SunTour Cyclone GT
 

Hello, just bought this just because loved the look and feel of it. Have been trying to find out whether it will index shift? Anyone knows? Also, is it compatible with Shimano shifters? Say XT thumb shifters?

Thanks, Tom

Don't know how well it will index. (We tend to eschew that sort of stuff in C&V! :)) You're speaking of the rear, right? It will be compatible with any friction shift lever, though a Simplex lever will require more lever movement than you might be expecting.

There were three generations of the Cyclone, I think. I'm familiar with the 1st and 2nd, have the 1st on a Bianchi and it is indeed a lovely derailleur.

Tom,

Unfortunately the Cyclone GT is not index compatible. Only the later Cyclone 6000 series was index capable, but you'd have to
match shifters and freewheel/cassette/chain for full capability.

As Jim mentioned, with your XT thumb shifters in friction mode the Cyclone GT will work just fine. Put a drop of lube on the
cable anchor bolt threads, and don't over torque the anchor bolt; they can snap somewhat easily.

It could index although I have not tried it. The shimano shifters are designed to pull the cable as necessary for one shift on shimano rds. Shimano shifters are not designed to work with other brands. In order to get it to work, you will probably have to mess with the cable routing (if you can) and set it up for the middle of your freewheel/cassette as opposed to setting it up for the highest gear (ie put your chain on a middle gear and tune to that).

EDIT: If you have the parts, you should try to get it to index. The worst you can do is use the shifters in friction mode. You could very well get that RD to index flawlessly. It will take some fiddling, however. Post what you find.

I'm using a cyclone GT RD on a 14 speed setup right now, friction barcon shifters though.

One of my friends installed my 1970 SunTour VGT on his daughter's bike, to replace a bent 7-speed indexed Shimano, and it actually WORKED in index mode. Try it ... you might get lucky. (For the record, all of my road bikes have friction shift, and I run my mountain bike in friction mode.)

The Cyclone is one of the finest friction dérailleurs ever made if we look at the 1st and 2nd generation models, the Mk3 version is still a nice dérailleur but does not stand out like it predecessors.

The Mk1 GT is one of the lightest touring dérailleurs ever made and the Mk2 gets a little bit heavier... if one considers a touring dérailleur that weighs 192 grams to be heavy.

Shifting a dérailleur that was designed for for friction with an indexed system can be hit or miss.

With certain of these older derailers, the cable-to-cage travel ratio is at least linear, meaning that the amount of cage movement is proportional to some amount of cable movement that is the same near both ends of the derailer's shift travel.

Generally, pre-index derailers move a bit further than modern SIS derailers for a given amount of cable movement (one reason that modern derailers are so easy-shifting in friction mode).
In other words, these older derailers are more likely to nearly match the actuation ratio of the early Dura-Ace and Suntour indexing derailers.
Such derailers may then allow a 7 speed shifter to index well on a 5 or 6-speed freewheel.

Derailers I've used like this include the 1970's Tourney and Dura-Ace, and the Suntour Sprint.
It takes only a few minutes to pop a derailer on there and see what happens, but it helps to have a guess as to what's most likely to work in terms of the number of speeds on the shifter and freewheel.

What won't work is a derailer like the Allvit, which is extremely non-linear, requiring a much longer pull on the cable to move the chain across the largest cogs than across the smaller ones. Needless to say then that my first attempt to get Ergoshifters on my Varsity with the Allvit derailer was a complete failure since it could make barely 2 accurate shifts over the entire freewheel no matter how the cable was adjusted.

But when I put 7-speed Suntour Accushift shifters on another bike with 5-speed freewheel and a 1970's Shimano Tourney (Titlist?), it indexed just fine.

Still, there are minor non-linearities in the exact spacing of both Suntour and Shimano 7-speed freewheels and shifters, but these become trivial as the number of actual freewheel sprockets is reduced from 7, to 6 or 5.
Note that a narrower chain, like 9-speed width, will show much more tolerance for slightly incorrect sprocket spacing and indexing.

