Originally Posted by
cyccommute
In all honesty, I’d stick with the Atom over the Suntour. Suntour 2 prong freewheels are a pain to deal with and going to 4 prongs didn’t improve anything. The freewheel tool doesn’t engage well and tends to cam out and/or tear the prongs off the tool. There was something about the Suntour that made them harder to remove (tighter tolerance on the threads?) and they had an inferior tool to do so. The 4 prong system often breaks on the freewheel body. Even today, when one comes into my co-op, I dread having to remove them.
Shimano, Sunrace, Atom, etc all use a much better system for removal and are easier to remove in the first place.
i never had any real problem with them before...and, i have a few ST fw's. the 7spd in question here has lived on two bikes. the first, it came on a trek i bought years ago. i got it off of the 27" wheelset it to convert to 700c without much fuss. i can only assume it had been on for years, but don't know. for sure it wasn't as quick and easy as shimano stuff