To kind of go along with my Mountech front derailleur thread- I finally mounted my second generation Mountech rear derailleur to my 1985 Trek 720.

As many are aware of the legend of the "Curse of the Duopar," Suntour's Mountech derailleur was an attempt to chase the performance of Huret's Duopar triple pivot derailleur. As with a few other innovations of this time- the engineers at Suntour attempted to be clever and created an enclosed spring loaded upper guide pulley. However, that enclosed pulley had a propensity for attracting dirt and then seizing up at inopportune moments. Because of it being enclosed, it was also exceptionally difficult to replace/repair. This was the beginning of the end of the reign of Suntour- the bulletproof reliability that surrounded Suntour was damaged.

The engineers at Suntour made some changes and re-released the Mountech; primarily the upper pulley was changed to a normal Maeda Industries pulley- to maintain the "cleverness," the lower pulley was a 13T pulley- and in addition to the long cage- it had a capability to wrap an OUTRAGEOUS amount of chain. Combining the colossal amount of chain wrap with the triple pivot design- that meant the derailleur could handle a huge cog- and take up chain for a large front chainring as well as a small granny- a true wide range derailleur.

Of course they used the same name. I don't know why they just didn't come up with a new name. Of course, it wouldn't have mattered- Shimano had SIS brewing up. Reliable indexing or wide range derailleur?

I had cleaned up and put together a triple pulley Suntour XC rear derailleur. I kind of did it as a bit of a joke- but that derailleur worked REALLY well.




Pastor Bob expressed a bit of interest in trying out the 3 pulley with some of his monster cog freewheels- so I pulled it off this weekend and thought about what derailleur to replace it with. After running something as cool and unique as the triple pulley XC- I wanted to use something cool and unique. I thought about putting the XC Pro (with "titanium" Bullseye pulleys) back on it, but I was looking for a bit more uniqueness with that kind of reliability. I mounted the LeTech- but I couldn't adjust the unit to get to the outer cog consistently. There's room on the limit- it just won't go out any further. I didn't feel like dicking with it, so I put on the Cyclone MII that Flog00 sent to me- and for whatever reason- that derailleur felt... "dainty" on my bike. As reliable as the MII Cyclones have proven to be, I wanted something different and a little more burly. I actually fitted the stock Titanium Huret Duopar- but realized I wanted "reliable" more than "unique."

After a little bit of preparation- I mounted the Mountech. I really had no intent to actually use this thing when I got it- I was more or less after the front derailleur- the set was an extra $10 more than I was willing to pay for the FD alone. After I got it on the bike- I trucked around- and this thing actually shifts really nicely. Even going into the granny and the smaller cogs- this thing wraps so much chain, the cage barely goes backwards!

I would imagine there are many C&V people that would never be caught with a "Mountech" RD on their bike- but I'm really digging having this on there right now!

And, in accordance with International Interent Rulez: Pix or it didn't happen:






I've got to replace the cable- all that pinching and unpinching started the cable fraying- but that's for tomorrow!