What Have We Here?

Am I a tease if I actually follow up on something I hinted at?

I ask because a few days ago, loyal reader Coline accused me (in the lightest of spirit, of course) of teasing when I mentioned, briefly, a possible upcoming project.

Well, I think I am going ahead with it, at least during Christmas recess.  (I won't have much time during the next couple of weeks, what with my students' final papers and exams!) I made a mental commitment, more or less, today, when I took another look at this estate sale pick-up:

"Retrogrouch" has praised the lugged-frame Treks with Ishiwata tubing.  I'm guessing this one is from 1981 because it's the last year this model came without brazed-on cable guides or water bottle mounts.  Also, that was the year some Treks began to sport contrasting panels on their seat tubes.   When I get a chance, I'll check the serial number against databases.

Anyway, aside from some scratches and chips in the paint, the frame looks to be in good shape.  I could find no misalignment or rust, and no signs of crashes or abuse. In fact, I think that this bikes owner didn't ride it much after making some changes to  it.

One of those changes is the stem:  No Trek (or for that matter, any other bike) with a 56 cm (22") center-to-center seat tube ever came with a stem that had such a short extension!   To be fair, the bike has a longish top tube (also 56cm), but even I, with my short arms and torso, would ride a longer stem than that.

Another is the seat, I think.  Most Treks of that period came with Avocet saddles.  This seat, whatever it is, doesn't look like one.  Whatever it is, I have to wonder whether this bike's owner actually rode with the seat post mounted backward.  Hmm...Maybe that person is even more of a "no arms" than I am, or simply wanted to sit as if he or she were on a Laz-e-Boy.

Then there is this freewheel.  It's s SunTour Pro Compe, of very good quality, but the 34 tooth large cog much more than I'll ever need unless I take another loaded tour of the Alps (or some other mountain range).  I might hold on to it, which would mean holding on to the chain.  Which leads me to this question:  How much life does either have left?  Perhaps, if I could find some cogs, I could rebuild the freewheel:  those old SunTour freewheel bodies are practically indestructible.

And I am surmising that the SunTour VGT rear derailleur is a replacement.  This bike probably came with a VXs, as the shift levers and front derailleurs are from the Vx series.  Also, the bike's original freewheel was more than likely had 14-28 or 13-28 freewheel, which the VxS could handle, but the VGT's extra capacity is necessary for the larger freewheel.

Even if I don't use the 34 tooth cog, the VGT is a keeper, whether for this bike or some other.  So, I am glad for that change and for another I didn't notice until I got the bike home:

The original headset was probably a Tange  that was commonly used on mid- to upper-mid-level bikes of that time.  It looked like the company's Levin model--which looked like a Campagnolo Record from about five feet away--without the logos.  At least, I know that this Stronglight headset wasn't original equipment.  I'm pretty sure this is their early roller-bearing headset, which tried--like just about all quality headsets made until 1985 or thereabouts--to look like Campy's products. (Later Stronglights had a sharper, more "aero", shape.)  Even if it's a regular ball-bearing headset, I won't mind:  I've always had good luck with Stronglight stuff.

But I found the biggest surprise of all on the rear wheel:

Can you believe it?  A Phil Wood hub!  This is one of the earlier version, with a three-piece steel shell.  The bearings are as smooth as the more modern Phil Woods on my Mercians.  This hub is definitely a "keeper", except...

It's a 48 hole model.  I would love to keep and  "as is", as it probably won't die.  A Super Champion 58 rim is laced to it.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, my very first pair of hand-built wheels included a pair of SC 58s.  They totally deserved the reputation as the best non-racing rims of that time.  Again, it's something I'd prefer not to change, except...

It's a 27".  The tire, as good as it is (a Specialized Turbo) won't last forever, and there aren't many quality tires available today in that size.  The wheel seems true and round.  

The front wheel, however, is not. And there is not much tension in the spokes:  I think whoever built it didn't re-tension it.  It's the one that would have come with the bike:  a Rigida 13-20 rim laced to a Sansin hub.  Not bad stuff, but I think the rim and spokes won't survive a re-tensioning and re-truing.  And, really, I don't want to buy another 27" tire, rim or wheel. I suppose I could ride a 700C front with the 27" rear.

So I'll probably build a 700 rear wheel, too. The question is whether I want to use the Phil Wood hub, which would mean taking the current rear wheel apart and buying a 48 hole rim.  Or I could build a 36 spoke rear wheel on another hub I have.  

