I've seen a fair amount of negative opinions on the Shimano 600 Arabesque groupset in this forum and am wondering what's behind this? I am planning to use this group for the first time on an upcoming build and want to go into it knowing what to expect. I personally think it's one of the more aesthetically appealing groups for a vintage Asian build so maybe there are performance issues? My experience with other groups is that all down tube friction shifting systems pretty much operate the same. Maybe the "feel" of a shifter is different but I find them to be pretty comparable with getting into gear and staying there. It's also been my experience that condition, cables and adjustment are equally big, if not bigger, factors affecting proper operation.

So what's not to like about Shimano Arabesque?

Doesn't shift so great because the RD isnt a slant parallelogram, but i dobt think it's worse than others from the same time. The brakes feel soft, didn't like that at all.

Sure is pretty tho

If you're after aesthetics with mediocre performance, 600 Arabesque is the ticket, IMHO. It is pretty stuff, but a lot of other equipment at "lower" levels out performs it. People see Shimano 600 and automatically equate it with high quality. It didn't start out that way.

I liked the style but could without the cage and release button. (Allows derailleur removal without chain split)


IMHO, shifts on par with same period Campy NR rear derailleur. Which is saying just average.

Brakes are a pretty important feature to me. Single pivot sidepull brakes from older groups (no matter which Maker, dia'compe being the worst) do not brake/cannot be compared to any of the newer (they go back over 25 years now) Shimano dual pivot brake calipers.

Personally, I prefer the newer Ultegra 600 Tricolor 6400 Series components to any of the earlier groups. Within this group series you have the choice of down tube shifters (with both friction and indexed shifting) and aero brake levers, OR STI brifters, seven speeds or eight speeds, single pivot or dual pivot brakes, there are beautifully polished crankarms and the elegantly styled chain rings.

It wasn't that well made, and to my taste, it doesn't look nice, either. The hubs were good, though. Almost all Shimano hubs I have worked on have been good.

My very first good bike was a Panasonic dx 4000 with all 600 ex from 1982.
I put many many 1000's of miles on that bike. I personally think the components were great for that era.
I replaced the rear mech at some point but I can't remember the specific reason.

I would put it on the same level as any second level group such as Triomphe, victory or even fiest generation Athena.

Nothing worked all that well back then.

Second thought, 600ex was probably a notch below Triomphe , Victory and Athena.

The group was a product of the 1970's. Many pressed metal parts that in newer groups would be made of better and lighter materials.

No 'B" screw on the RD sets some people whining.

I like the Arabesque stuff well enough, though. Like [MENTION=350383]crank_addict[/MENTION], I think it's about on par shifting-wise with NR, only weighs a little more.

The later 600 (SIS era) brakes were pretty damn good. Best stopping single pivots I've used.

...it works fine in comparison to everything else contemporary with it, except, as already stated, probably a little harder to get it shifting crisply on the back, compared to the same years of Suntour. You can tweak that by using SIS cable housing, a ramped freewheel, and a swell KMC 8.93 chain. The brakes work better if you run new low friction smooth cables and cable housings that are lined. I have it on at least a couple of bikes, and it does OK. When first was released, it was either at or near the top of Shimano's component line. (I'd have to Google when the first year for Dura Ace was, and I'm too lazy.)

1977. But Crane just became Dura Ace then, right? I don't think 600 was ever the top group.

i've only had two bikes with it, both early '80s univega gran rallys. both had brazed dt shifters that were wonderfully smooth. i had no problem with either bike. i rode the first one for a year. i really enjoyed it. the second one, i sold rather quickly as i had lots of bikes by then.





when i needed a wheelset for my '84 club fuji, i bought a shimano 600 hubset off craigs to start from. i really loved the way they looked -- really beautiful.

I've got the Arabesque groups etc on an old Ross Professional Gran Tour and it cleaned up nice and works well. For a while I was doing a lot of riding on that bike and didn't have a lick of problems. There's not much to the friction shifters to go wrong and I like the looks of the Arabesque groupset - especially the shift levers and the cranks.

I collect the cranks and use them often on a Shimano equiped bike because I like the way they look.

Sorry, I'm too busy hating Carbolite 103 to now go and hate Shimano 600 Arabesque.

it's the rear derailleur that bugs me. It's just a blatant wannabe with cheep pressed steel parts. It really bugs me for some reason, that and the brakes are crap.

Why all the threads about "why all the hate?"

But seriously, I've never used this group, but my suspicion is that it works just fine for most riders. If you're racing you might want to consider something else, but given that you're posting on C&V, I doubt racing is an issue.

Absolutely. If I got a good price on a bike that came with it, I would leave it on. My take on it was that this thread was inviting the picky little complaints, so I offered mine.

Componentry really doesn't matter much, if we're honest.

Here:

Up to 1984, Suntour had the patent on the slant parallelogram rear derailleur. Suntour rear derailleurs shifted better than all competing brands, mostly because of the superior slant design.

Shimano, being in a bind, in the late 70's to 1984 modified their derailleur designs to superficially look like the Suntour slant design, but without the slant. 600 Arabesque is one of these.

So to let that sink in, for no benefit other than marketing to confused customers, Shimano modified their product to look like a superior product, but without any of the underlying benefits. Shimano marketed these as: slant-pantograph, basically a made-up silly phrase designed to confuse consumers. If anything, the modifications only added weight because of unnecessary extra material. Then as soon as the patent expired, Shimano rolled out Dura-Ace 7400, which adopted the slant parallelogram design. So Shimano demonstrated that they were willing to wait out 20 years with an inferior design rather than pay royalties.


More:

• The brakes are flimsy, weak stoppers with flexy arms and cheap hardware.
• The cranksets look lovely, but they are noticeably flexy. I am not heavy or a masher, but even I notice the flex.
• The hubs are decent . Not Record or Dura-Ace level, but good enough

Well well... Now I'm anxious to get this bike built just to see how comparably bad this group really is. Most of my friction shift experience is with Suntour Cyclone and Mountech, both which regularly perform well under heavy effort. According to many of the replies, I've effectively avoided experiencing poor derailleur performance because I've been using Suntour. It'll be interesting to see how much difference I notice.

And thanks to @3alarmer for his tips on how to build the group for optimal performance. I intend to follow his advice.

The rear derailleur looks cheap to me.

My wife has never complained about crank flex on her Fuji, but she's no masher for sure.

I think the stuff is fine no real hate for it. It is just that it is pretty basic just ok groupo that often times sells for silly high prices for the price there is just a lot of better vintage stuff out there.

...Ok, one down then. Still relatively OK compared to everything else at the time, with the exception of the crisper shifting performance of a slant par rear de.

I mean, we're talking about years when a lot of stuff was still built with Delrin Simplex. So it's a low bar.