You bumped this thread just to say "Hmmm"?

I also forgot to mention the brake levers on said bike, are also DA branded. Did they really brand all these components Dura Ace without the existence of a "group"?,,,,BD

Shhh I have a long cage 600 (non SIS) just like the one in the picture, waiting for a build I'm working on. The donor bike had the full group minus the shifters which are Suntour Accushift. My crank is a 600 triple, so it will be a touring rig. Can't wait to see how it shifts.

I never had an Arabesque setup but I had a Golden Arrow back in the day which seemed to work fine. Surely the Arabesque worked as well.

This is exactly how my Voyageur II was.

That isn't much of a bump if the last post was only a few hours ago.

He just started a 600EX thread and got pointed to this thread.

Nine days, few hours... same thing, sorta.

BTW- Thrasher- what bike do you have your Arabesque stuff on?

at the time Sun Tour's Slant pantograph patent was still, in force , now it's lapsed and everyone uses that .

I just picked up a Univega Gran Rally with a full complement of Arabesque, except for the AX "aero" shifter. Guess I'll be hatin' it then.

No one says you have to hate it.

Of course, you may or may not come to that conclusion yourself.

Doubtful.
The stuff works OK, and IS the first cassette freehub. Other stuff shifted better.
I don't know where complaints about the brakes come from. Mine lock up when I squeeze them, and that's all I've ever asked for. The hubs are nice, as is the headset aside from the odd lock ring. Shifters no worse than Campy of the same era, maybe a little better.

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So I just pulled a triple arabesque group from my brother in-law's bike with a broken frame. It's a 39-45-52 ring crank with a 130 bcd. Never seen anything like that before...

Only time I've seen it was an "aftermarket" drilling job.

Same here. I was even thinking of doing such a thing myself. I still may, since I've got a couple Arabesque cranks lying around.

Pics. Seems pretty stock to me.

It's pretty easy to do with "triple" chainring bolts. The "small" chainring is 39 teeth, which still fits the standard 130mm bolt pattern. No adapting or drilling needed.

The one-bolt-circle triples worked better on a 110mm BCD crank. 34-45-50 and a 14-34 freewheel made a decent half-step plus granny setup.

As Jeff said, triple chain ring bolts were used to turn doubles into triples but this worked better with a 110 bcd crank as you could get a lower granny... no aftermarket drilling is required.

I have the group on my Peugeot UO-10. Kind of polishing a turd lol, but I got that group so I can put it on a better frame when I have the money to buy one.

In all honesty, if you get a better frame as a whole bike, the group on that will probably be better than the Arabesque stuff. And it'll be cheaper in the long run to buy a whole bike rather than sourcing a frame and parts.

When you get spoiled by how well Suntour stuff shifts, how modern stuff shifts... and then going to Arabesque... it's infuriating. The difference in the 600 group between Arabesque and 6400 is a whole 'nother generation... Not only do you have Suntour's slant parallelogram, but the improvements that SIS brought around- and then there's the brakes... Man, 6400 brakes are fantastic.

Yes.

how many bikes has the golden boy had with arabesque?

one bike is not a decent sample size to be so outspoken about it.

i've only had two. both worked great. loved the dt shifters on brazed-on bosses especially.

my only beef with the rd is it's difficult to fully overhaul.

How'd I get singled out for this?

True, my experience isn't deep. However, my experience is exactly in line with a majority of opinions of the reputation of these components- right down to the hubs being decent. You can go over these responses in this thread- poll up the negative responses and compare them to the positive responses. There's around a 2 to 1 "negative" to "not-negative" response ratio.

Now- you had a problem with Cyclone... why did you get another Cyclone to replace it if it was so bad? Does it have anything to do with the reputation of Suntour Cyclone stuff?

I think if I'd have realized that the positive reputation about Arabesque components was more about the aesthetic rather than the function- I don't think I would have kept the stuff on my bike anywhere near as long as I did.

^ you seemed to be the most outspoken about it. and you've only had one bike with arabesque.

it reminds of someone going into a bike shop one time, having a bad experience, then writing a page-long negative review online.

I still use an Arabesque rear derailleur, as a chain tensioner on my extrabike.

Again, I'm confident that my experience with the performance of the components is not at all uncommon. I feel confident in stating that.

Again, if someone is riding a bike that shifts poorly and brakes worse... but they know they're riding a 'well renown' group- they're going to be hesitant to change it out- thinking the problem is them. If that person figures out that the group is pretty much only desired for the aesthetic... that person can feel a lot more free to swap that stuff out.

You'll also notice that I'm more than happy to post my good experiences with all kinds of stuff. I don't have any sort of following, just another experience online.

My online opinion by itself means nothing. But taking 25 first hand accounts and realizing that more than 2/3 are bad... there's a pattern there.

My posting of my experience is not going to damage Shimano's business opportunities in their selling of bike parts that have been discontinued for over 30 years.

So why did you replace your Cyclone stuff with Cyclone stuff if it shifted so poorly?