I am leaning toward building the 700C rear wheel on whichever rear hub, not only because it's easier to find 700C tires, but also because the bike would fit that much better.  As it is, the frame, with 27" wheels, is exactly at the upper limit, size-wise, of what I can ride.  The 700s, which are about 5cm smaller, would give me a bit more breathing room.  Also, they would add to the already-ample fender clearance the frame and fork offer.

Yes, I am thinking about fenders.  And, possibly, a Velo Orange Porteur handlebar with bar-end levers (like I have on my Mercian mixtes) and a nice, tasteful wrapping.  

Whatever I do, I'll try not to do anything gross.  I'm not looking to do a period restoration or anything pedantically "retro", but  I will try to keep in the spirit of the bike, if you will:  a good sport-touring machine from the era before mountain bikes.  I promise not to use neon-colored "V" shaped rims or cranks that look like starfish designed by Salvador Dali.    And I'll try to resist the temptation to turn this into a single-speed or "fixie".  At least, I won't let it become a "hipster fixie".

P.S.  Yes, that rack came with the bike. It's an original Jim Blackburn, made in the USA.

"Check" Out This SunTour Derailleur

When I first became a dedicated cyclist--more than four decades (!) ago--a common perception among cyclists was that "if it's good, it's from Europe".  Or, at least, it was built (as the Schwinn Paramount was) from European equipment such as Reynolds 531 tubing and Campagnolo components.

As I became more involved in cycling, that belief started to change, at first with derailleurs.  For many of us, one of our first revelations was shifting the SunTour or Shimano derailleur on someone's Fuji or Nishiki or even Vista. (Yes, a bike that was a cheap imitation of the Schwinn Varsity had a derailleur that shifted better than the ones on bikes costing five times as much!)  When we wore out or broke our Simplex Prestige, Huret Allvit or Campagnolo Valentino derailleurs, we replaced them with a Shimano or, more frequently, a SunTour model.  Sometimes we didn't wait:  We changed our derailleurs as quickly as we could.

From the time I outfitted my Schwinn Continental with a SunTour GT, I rode a number of different SunTour, and a few Shimano, derailleurs on my bikes.   And, because I worked in bike shops, I felt as if I had seen every model SunTour produced through the 1970s and '80s.  It seemed that the only cyclists who wouldn't ride Japanese derailleurs were those few who remained unconvinced of their superiority, or were simply snobs.  (The most expensive SunTour derailleurs typically sold for about as much as the least expensive Campagnolo models or mid-range offerings from other European makers--and shifted better.) The rest of us rode happily with our SunTour, and sometimes Shimano, derailleurs--sometimes on otherwise all-European bikes.

I used the iconic, successful SunTour derailleurs such as the Cyclone (first version and MK II), the V and Vx series and  the almost-otherworldly Superbe Pro. I also  saw the commercial and technical failures like the Superbe Tech L (the derailleur that started SunTour's downfall) and the ones which were well-designed and -made, but came along at the wrong time, like the S-1 (S100).   And I installed and adjusted any number of derailleurs like those of the AR series, which came on many bicycles during the 1980s.

I really thought I had seen them all--yes, including the "Love", "Hero" and "Chroma GX".  Today, however, I came across a SunTour derailleur I've never before seen.  

A seller in Poland listed it on eBay.  It could mean that the "Checker" was sold only in Europe or other markets.  Or, perhaps, that it was so short-lived that only a few found their way into other countries.  

At first glance, it looks rather like the SunTour AR II of the early 1980s.  At least, it has a similar main parallelogram and knuckles, though the Checker's body is closer to the mounting bolt than the AR's.  Also, it has a cable mounting outside the parallelogram, instead of the inside-the-parallelogram mounting of the AR (which I never liked, apart from its looks).  And the finish looks similar.

I am guessing, though, that the Checker--for which I couldn't find any information--was made later than the AR series because the Checker is made to be used with SunTour's indexed gearing systems, which weren't yet made at the time the ARII was produced.

With a name like "checker", though, I have to wonder what its intended purpose was.  A retro pedi-cab, perhaps?  A Peugeot?  Or maybe it was intended to rhyme with the name of another derailleur.  That would make for quite the slogan:  Checker The Pecker!

