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Suntour groups - Sprint 9000, GPX and Ole'

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Suntour groups - Sprint 9000, GPX and Ole'

Old 12-30-18, 07:00 PM
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Originally Posted by Whit51
1987 Schwinn Circuit had a Sprint crankset ... hubs. And Sprint everything else.
The catalog says hubs, crankset, derailleurs, and shifters. The rest was hodgepodge.
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Old 12-30-18, 09:44 PM
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As I read it, the original question, 12yrs ago(!), was why can't the OP find info/evidence of a full Sprint 9000 group. The discussion evolved a bit since then.

The whole Suntour story/demise is kinda complex, and I've spat out my take on it ad nauseum here over the years. Just to clarify Bianchigirll's comment, Suntour's parent company, Maeda Kogyo, only wholly owned Suntour, and probably some/most of Sanshin. Yoshigai (DiaCompe), Sugino, MKS, Hatta, Kusuki and any other members of the JEX group were always independently owned, until, and beyond, Suntour's death. SR was also independently owned until near the end, when SR merged with Maeda.

Suntour, along with their JEX partners, were trying to put together cohesive component groups at many price points since the '70s, to compete with Shimano. Initially it wasn't due to a perceived consumer demand for "grouppos," it was to make spec'ing and purchasing easier for OEM. As perceived consumer preference for cohesive groups grew stronger, Suntour was very aware of the issue, and worked very hard to convince Yoshigai and Sugino, especially, to produce matching products. Sugino seemed content, while Yoshigai would sometimes try to undercut the Suntour/Diacompe brake/lever with a slightly-cheaper Diacompe model. There was sometimes conflict.

Suntour recognized the demand for complete groups---that wasn't their problem. Their problem was trying to produce complete groups at every price point, head-to-head against the vastly bigger Shimano. Especially after indexing made product development significantly more complex, difficult and expensive. If they swallowed their pride and focused all product development on two high-end road and ATB groups, that actually worked well, they might have had the chance to survive. Sprint/9000 and Spb Pro would have been enough to cover the shrinking road bike market, where all the low-/mid-price business was going to ATBs. XC Pro and XC Sport/7000 would cover the growing higher-end ATB market. They didn't have enough $$$ or manpower to develop, maintain and improve 5 road and 7 ATB groups, but they maybe could have handled 4 higher-end groups.

It also would have helped if they never did WTB./Grease Guard, Browning BEAST and Pedersen SE brakes, or negotiated those contracts properly so those projects weren't huge money-losers, but that's spinning off in another direction.

Originally Posted by Bianchigirll
I thought the original question was regarding the absence of complete groups where as shipmano had a dozen or so by '88/89.

I always thought since the parent company of Suntour also owned DiaCompe and SR they just used those parts to complete the group. However they were slow to recognize that consumer reports reading buyers were keenly looking for a single group from shifter to crank to to stem to toe strap buttons.
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Old 12-30-18, 10:15 PM
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That was most of the important parts, except for the brakes/levers. There were Sprint pedals, but I don't think pedal spec was as important as ders/shifters/brakes. Don't think there was a Sprint seatpost or headset, but I also think there was even less consumer concern about seatpost/headset labels in 1987.

The lack of Sprint brakes/levers was a result of DiaCompe undercutting Suntour by offering Schwinn non-Sprint DiaCompe product for a little less money. I was at the product meeting when it happened, and afterwards the Suntour crew was furious. It was supposed to be a unified pitch, DC was not supposed to even mention any non-group alternatives, but they did, and Schwinn took the bait. There was bad blood between Suntour and Yoshigai for quite a while over that Schwinn spec.

It should be noted that those spec decisions were made by OE product managers, so Schwinn felt safe spec'ing non-Sprint brakes/levers. They didn't see enough value added from a unified Sprint group to warrant the extra dollar or three it might have cost for Sprint brakes, levers and pedals.

I should probably also mention that, at that time, Schwinn was hemorrhaging market share, in all product categories, in the US market. So I couldn't say their product managers were at the top of their game. Schwinn was rapidly losing market share to everybody, but especially to Trek. Trek surpassed Schwinn in units sold in the US in '86, and they only had 2 product mgrs for the entire line. Schwinn had 8-10 prod mgrs, 2 for each product category: one for US production, one for Taiwan. Trek sent 4 guys to Japan for the product meeting: the prod mgrs, pres and CFO. They flew coach and stayed in a mid-priced hotel in downtown Osaka. Schwinn flew in 12-13 people, including all the product guys, business class, and they all stayed at the Osaka Hilton. It was pretty clear to me that Trek would grow and Schwinn would struggle.

