Originally Posted by
smontanaro
Here we go. From Frank Berto's
Sunset for SunTour:
The common feature of the problems was SunTour's small size. Their small development staff could not completely check out the outpouring of new models. Mountech and Superbe Tech were rushed to market with inadequate testing. In the early 1980s, when SunTour had 20 people working on research and development, Shimano had more than 200. By this time, Shimano had about 2000 employees compared to SunTour's 350.
IIRC it was a Mountech Sealed rear derailleur that I'd put on my bicycle just the day before that busted the internal parts of the derailleur when I started out on it not totally in gear. the chain jumped to the next smallest cog and that was the end of that rear derailleur. The shop wouldn't replace it and I was considerably miffed because it was a pretty expensive rear derailleur at that time. that taught me to wait a year or so before buying new technology.
That being said, I have Suntour Cyclone II derailleurs, crankset, pedals and brake levers on my Red Bianchi and I love them.
I also like Suntour's reverse-pull front derailleurs that pulled the chain onto the smaller chainring. Those are fantastic for those sudden hill or for when you run out of steam on a hill and want to shift to a smaller chainring.
Cheers