Now when you have a cassette hub, it is so much easier to experiment and modify the plastic cog spacers with sandpaper and a digital caliper that one can get "almost anything" to work! ...Been there, done that.

And you can also put a well-placed spot of epoxy in an index shifter's spool groove (or file some part of the spool groove deeper) to alter some portion of the shifter's exact take-up of cable (done that too).
Again, with fewer cogs out back it's easy to get decent indexing performance from mixed components.

I have what I believe is the first generation Cyclone on my Trek 460. Very very nice and smooth. Dont be disappointed if you cant index it. It's pretty slick as is.

My Suntour VGT-Luxe indexes with modern Dura-Ace DT shifters in index mode

I tried index shifting with a Cyclone MkII. The shifters used were Ultegra/600 8-speed, double. The rear deralier did not work out. However the front derailer did work and remains on the bike today.

I have a suntour cyclone GT because I run an 11-34 eight speed shimano cassette. I index it with shimano 2303 brifters and it works fine. Not perfect, but I get what i want as far as gears to shift.

Why is it even an issue ? Learn to shift, for god's sake.

Some of us like to tinker.

You've never struck me as a tinkerer. Perfectionist, boisterous, and perhaps pedantic.. but not a tinkerer.

Hmmmmm. I have Mk I Cyclones on my Bianchi and switchable index/friction Suntour shift levers. Maybe I should try it in index mode......nah.

A little tinkerer in everyone of us C&Vers.
Not much in me.
I agree with learning to use friction - builds character in your fingertips.

I think GB was speaking collectively.

Boisterous? I think not!

You might want to check the dictionary before you use that word again.

+10 And we have a variety of definitions for "indexes fine".

Cool tip. I may have to try that with some Simplex retrofrictions. I tried them in barcon pods and they just didn't have the cable pull to get all gears with a Suntour VGT Luxe over a six gear cluster.

From Merriam Webster's online dictionary:

Definition of BOISTEROUS
1
obsolete
a : coarse
b : durable, strong
c : massive
2
a : noisily turbulent : rowdy
b : marked by or expressive of exuberance and high spirits
3
: stormy, tumultuous
— bois·ter·ous·ly adverb
— bois·ter·ous·ness noun
See boisterous defined for English-language learners »
See boisterous defined for kids »
Examples of BOISTEROUS

1. A large and boisterous crowd attended the concert.
2. <the fans at the baseball game became particularly boisterous after the home run>
3. The crowd was young and boisterous, the cheeseburgers were juicy and perfectly charred, and the place was always packed. —Jonathan Black, Saveur, October 2007
4. Suzanne Massie, boisterous and voluble as we drove through her adopted neighborhood in St. Petersburg, hurtled to a sudden stop. She was laughing uproariously to see the spot, where five years earlier, her rented car had fallen apart … —Christopher Lydon, Atlantic, February 1993
5. Things had apparently gotten a little too boisterous during the Northern Ohio Girls Soccer League games. And it wasn't the kids. Fed up with noisy, know-it-all parents, the league banned cheering and jeering from the sidelines for one game, which they dubbed Silent Sunday. —Kate Rounds, Ms., December 1999/January 2000
6. [+]more[-]hide

Origin of BOISTEROUS
Middle English boistous crude, clumsy, from Anglo-French
First Known Use: 14th century
Related to BOISTEROUS
Synonyms: hell-raising, knockabout, rambunctious, raucous, robustious, roisterous, rollicking, rowdy, rumbustious [chiefly British], wild and woolly
Antonyms: order

Hey, "expressive of exuberance and high spirits" is not so bad. You're exuberant and high-spirited about Peugeots, right? And Simplex derailleurs?

I'm the antithesis of boisterous. I rarely if ever raise my voice. I sometimes go for days without speaking at all.

As for Peugeots and Simplex, I have some interest in and experience with both, but neither is a favorite.

Boisterous? No. Cantankerous, onerous, yes... but not boisterous. :)

Oh, c'mon, man, be a little boisterous once in while. I'm not boisterous by nature, but I occasionally play that role. You know, at holiday parties and like that. It's kind of fun.