Originally Posted by SurferRosa
The catalog says hubs, crankset, derailleurs, and shifters. The rest was hodgepodge.
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Old 12-30-18, 11:15 PM
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I have a complete Sprint 9000 groupset on one of my bikes. Very nice stuff.
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Old 12-31-18, 12:29 AM
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My 1990 Ricardo Pinnacle has full sprint groupo including hubs and cables but a winner freewheel. Its little used in its life and works fine
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Old 01-02-19, 02:27 PM
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Here is a link to a pdf of the Suntour 1987 Sprint 9000 Group leaflet.

Enjoy
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Old 06-21-19, 09:27 PM
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Ole' gruppo


Originally Posted by T-Mar
According to Frank Berto in his book The Dancing Chain, "For 1989, there were four new Accushift road gruppos, GPX, Olé, Edge and Blaze...". Also, the 1988 Sun Tour catalogue (November 1987 copyright date) does not include Olé. This indicates that Olé was not available in very late 1987, by which time the 1988 groups would typically have been introduced. However, the 1988 Club Fuji and 1988 Nishiki International were both spec'd with Olé. Clearly there is a discrepancy. It almost sounds like Olé's development may have been delayed and that it was introduced sometime during 1988, between the typical introduction dates for the 1988 and 1989 models. Maybe we should call it 1988-1/2?
Good info T-MAR. I was able to procure a brand new white Ole' gruppo which I installed on my 1988 White Cannondale Criterium. True, nobody really needs an Ole' gruppo, but once you get the Suntour disease, you have to find a bike for every gruppo. Remind me to post a pic when I get back home next week.

Last edited by OrangeOkie; 06-21-19 at 09:48 PM.
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Old 06-21-19, 10:42 PM
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Originally Posted by LWaB
That is partially correct but even at its best, will all the required components, the shifting wasn't up to Shimano's standard.
I've heard this before but I had a Nishiki International with the ole group and it was fine. Everything worked perfectly. I've used Suntour indexing bar ends with mixed components on other bikes and they too worked fine. Maybe I've just been lucky but I don't think they are any different than the Shimano stuff.
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Old 06-22-19, 06:01 AM
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Originally Posted by Cycle Tourist
I've heard this before but I had a Nishiki International with the ole group and it was fine. Everything worked perfectly. I've used Suntour indexing bar ends with mixed components on other bikes and they too worked fine. Maybe I've just been lucky but I don't think they are any different than the Shimano stuff.
SunTour hastily engineered AccuShift and got it to market for 1987 but it was far inferior to SIS. They immediately went to work on 2nd generation Accushift of which Olé was part and introduced for 1989 (maybe 1988-1/2). It was much improved and, depending on your view, on par or almost on par with SIS. However, there were still some 1st generation Accushift groups in 1989 that didn't get upgraded until 1990. So, when you're comparing Accushift and SIS, you have put it in context of the group and year.
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Old 06-22-19, 10:25 AM
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Last edited by hazetguy; 06-22-19 at 11:10 AM.
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Old 06-22-19, 10:26 AM
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Old 06-22-19, 10:29 AM
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Old 06-22-19, 10:59 AM
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Originally Posted by pcb
... They didn't see enough value added from a unified Sprint group to warrant the extra dollar or three it might have cost for Sprint brakes, levers and pedals.
The Royal Gran Comp II substitutes were also a beautiful set of brakes so the decision to use them certainly didn't cheapen the Schwinn Circuit .
I like 'em.
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Old 06-22-19, 11:30 AM
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Old 06-22-19, 11:31 AM
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Old 06-22-19, 06:41 PM
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Thanks @hazetguy!

Great catalog/manual shots!

I always assumed Command Shifters kind of straddled the group sets- but it looks like they were not meant for Superbe Pro or Sprint... (Or I'm assuming SL later on)
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Old 06-22-19, 07:09 PM
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Not sure about the 3 groupsets listed.

But my favourite from the 70s was Suntour Cyclone.
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Old 06-22-19, 08:31 PM
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Great stuff hazetguy!
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Old 06-22-19, 09:55 PM
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The GPX crank spider is purty. The whole group looks good, in that '80s aero sorta way.
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Old 06-23-19, 10:53 AM
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Thanks, hazetguy!

