SunTour rides (yet) again! sort of...
 

This has been in hot-rotation on the CR List: a few of the people who used to be involved with the original SunTour (Maeda Corp., pre SR/Sugino iteration) have launched a few new/retro products, calling themselves "Sun XCD" and appropriating the old Suntour triangle logo.
https://stan-pun.squarespace.com/
As you can see, the stuff looks nicely made, modern yet true to vintage roots (in the style of some of the Velo Orange offerings), and the prices are high but I'd guess consistent with the quality.
The USA distributor is Merry Sales, So.S.F. so should be making its way onto LBS shelves in your town pretty soon.

This is exciting news! I may pony up for that crankset down the road

The 110mm and 130mm BCD 5-pin adapteurs could be particularly useful for people needing chainrings for their 5-pin crank arms.

https://static.squarespace.com/stati...nk_spiders.jpg

What kind of cassette will you be able to put on the shorter (120 mm OLD) rear hub?

I really like the idea of this, but none of that stuff looks particularly Suntour-ish.

Sounds similar to the Ishiwata story. When they went under circa 1993, a ex-director bought the facilities and re-introduced the tubing as Kaisei and even used a lot of the old tubeset names.

That's neat! I sure hope they don't get pummelled by this currency devaluation...

Didn't Grand Bois put out a 120mm cassette hub, too? I wonder if it's for a 6-of-7-cogs scheme.

hmmm, Suntour had the best freewheels imo, I wonder if they will have a "Ultra 6" cassette option? That would be wicked!

The website said the five pin cranks had a 50.0 bcd (as opposed to 50.4), I wonder if that was a typo or if that is what it really is? The chainring adaptors are cool, remind me of the old Bullseye units.

Cheers,
Chris

The hubs look similar to the old Sprint track model.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=310582

I suspect it's just a lack of precision in stating the specification. I bought a couple 5-pin Electra "Tincino" chainrings last month on sale for $10/ea. They're made by FSA and marked as "50mm BCD" but they fit my TA Pro-5 crank arms just fine. I wouldn't be surprised if these "SunTour" 5-pin crank arms come from the same foundry that supplies Electra's 5-pin crank arms.

Sweet! Excellent, really. I was and am a huge SunTour fan.

I especially love the old photo of the executives in the SunTour boardroom with ashtrays and cigarettes... :)

"Junzo (company president) feels the time is right to re-enter the bicycle component business. As he puts it 'the market is too race-centric; carbon fiber, electric shifting, full suspension, 11 speed, doesn’t really enhance the enjoyment of cycling. In the 1970’s and 80’s we cycled to be closer to nature, for the environment, for our health, for the simple beauty of cycling.' For these reasons SunXCD will focus on touring and randonneuring components which were the focus of SunTour during its heyday."

Funny, in that I preferred Superbe Pro because it was the best stuff for racing at the time...

But cool nonetheless. And yeah, the cranks do look a lot like the Velo-Orange offerings, and the hubs seem somewhat similar to the Grand Bois.
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=310639

I look forward to seeing prices. If they're competitive, I will definitely be trying some of this stuff.

I was about to say that everything had a VO feel to it. I do like the hubs though. They must of seen my 50.4 BCD adapters I made last year.

Now. if they'd make a 116bcd three-pin to 130 adapter and a 144BCD 'tripleizer' they'd have something.

Top

On the short (120mm) cassette, I would think we could take apart an 8 speed Shimano/SRAM cassette and using the same spacers come up with a 6 speed cog set. I have some 8 speed cassettes I could try this on and see if the stack height is comparable to a 6 speed Ultra spaced freewheel.

The nice thing about this would be the ability to quickly adapt the rear wheel for the riding conditions of the day (if the RD and chain is properly spec'ed to handle the differences. If this works this would be a great alternative wheelset for our C&V 120mm spaced bikes! :)

I like the whole "for the simple beauty of cycling” thing they're going with.

It may have to do with just being out of the racing game for so long- even the people who raced with Suntour back in the day probably wouldn't consider them now- as the folks seriously into that racing thing don't appear to be the least bit sentimental about the stuff they used to like.

I dig the hubs- I think high flange hubs exude class.

This is awesome! I really like SunTour, I have a Superbe Pro group sitting and waiting on some appropriate frame to come along.

I think the 120 mm hub offering is very interesting too. I bought on ebay recently an NOS early Shimano Dura Ace EX freehub set. I have not compared the more modern Shimano hubs to see if the basic cog fitment is the same. It does appear the locking cog is different. I have since found I was lucky, and the early EX hub sets are becoming pricey.

The revived Suntour flanges are lacking a bit in style, (kind of surprised they did not mimic Maxi-car) but I think it is a sound idea to offer a hub to fit 120 and even 126 spaced frames.

Re. the V/O resemblance: as I understand it, SunTour didn't actually make components "back in the day", but was rather a group of engineers who designed stuff and then farmed it out. This is essentially what V/O is doing (and Grand Bois, for that matter). It wouldn't surprise me to learn that SunXCD, V/O, and Grand Bois stuff all comes out of the same factory/s.

Which would suit me just fine, as I have been very pleased with my V/O cranks and Grand Bois hubs.

Okay. I took pictures and measurements of Shimano and SRAM 8 speed cassettes and a Suntour 6 speed ultra spaced freewheel.

While my cassettes can come apart via a small hex screw from the rear, I kept the 6 largest cogs assembled. Both cassettes have two seperate smallest cogs and a lockring. The Suntour ultra 6 is a Winner body. The bottom flange of the freewheel body raises the largest freewheel cog off the counter by about the thickness of a credit card, so the cassette bodies are placed on top of credit cards.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps6fa580c1.jpg
L-R: Shimano cassette, Suntour freewheel, SRAM cassette

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps88563dbe.jpg
L-R: Suntour freewheel, SRAM cassette

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...psb9549429.jpg
L-R: Shimano cassette, Suntour freewheel

Measurements:
Suntour freewheel cogs are almost 2mm thick, while the cassette cogs are about 1.75mm.

The stack height is:

Shimano 26.5mm, SRAM 27mm and Suntour 27.5

So I think it is safe to say an eight speed cassette modified to 6 cogs would fit nicely on this 120mm spaced hub. I'd use an 8 speed chain. I could also take a 9 speed SRAM cassette apart to see how that works.

I measured the width of the bottom 6 cogs of a 7-speed Shimano cassette and came up in the ballpark of 26.5mm there, too. In theory, it should be a little thicker than that, so I'll blame my measuring device.

That 120mm hub is going to be a thing among the hipsters who now own a glut of fixed gears and are now wondering:

"How am I going to put some gears on this?"

Sell some derailleur claws for track ends, and presto, a geared track bike.

I will follow eagerly any reports of the 120 hub.

For repechage, I watched that auction with a certain lust, but I thought the Dura Ace EX began at 126m, no?

I want a set, but the prices have been quite high. sigh.

I am given to understand that the cogs for the Dura Ace series of EX hubs was unique to the hub -- none of the other series would fit.

A set of NOS hubs AND the cassette out of Europe went for a small fortune recently. I dug deep and was still left in the dust.

I'm hoping these guys introduce a nice 126m hub, but I have two frames that would be very happy with one of these sweet 120m hubs and 6 speeds.

Somebody buy one and do the testing. . ., please!

An IGH would probably be a better solution. ;) In fact, that's what I did when I realized 1 speed got old fast.

I wish the new SunTour good luck. They're going to need it.