Originally Posted by
jimmuller
A friend who knows or at least used to know bikes, the guy who gave me my Masi frame, was always a big Campy fan for the aesthetics. He never liked the Suntour V-series stuff because it didn't have the nice finish of Campy. I never noticed back when that stuff was new because I was too busy riding and loving the shifting, and never could see the derailleurs when I was riding anyway. Truth be told, back then I never had any Campy for comparison.
I can see the difference now, of course. But I still have no worries about putting Vx derailleurs on a good bike. They just work too well.
The point is, my criteria would always place aesthetics last. Functionality and low weight with out. They usually go together in the nicer components.
The Vx series was a killer of a deal when they came out, here was an inexpensive mid level derailleur that could far out shift any other derailleur on the market regardless of price. Then on top of that the VX was bulletproof, it wouldn't break for nothing! It may not have been a pretty derailleur or a light weight derailleur but it more then got the job done. I still see those Vx's on vintage bikes being ridden all the time around where I live. I never had a Vx series derailleur but I do have Superbe Tech and that is a superb derailleur with over 160,000 miles and still shifts like it did when it was new; when I got that derailleur I later heard of horror stories about how unreliable they were so I bought another one just for when it would fail...I still have the other one unused. The Tech S road series was designed for fast shifting under extreme pressure like going up mountains, and I use to live in California and I can tell you from experience that I could shift that thing going up a steep grade and not worry about taking anywhere near the amount of pressure off the cranks to shift like I had to with a Dura Ace friction unit I have. I just move the lever going up a steep incline and bang that dang thing shifted right now.
I also have the Suntour Mountech II derailleur which is mountain/touring derailleur version of the Tech but looks different, anyways it too supposedly had the same issues as the Superbe Tech. I can't speak about the durability of this derailleur yet because I only have about 2200 miles on it, but, like the Superbe Tech it's the fastest shifting friction derailleur I've ever used for wide gear ranges. This one came stock on my 85 Schwinn Le Tour Luxe I bought used with just 250 miles on it and was in showroom condition when I got it about 3 or 4 years ago.