It's So '70's That It's From The '90's

If you came of age as a cyclist, as I did, during the 1970s, the first derailleur you rode might have been a Huret Allvit, Luxe or Svelto, a Campagnolo Valentino or any of the plastic Simplex mechanisms.  If you rode those mechanisms enough, they broke or, in the case of the Hurets, developed stiffness or looseness in the pivots that made shifts sloppy and inaccurate--or impossible altogether.  And if you rode an Allvit, you broke a cable or two.

Then you took your bike to the shop.  The owner or a mechanic (who might have been the same person) recommended a new derailleur recently arrived from Japan.  It looked strange:  The body of your old derailleur dangled downward, but the body of this new derailleur ran parallel to your chainstay.  Its name had a "T" that flared out like a racing stripe, in contrast to the old-world cursive lettering on your old derailleur.  

But it was cheap, so you gave it a try.  On your first ride, you realize that you don't have to win a tug-of-war with your derailleur to get it to shift from one cog to the next one up, let alone across all of your gears.  You also realize that you could shift entirely by feel:  your chain didn't have to grind, clatter and clank as you coaxed it from one gear to the next.

Of course, later on you would need to replace that chain and, along with it, your freewheel.  Your owner/mechanic recommended a freewheel from the same company that made your new derailleur.  When you ride it out of the shop, you are again amazed:  You see that your new derailleur, which shifted light-years better than your old one, was shifting even better.

Chances are that your new derailleur and freewheel were made by SunTour, the first Japanese company to pose a real challenge to the old European component makers.  It was no wonder that by the end of the decade, more than half of new bikes--including many from old-line European manufacturers like Raleigh and Motobecane as well as upstart American companies like Trek--were equipped with SunTour derailleurs and freewheels.  

Today, just about any derailleur made today that has even a pretense of quality owes at least part of its design to that of those SunTour derailleurs.  As Michael Sweatman points out in his wonderful Disraeligears, today's Shimano XT-M772 has the same basic geometry as the 1972 SunTour V-GT. 

Another component that would be introduced during that decade would have a similar influence.  Someone working for an old French rim manufacturer got the bright idea of taking a tubular rim--the kind used for "sew-up" tires--and adding "hooks" to the sidewalls to hold the "beads" of a clincher tire.  The tubular rim profile is inherently stronger, per weight, than the box-channel or drop-section clincher rims made at the time; the resulting new rim was about 25 percent lighter than any other clincher rim available at the time.  So were the tires designed for it.  This development offered performance approaching that of tubular tires with the convenience of clinchers.  Also, the rim's width--20mm--matched that of most tubulars made at the time.  This made it possible for a cyclist to use clincher and tubular wheels on the same bike without having to readjust brakes or other parts.

The original high-performance clincher rim:  Mavic Module E, 1975

The rim in question was the Mavic Module E, introduced in 1975.  At the same time, Michelin brought out its "Elan" tire, made to work with the rim.  The rim was strong; the tire, not so much. The following year, Wolber came out with another, much stronger (though no heavier) tire for the Module E; other companies--including Panasonic (under the names Panaracer and National) followed.  

Every high-performance clincher rim--including the ones on fancy boutique wheelsets--made today uses Mavic's design innovation.  (Yes, even those neon-colored V-shaped rims have the double cross-section and bead hooks found on the Module E, and every rim Mavic has made since.)  And all of today's high-quality clincher tires use the same bead design Michelin introduced with its "Elan" tire.

Other innovative components saw the light of day during the decade, but I'll mention just one more.  If you were riding in the '70's or '80's, there's a good chance you rode it; there's an equally good chance that you're riding something based on its design.

It's a component most of us don't think about very much once it's installed.  And, if it's adjusted properly, there's no reason why we should.  In its time, it was nearly as ubiquitous as SunTour derailleurs.  However, as we will see, as good as it was, it wasn't quite the innovation most of us assumed it to be.

Once we've settled (!) on a saddle that's right for us, and have it set to the height and angle that feels right, we rarely, if ever, pay any mind again to our seat posts.  But if we have to replace our saddles--or if we're setting up a new bike--choosing the right seat post make it not only possible, but easy, to place and tilt our seats to the optimal position.

The old Campagnolo seat posts were renowned for their durability and "infinite" adjustability. But, with the two adjustment bolts ensconced between the saddle rails and body, setup and adjustment were not easy, even with the wrench Campagnolo made for the purpose.  Other seatposts, such as those from Simplex, were easier to use but, frankly, never won any beauty contests (though I think its headbadge was pretty cool).

