I have a short cage SunTour Cyclone II on the Peugeot and a long cage SunTour 6000 on the Schwinn, and they outperform the various Campagnolos I have on everything else.

BikeKraft

From my bone pile. Hope to put it back on my 1980 Fuji Royale mixte

CPFITNESS

I was advised that screwing the screw all the way in or reversing it would get the job done. I reversed it and it shifts my 7 speed megarange 34 tooth no problem.

Oldpeddaller

Totally agree, Suntour is brilliant!

Just won this Raleigh badged Suntour gear set and other bits on e-bay. https://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...=STRK:MEWNX:IT

It'll need some work - anyone know what model the rear mech is?

noglider 

The Honor was prone to bending, which is where the alloy body proved superior in the higher models. But yeah, SunTour really figured out how to make something really cheap work really well.

rccardr 

Huh. While we're all waxing eloquent about how great Suntour stuff is...I have a pretty complete Cyclone group (2 braze on double FD's, RD, 6 speed cluster, DT shift levers, DC GS250 brakeset, aero levers with perfect gray hoods) and an equally nice Alpha 3000 setup (31.8 clamp double FD, long cage RD, 6 speed cluster, indexed shift levers) that I'd like to see go to a good home for a very reasonable price. All in VERY nice condition.

Not that I'm pimpin' it or anything, just saying.

afilado

PM sent..

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

Do Want :drool:

someday I want to build a bike with nothing but suntour parts. I've yet to try their calipers, brake levers or hubs.

Incidentally if anyone has the cage extension add-on part for a Cyclone FD hook a brother up.

nlerner

Nice catch! That RD is a VGT-Luxe. It should be marked on the cage. I have its sibling in my parts bin.

Neal

DiegoFrogs

The barrell adjuster is a nice feature on that VGT-Luxe. My 1st generation Cyclone doesn't have one, and I wish it did. I don't like the look of those barrell adjusters, but function overrules form in this matter.

noglider 

SunTour didn't make much. Just derailleurs and freewheels. Maybe a few more things. At some point, there was a loose consortium of Japanese makers called JEX which teamed up to compete with Shimano. Sometimes, they'd make groups and have all one name like SunTour Superbe, but SunTour didn't make them. Let's see if I can remember:

Ukai rims
Sugino cranks
Dia Compe brakes
Sunshine (Sanshin) hubs
Uh, what else?

elcraft

I recently resurrected a NOS VGT Luxe for a Mixte project. I remember Berto's claim that it was the best derailleur. I bought this particular VGT Luxe as a close-out from "Bike Wharehouse" in approx. '79. I think it was $9.99 at the time! Of course, Bike Wharehouse is now called Nashbar.... It is still an outstanding example of excellent manufacturing and superb design!

cobrabyte

Disraeli Gears is a great resource. I always wished the front derailleurs and shifters were featured as well. One can argue their all pretty much the same, it's still nice to see the "set"

noglider 

I love the photographic technique he uses. It makes the derailleurs seem so glamorous!

I also love how he waxes poetic about derailleurs and how they're the most complex thing on a bike. I hadn't really considered it, and I guess it was true until brifters came around. Still, they don't seem that complex to me, compared with mechanisms found pretty much everywhere. And I'm a computer dude, so I know complexity.