Where did the Suntour 7 group fit on the food chain of Suntour componentry?

https://www.velomech.ch/

It's in German. Someone sent me an actual chart once, and I'm looking for it.

Close to the bottom.
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Even SunTour's cheapo offerings worked remarkably well, a testament to the slant planograph design that everyone else eventually copied.

"In 1982, the year before mountain bikes became significant, SunTour equipped about 60% of the medium-priced bicycles, compared to Shimano's 30%. SunTour had 13 different lines of derailleurs. From the top they went; Superbe Pro, Superbe, Cyclone Mk II, Cyclone, BL, ARx, Vx, AR, Seven, Volante, Honor, GT, and Mighty Click. Most lines had a racing and a touring model. Vx rear derailleurs came in four different capacities."

From: https://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~hadland/page35.htm

Agreed that the cheap ones worked almost as well as the more expensive ones, especially if the pulleys are in good shape. As a mechanic the two best letters you can see on an old road bike are "AR," even though they were further down the food chain the ones with the screened logo have the least fiddly cable clamp ever made and they have very nice sleeved pivots. Seven is a bit heavy, but still works very well.

I think in this case it will be just fine. Thanks for the info

Hey, thanks for opening the thread. I'm a Suntour GPX fan, and had lost some of the links when I sold my only GPX bike. I just bought another, basically for the GPX group, so this thread gave me the info back.

Someone out there has a chart with pictures of each group in somewhat of a pecking order.

Thanks again, to you and your responders...

I said they were down-market; I never said they didn't work well.
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Does anyone know if SunTour Seven is indexed? If not offered as indexed originally, has anyone tried it(My old V-GT indexed perfectly with Alpha 2000 down-tube shifters)?

According to Velobase, it's friction.

https://velobase.com/ViewComponent.as...6ef21&Enum=108

I have one, with a Sprit FD, Power Shift levers and all the tube-mount hardware. I took it from a Nishiki and I might re-gear my Favorit with it someday.

^ Thanks for looking into it for me. I did see that, but another thing I read said it was 6/7sp index, so I was hoping someone here on the forum would have some first hand knowledge. I guess I'll just have to get some indexed shifters and see what happens. Now that I think about it, I would think the 6/7sp would mean it has to be for the narrower later 7sp spacing. The Suntour Seven is an earlier derailleur, so I think if it does work out, it's just luck more than that it was designed for it.

Why not see it in action?


Seven was simply a sprucing-up of the Vx (with some AR influences) touting 7-speed throw capabilities - not to say the old ones couldn't do seven-speed friction to start with.

-Kurt

^ Thanks again. Saw that too. The shifts aren't very smooth and there's a good bit of clicking going on, so I'm guessing that one's set up as friction.

Seriously, is there such a thing as a poor shifting Suntour rear derailer used in a friction application? All their derailers that I've tried have performed well right down to the GT. Yes I know the Superbe and Cyclone I and Cyclone II are excellent, but the low end derailers always seemed to me to perform as well or better than their counterparts from Shimano, Simplex and Huret.

Yup, there is a poor shifting Suntour RD. My ARX is terrible. It's got a new chain and the freewheel is in great condition. I've used GTs and Cyclone that worked great, but that damn ARX just won't be consistent. Not sure what the deal is. I'm replacing it with the Seven, and figure I may as well upgrade to indexed in the process if the derailleur will go for it. The bike is a short distance daily beater that goes over curbs, through short grassy areas, up and down short hills a lot, and just generally would be better served by the quick precise shift of an indexed drive-train rather than the fine adjustments needed with friction while trying to ride across bumpy grassy areas or over curbs and then having to shift right back into another gear and get that one dialed in.

Wow, The ARX is my derailer of choice on my lower end keepers. I've had excellent success with several.
As for index using a Suntour friction derailer, I've tried it three times with ehh results. A Shimano or Suntour derailer intended for index use always worked better. But YMMV.

^ Like I said, I don't know what's up with that derailleur. Maybe it's just worn out? Other Suntours I've used shifted great, index or friction. As I said, my old V-GT indexed beautifully with Suntour Alpha 2000 shifters, so maybe it'll work out.

If that's too much clicking for you, I advise indexing only.

-Kurt

I actually don't really care for friction shifting when compared to indexed... I like my drive-train to be nice and quiet. Generally when I ride, it's at a fairly leisurely pace and usually by myself on bike paths away from roads, neighborhoods, etc. In that situation, I find the need to adjust friction shifters to get rid of clicking to be kind of annoying if you don't have a nice shifting system like Cyclone or similar.

Anyway, I'm not saying there was excessive clicking throughout the whole video or anything at all. It's more just that there were a couple points when there was more clicking than there would have been with indexed, so it made it easy to pick out the shifting mechanism as friction. The bike I bought near the end of the summer was a friction shifter and I put a couple hundred happy miles on it before it got cold. It's not that I hate friction or can't use it. I just prefer indexed for ease and relaxation on a quiet nature-y ride.

Bet you didn't expect a two paragraph explanation to that one little sentence.

Now, it's not indexed.

7 is low end, but adequate, equipment.

SunTour 7 actually indexes well with the Shimano 7-speed Hyperglide freewheel. Read about it here.

Maybe so, but not by design.

-Kurt

I can't believe that it indexes well without a floating jockey pulley. I've read the same thing about the Simplex SX610 but I've never bothered to try it.

Thanks ctmullins!

Hey, so long as it works!

I'll get back to this thread after I try it and confirm one way or the other. I'm about to have a bike with indexed 7sp stuff going on it for my girlfriend anyway, so I'll throw the Seven on there once just to see what happens. If it works out, I'll throw an indexed shifter on my daily, which the Seven will be calling home. Oh no, I'm loosing all my friction shift set-ups! (basically all of it out of need or convenience as I'm replacing the related components anyway, not that I'm going to a lot of trouble to convert anything)

Good luck! Just to be clear: IMHO, the Hyperglide ramps and tooth design are half of the equation. My results were not satisfactory with my old SunTour Winner freewheels.