Around the same time Mavic and Michelin re-invented the wheel (the bicycle wheel, anyway), there appeared a seatpost that--like SunTour derailleurs--cost much less than their competition but worked a lot better.  A saddle setup or adjustment that took half an hour or more--if one had the specially-designed tool for the purpose--could be accomplished in a fraction of that time, with a common 6mm allen key and, best of all, one hand.

French Laprade seatpost

The Sakae Ringyo (SR) Laprade seatpost was even "fluted" like the Campagnolo Super Record!  Yes, it was heavier, though not by much, and the finish--at least on the early versions--was rougher.  But, in time, SR cleaned it up and offered another, lighter, version with the kind of finish found on Nitto's offerings (or old Cinelli bars and stems) and one of the most interesting model names ever given to a bike component:  Four Sir.  (Is that a translation of something from Japanese?  Or did it come up during some dada poetry session where the sake flowed freely?)  

I don't recall seeing very many Four Sirs:  Once SR made its basic Laprade post a little prettier and lighter than the original, there really wasn't much reason to buy any other.  Even top-of-the line bikes came with it as standard equipment. 

What almost nobody, at least here in the US, realized was that SR didn't call their seatpost "Laprade" just because they thought a French name would make it sound better.  Japanese patent laws being what they were at the time, companies like SR could make near-clones of other companies' designs with impunity.  The original Laprade seatpost was made in France.  Not many made it here to the US, so most of us had never seen it before the SR version came to these shores.  

SR Laprade, circa 1978

As I understand, the original Laprade was a high-end item found mainly on French bikes made from Reynolds 531 or Columbus tubing, and on the Vitus aluminum frames from that country.  It was cold-forged and highly-polished, which made it expensive.  SR melt-forged their Laprade post, which made it heavier, and didn't finish it (except in the Four Sir version) quite as nicely.  But it did the job and didn't detract from the looks of even the best bikes, so it was a runaway favorite both in the original- and replacement-equipment markets.

SR Laprade "Four Sir" 

The majority of good seatposts made today are based on the Laprade design.  In fact, the manufacturers go as far as to call them "Laprade-style" or even "Laprade" seatposts.  The name today refers to just about any seatpost with an integrated single-bolt clamp that adjusts from the underside, in much the same way that "Scotch tape" refers to any clear cellophane adhesive strip, whether or not it's made made by 3M.

Ironically, the French Laprade post wasn't an original.  

Now tell me that design from E.C. Stearns--at the time, the world's largest bicycle manufacturer--doesn't look uncannily like the Laprade.  I wonder whether the folks who developed the Laprade seatpost in France were aware of Stearns' patent--which, I imagine, had long since expired.

Well, if you've been reading this blog, you know that there really isn't anything new under the sun, at least in the world of cycling.  No, not even carbon fiber or titanium frames!

It's Probably A Sun Tour Gran Prix. Or A Simplex Juy Export 61.

You know that something is influential is when it is imitated--even after the original is no longer made.

Mavic 851 rear dearailleur, circa 1981.  Photo from Velobase

Several bicycle derailleurs come immediately to mind.  If you're of my generation, one is the Campagnolo Nuovo/Super Record. From the time the first Nuovo was made in 1967 until the last Super Record came out of the Vicenza plant two decades later, innumerable parts manufacturers copied its basic design.  Much of the reason for that was, of course, the preponderance of Campagnolo equipment in the elite pelotons of the world.  "If Eddy won the Tour with it, it must be the best," is what those imitators were probably thinking.

Campagnolo Super Record, circa 1983.  From Wikipedia Commons

Campagnolo Nuovo Record. From Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Glossary.

Some will stop reading this post (and, possibly, this blog) after reading what I'm about to write:  The Campagnolo Nuovo/Super Record, even when it was introduced, was not the best-shifting derailleur available.  What caused its domination at the top of the cycling world was its reliability and, well, the reputation Campagnolo built with their earlier derailleurs and other components.  Also, each derailleur (more so the Nuovo, in my opinion) had a "classic" look to it.

Kharkov rear derailleur.  Probably the sorriest imitation of Campy NR/SR--with the possible exception of the Gian Robert--ever made.  Photo from Velobase.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, when the GDR government decided it needed to bring bicycle technology up to the level of what existed in the West, one of the parts they produced was a Tectoron derailleur that, from ten meters away, looks like a Campagnolo Super Record without the logos. 