I like the way that Suntour presented all of this data.

Of note, they specified a chain width of "<7.3mm", though their own-branded chain is called out as 7.3mm exactly.
This correlates to my own observation that 7s Accushift works best with Shimano 9s chain, which is ~6.6mm wide.

Noting also that some of their bottom brackets show same spindle length but slightly shorter chainline in the 70mm Italian version, suggesting that some degree of driveside offset was surrendered to accommodate the width of the arm "hubs" at the bb end.

It looks like the 9000 designation wasn't added until Sprint became indexed, so Sprint 9000 is merely the indexed version of Sprint, and still at only 6 speeds. This is what my 1988(?) Specialized Allez came with. It would handle 26t at most as I found out.


I'm feeling opinionated this morning, so here goes:

The use of bold, white/scripted Gran Compe calipers was frankly a turn-off imho when the balance of components were a fine brushed/anodized silver, especially as the DiaCompe brand was perhaps less than altogether prestigious among many or most buyers.
DiaCompe got their "free advertising", and Suntour got thrown under the bus!

The 7s Accushift Alpha freewheels had subtly more-advanced cog tooth profiles than the four-pronged Ultra-7 freewheels that preceded them. These are best for use with Accu-7 and work best with Shimano 9s chain to provide a most robust 7s indexed drivetrain that would have better rivaled Shimano if the 9s chain had become available in 1988 instead of in 1997.

Ole' was of course far less well-developed than Sante was, but was visibly of much lower quality as well, so I don't see these as being direct competitors at any particular price point.
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Old 06-23-19, 04:54 PM
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This thread surely is old yet won't die, especially as it seems like a beat down on Suntour.

Funny that even those long in the bike biz or game continue to critique Accushift. I've yet to have an issue and simply follow the instructions. Many shops and dealers pooed Accushift because they didn't heed attention during shop class, rarely read documentation, factory bulletins and also because the pricing was far lower than Campy and Shimano, they automatically called Suntour 'cheap'.

I do have the lowly 4050 Edge group with factory Dia Compe supplied brakes and oval rings on a top flight Zunow. Osaka mama, bulletproof index shifting with more brake leverage than I really need. Love it!

BTW, Italian marque Modolo made the brakeset for Suntour Ole group.

Adios Amigo
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Old 06-23-19, 05:09 PM
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And one more comment on the Accushift 4050 Edge~
Last Autumn I loaned my bike to a local youngster for a 30 mile loop. It was his first experience with down tube shifters.

He showed some nervousness, and a bit puzzled. Told him to just keep his fingers clear of the front, pedal away and shift to whatever gear he desired, either or both at the same time, no worry of cross chain and all! The kid was digging it - lol.
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Old 06-23-19, 05:14 PM
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Originally Posted by crank_addict

...BTW, Italian marque Modolo made the brakeset for Suntour Ole group...
Say WHAT?

I have to agree that the Accushift is basically solid, especially when used with some of today's chains, and with today's widespread knowledge about use of the correct type of cable housing (and what not to lube it with).

Suntour's indexing chains were made by D.I.D., and just like Shimano's first Uniglide chains (perhaps also D.I.D. made?) were wider than optimal and often wore out at a very fast rate.

There was nothing special about Accushift derailer cable housing other than that the wires were run longitudinally as in modern derailer housing, and that it was of course plastic-lined.
But the chain was always a big deal, just as it was with Campagnolo's multitude of component combinations.
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Old 06-23-19, 06:19 PM
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Originally Posted by dddd
The use of bold, white/scripted Gran Compe calipers was frankly a turn-off imho when the balance of components were a fine brushed/anodized silver, especially as the DiaCompe brand was perhaps less than altogether prestigious among many or most buyers.
DiaCompe got their "free advertising", and Suntour got thrown under the bus!
DC must have sold Schwinn a mixed brake bag. I bought the whole group off of a Circuit and they came with silver and black trim. Looked sharp imo. (That's not the Circuit but it is the group)
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Old 06-23-19, 06:41 PM
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Originally Posted by dddd
Say WHAT?

.
The Ole levers essentially are the Modolo Flash in white finish less the drillium pizaaz.

Funny yet, the Japanese allowed Modolo branding to remain on the calipers along with their Ole label.
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