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The Catalog of Reminiscence

The Invitation for Cycling by Mr.Gami

Part 81: Suntour in 1985




Here is the catalog of Suntour in 1985.
Red triangular mark which had appeared in 1981 came to be familiar.
Various models such as Superbe-Pro derailleur second generation, Cyclon which underwent a model change, XC group-set for MTB, standard model Le-Prie, were introduced in the catalog.

The catalog was offered by Mr. H. K




The front cover and back cover.





The photos of Superbe Pro, and the scene which show Suntour was used in various occasions.





The explanation about the products began from here. Superbe Pro which was the top model of the racing group-set was introduced through three pages.
Though there wasn't new product this year, you can see several changes below.

1. Top mounting shifter was added to the lineup.
2. The model number of brake was changed.
3. The hex nut was used for brake shaft.
4. The color of the rubber part was changed to black.
5. The front derailleur for direct attachment was added to the lineup.





The seat post which was fixed by two bolts had appeared in 1984.
There was no change about Superbe.





These were Cyclone Mark II and Cyclone. The structure and design were same as Superbe.





This is MTB group-set XC. It seemed to be in incunabula yet. It was reinforced for heavy duty. There was not the index system. The brake was a reinforcement type of the centre-pulled model which was used for MTB in early stages.





The products other than group-sets, such as Cyclone Mark II and its economical model ARX and AR were introduced from here.





Le Prie was a standard model? I don't remember if I had seen real one in the past.





BMX group-sets were introduced through two pages from here.





Seven and Honor were produced for standard sports bicycle of the mass-production maker. The top-normal type front derailleur which was the unique model of Suntour was only Spurt. As for gear shifter, Power lever was still on a roll in those days.

Note: As for "Top normal" front derailleur, when you loose the wire cable, the blade of derailleur returns to outer (big/top) gear. Most of front derailleur is "Low normal" type.





The freewheels and chains were introduced through two pages from here. Micro-light which was made of aluminum, New-winner which was compatible with 5-6-7 speeds, Perfect, and Pro-compe were printed in this page





Trimec and Mighty-click were derailleur which was equipped with the wire saver system (It saved the wire even if the gear shifter was pulled during a stop). Sealed BB became popular later, it didn't need maintenance. However, the mechanism and standard of BB had been changed frequently recently; this sealed BB already looked classic.





As for the fork end, several kinds of road-racing end and Straight-end were produced. The difference between them was only the numbers of eyelet. The design of Straight-end was similar to Shimano SFR. However, the derailleur mount was located ahead. It may have improved the shifting performance.
Several tools appeared on the right page.





The pages were full color print because of the introduction of accessory. I have a bottle and a hair band even now. I had had a shoulder bag too. However, I already sold it.





As for freewheel of Suntour, the clearance of each sprockets were slightly different. It was hard to make good combination from several kinds of spacer.





These were the gear capacity table of derailleur, the table of spoke length for the combination with typical rims of Araya, and the specification of a fork-end.






inserted by FC2 system