Huret Svelto.  From Bulgier.net

Another influential derailleur was the Huret Svelto.  In its time, it was rather nice:  The shifting was better (or, at least, no worse) than most other derailleurs that were available when it was introduced in 1963.  And it had a certain industrial-minimalist aesthetic. (Think of a "cold irons bound" version of the Jubilee.)  But the main reason why it was widely imitated--even Shimano and SunTour had versions, called the "Pecker" and "Skitter" respectively--was that it was made from pressed steel plates riveted together. In other words, it was cheap to manufacture.  Through the 1970s, various component makers--including Romet of Poland--were making derailleurs that looked (and shifted) like the Svelto.

Romet derailleur, Poland, 1970s.  Photo from Disraeligears

(In contrast to the Svelto, the Huret Allvit--which may have come as original equipment on more bicycles than any other rear derailleur in history--had, as far as I know, only one imitator:  the USA-made Excel Dynamic of 1975-77.  It's particularly odd that, as the first American derailleur, its manufacturer would almost slavishly copy the Allvit when many cyclists were replacing their Allvits with SunTour and Shimano derailleurs.)

1964 SunTour Gran Prix. Photo from Disrealigears

Today, if you asked what derailleur is the most influential, the answer you'd probably get is "Shimano".  No specific model would be mentioned, as nearly all derailleurs made by that company over the past thirty years share the same basic "slant pantograph" design with two sprung pivots.  Neither of those features is, of course, a Shimano innovation:  SunTour introduced the former in its 1964 "Gran Prix" derailleur, and Simplex first employed the latter feature on a parallelogram derailleur when it made the "Juy Export 61."

Simplex Juy Export 61. Photo from Cycles Cambio  (Japanese blog)


Since all but the lowest-cost derailleurs today use both features, perhaps we could say that the Sun Tour Gran Prix (or, perhaps the SunTour Competition, which came out a  year later and eliminated the Gran Prix's less-desirable features) and the Simplex Juy Export 61 are the most influential derailleurs in the bicycle world today, even though neither has been made in decades.

SunTour "U" derailleur.  Photo from Disraeligears

SunTour Honor. Photo from Bikeforums

The funny thing is that the influence of those two derailleurs--and others from SunTour and Simplex--still lives on even in derailleurs found on the cheapest department store bikes.  Shimano's less-expensive derailleurs, with the dropped rather than the slant parallelogram, continue to employ two sprung pivots reminiscent of Simplex.  Perhaps even more ironically, Shimano is apparently making a derailleur that apes the SunTour "Honor" and "U" derailleurs found on low-priced bikes during the 1970's:

I saw this derailleur on a bike parked near where I work.  I'd never seen it before.  The only difference between the Shimano in the photo and the lowest-priced SunTours of the 1970s seems to be the black plastic front knuckle and that the rear knuckle, parallelogram plates and the part that holds the top pivot seem to be more crudely stamped and finished--and possibly made from a lower grade of steel--than those old SunTour base models. 

Those inexpensive SunTours shifted nearly as well as, but developed play in the pivots more quickly than, the V-series SunTours.  (Sometimes the Sun Tour "U" was the only good component on the bike that came with it!)  I wonder how that Shimano derailleur I saw today shifts.

The Man Who Made--And Broke-- SunTour

Writing about SunTour yesterday got me, as Kurt Vonnegut wrote in Breakfast of Champions, "woozy with deja vu".  (How can you not love that phrase?)

You see, I started to take long rides as the '70's Bike Boom was gaining force.  That was also almost the exact time that American cyclists began to glom onto SunTour derailleurs.  

Although SunTour's wares would have dominated the North American (and other) cycling markets on their own merits, the fact that, around 1980, more bikes were equipped with the Japanese company's derailleurs, shifters and freewheels--and more of those parts were sold as replacements--than all of the other component manufacturers combined, is the result, at least in part, of the work of one person.

 


I'm talking about Frank Berto.  If you're a bit younger than I am, you probably think of him as the author of The Dancing Chain, a book for gear geeks if there ever was one. (It's an engaging read nonetheless.)  But for those of us who were around in the prehistoric days of cycling, when all bike manuals were written in Latin (OK, Italian and sometimes French and English), he will be forever known as the technical editor of Bicycling magazine.

Now, I know some of you (again, who weren't around in those times) might be scratching your heads and saying, "Bicycling had a technical editor"?  Those of you who are a bit younger might not believe that magazines had technical editors.  And, if you're younger still, you might not believe that magazines existed.

Trust me, they did.  And Bicycling--as much as I and others complained about it--was actually something more than the advertising vehicle or lifestyle tab it's been for at least two decades. 

As he tells it on his website,  Frank Berto bought a secondhand Schwinn Varsity in 1971, when he became involved with his sons' Boy Scout troop.  He was then a 42-year-old mechanical engineer who, until that time, hadn't been on a bike in more than two decades.  On his first ride with his son's troop, all of the young whippersnappers blew past him on a long and winding hill that would be his Road to Damascus."If I had a bigger sprocket in the back, I could pedal up this lousy hill," he thought.  Shortly thereafter, he rode to his local bike shop and bought a SunTour 14-34 freewheel (Varsities came with 14-28) and a SunTour VGT rear derailleur.  

He tried to install them himself, but realized he had no clue as to what to do.  Nor, as it turned out, did the shop that sold him the parts.  None of the bicycle-related books (remember those?) in his local library were of any help.

His yearlong odyssey to lower the gears on that tank called the Varsity ended with him writing, first for Bike World and, not long afterward, for Bicycling.  After mining his own experiences, he conducted a series of tests and published his ratings of derailleurs that were available at the time.  The message of much of his work from that time can be more or less summed up with this sentence: "If you are unhappy with your shifting, the SunTour VGT is your best prescription".

The thing is, he was right.  The VGT, which cost about $10 at the time, could handle the freewheel he installed on the Varsity--and more.  And, because of its design, it shifted more easily and accurately on smaller racing freewheels than even the derailleurs supposedly designed for them.  Those derailleurs from Campagnolo and Huret cost four times as much.  Even the SunTour Cyclone, which came out a year or two after Berto made his pronouncement, cost less than half as much as those European derailleurs--and was lighter (and prettier) than any except the Huret Jubilee.

Ironically, for all that he did to build SunTour's reputation, he may have unwittingly contributed to its undoing.  When Huret came out with the Duopar touring derailleur in the late 1970's, he enthused about it. Up to that time, SunTour's shifting--especially on wide-range touring gears--was light-years ahead of everyone else's.  That anyone could make something better, even if only marginally so, seemed inconceivable.   And for Frank Berto to say so was like the CEO of the Bank of America endorsing socialism.

By that time, the folks working for SunTour were paying as much attention to Berto's articles as Anna Wintour does to fashion shows.  They panicked and made some ill-advised changes to some of their products.  

A few years after that, Berto praised one of the results of SunTour's changes:  the Superbe Tech derailleur.  He praised it even more lavishly than he did any previous SunTour product--or the Duopar.  It shifted as well as he said, and was beautiful.  But it also had some fatal design flaws--as did the Duopar--that truncated its lifespan to about 3000 km.  By that time, SunTour's patents had expired, and Shimano had adopted SunTour's most salient feature--the slant parallelogram--even faster than President Bush signed the Patriot Act after 9/11.  

Oh, how I miss SunTour.  And Bicycling magazine, when it had a technical editor.

50 Years Ago This Month: The Dawn Of SunTour

What is the most influential and important development in the history of the bicycle?

Some would say, well, duh, it's the invention of the bicycle. I might agree, except that it's hard to pinpoint when, exactly, the bicycle was "invented".  Is Leonardo da Vinci responsible for it?   Or, do you consider the "celerifere" the first in the line of two-wheeled vehicles we love to ride to day?  Some might say Karl von Drais de Sauerbrun, who attached a steering device to his two-wheeler, is the progenitor of our pleasures.  Then again, others would have us believe that it wasn't really a bicycle until Kirkpatrick MacMillan attached foot pedals to it.

After the invention of the bicycle, however you define it, probably the most important development--and certainly the one most influential beyond the world of cycling--is that of the pneumatic tire.  Without it, not only bicycles, but also motor vehicles, would give slower and bumpier rides than wooden- or metal-wheeled horse-drawn carriages.  And modern passenger aircraft could not take off or land.

Possibly the next-most important development is the invention of the "safety" bicycle.  It's what we (well, most of us, anyway) ride today:  two wheels the same size (or close to it), foot pedals and a front chain that drives a rear cog via a chain.  This type of bicycle replaced the high-wheeler or "penny farthing" bikes, on which the pedals and cranks were attached to the front wheel axle.  The gear ratio was, therefore, dependent on the size of the front wheel:  Common diameters were 60 and 72 inches.  On the "safety" bicycle, variable gears were possible.

Variable gears led to inventors coming up with various ways to use them, the most common of which are variable-gear internal hubs (e.g., the Sturmey-Archer three-speed hubs found on classic English bikes) and derailleurs.

About the latter:  The patent for what is, arguably, the most important innovation in derailleur design was filed fifty years ago this month in Japan, and a month later in the US.

Here we can see it advertised in the December 1964 edition of New Cycling magazine:

It's the SunTour Gran-Prix derailleur, the progenitor of every single derailleur with even the slightest pretense of quality made during the past few decades.


This brainchild of Nobuo Ozaki, SunTour's chief engineer at the time, the SunTour Gran-Prix introduced the "slant parallelogram" design to the world.  The derailleur's main parallelogram is more or less parallel to the chainstay, in contrast to those of Campagnolo and Simplex derailleurs, which dropped straight down from the frame mount and were almost perpendicular to the ground--or those of Huret derailleurs, which consisted of flat steel plates that pivoted on the mounting plate.

Such a difference is not merely stylistic:  It allowed the top pulley of the Grand-Prix to run as close to the smallest cog as it did to the largest, or any in between.  Shifting thus became easier and more precise, especially on wide-range touring gears.  People were amazed at the difference when they replaced their malfunctioning or broken Huret Luxes,  Campagnolo Gran Turismos or Simplex Prestiges with something from SunTour.  I know I was.

Without a way of keeping a constant distance between the derailleur pulley and the rear cogs, it's all but impossible to make any sort of indexed derailleur system work reliably.  Ironically, this fact would lead  Shimano and Campagnolo (and, later, SRAM) to claim supremacy over the market SunTour would dominate from the mid-1970's until the mid-1980s--and, ultimately, to SunTour's demise.

Practically the second SunTour's patent expired in 1984, Campy and Shimano (and Sachs-Huret, which would become part of SRAM) seized upon it.  The following year, Shimano introduced SIS, the first commercially successful indexed derailleur shifting system.  The rear derailleur from that system combined SunTour's slant parallelogram with the spring-loaded top pivot Shimano (as well as Simplex) had already been using in their derailleurs.

Notice that I said SIS was the first commercially-successful indexed derailleur system.  It wasn't the first indexed system:  The idea was tried as far back as the 1930's (the "Funiculo" derailleur on Jacques Schulz bicycles), and in 1969 SunTour introduced an indexed system that, by all accounts, worked well. 

Had SunTour waited a couple more years to market that system, they might have dominated the bicycle components industry even more they did in the 1970s, and they still might be in business today.  However, the "Honor" and GT derailleurs-- refinements of the Grand-Prix--and the "V" series were introduced just as the '70's Bike Boom was starting in North America.  New cyclists (like yours truly) in the New World had no previous brand loyalty, if you will, to any of the established European derailleur makers and were more willing to try something that looked (and, more important, worked) differently.

Interestingly, this led to a reversal of an old dynamic:  A few years later, European cyclists (some, anyway) would take the lead of their American counterparts and start using SunTour (and, later, Shimano) derailleurs and other parts. 

Anyway...After Shimano introduced their indexed system in 1985, other companies--including SunTour and Campagnolo-- panicked and introduced their own systems. Some of us referred to Campy's "Syncros" system as "Stinkros".  SunTour's system shifted a little better, but not as well as Shimano's, which consisted of a more closely-integrated set of components.  Essentially, Shimano designed a whole new system, while SunTour and Campagnolo simply created new indexed shift levers that were supposed to work with derailleurs and freewheels those companies were already making.

What made matters worse was that bike manufacturers, like Schwinn, equipped some of their models with SunTour's indexed shifters but used them with freewheels, chains and cables--some of which weren't even made by SunTour--they already had on hand.  It almost goes without saying that the results ranged from underwhelming to disastrous.

(Also, the fact that Schwinn's reputation was already slipping didn't help to bolster confidence in the components they used on their bikes.  That's my opinion, anyway.)

SunTour finally redesigned their indexed systems, but it was too late.  The company managed to hang on until 1995.  By then, nearly all bikes of any quality had Shimano derailleurs--which had the same geometry as the SunTour derailleurs Nobuo Ozaki created three decades earlier!

(He was, apparently,  much better at industrial design and engineering than anyone in the company was at translating.  One of their early manuals, useful as it is, tells us "How To Use Honor Rightly".)