Holy V, Jubilee!

In October 1964, Tetsuo Maeda filed a patent application in Japan for what would become, in my opinion, one of the two or three most important derailleur innovations in history.

It was the brainchild of his chief designer, Nobui Ozaki.  He was no doubt trying to make a derailleur that was easier to shift and shifted more accurately than the ones available at that time.  Did he realize that it would influence derailleur design for the next half-century?  Did Maeda, the owner of the company that employed Ozaki, know that for two decades, other derailleur manufacturers would wait, with bated breath, for his patent to run out?

Well, both of those scenarios came true.  You see, the patent Maeda filed in his home country--and a month later in the US--would cover a design still used today, in one form or another, on any rear derailleur that has even a pretense of quality.

I am talking about the SunTour Gran-Prix.  Over the next few years, SunTour would refine its design.  For one thing, it would replace its original single-spring design (The same spring that operates the parallelogram also tensions the chain cage.) with separate springs for each function.  And steel parts would be replaced by alloy ones, which in turn would become more sculpted and rounded.

The result was that the 1964 Gran Prix

would evolve into the first "V" derailleur in 1968.

I would put one of those on one of my bikes.  I mean, how can you not love a derailleur with those pivot bolts?

Of course, the V was further refined and became the V Luxe.  One thing I find interesting about the V and V Luxe is that they were lighter than most derailleurs made at the time--or even today.  

The V, according to Michael Sweatman of Disrealigears, weighed 218 grams.  That is only 13 grams (less than half an ounce) more than another influential derailleur that came out exactly 50 years ago

yes, the Campagnolo Nuovo Record--which, of course,was a refinement of the earlier Record and its progenitor, the first Gran Sport parallelogram rear derailleur.

For comparison's sake, the 1968 SunTour V weighs almost exactly the same as a Shimano Ultegra 6400 (introduced in 1988), 6401 (1992) or 6500 (1998)--or the Dura Ace 7402 (made from 1989 to 1996), all of which are in the 210 to 220 gram range. Later DA rear derailleurs (the 7700 series onward) shed 10 to 15 grams--and that with the use of a titanium upper pivot bolts!

The funny thing is that no matter how light a component is, someone wants it even lighter.  So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to find this

I mean, how much weight did those holes take out of that "V" derailleur? 

I guess I shouldn't be too critical, though.  After all, not only was the Campy NR drilled out--or, sometimes, slotted in its parallelogram--so was the lightest rear derailleur of them all:

In case you were wondering:  The Huret Jubilee weighed 145 grams--before anyone touched it with a drill, mill or lathe!

Campagnolo Adapted Japanese Design; The Public Didn't Rally Around It

In an earlier post, I said that SunTour's invention of the slant parallelogram is one of the most important innovations in the history of cycling.  Just about any derailleur made today that has even a pretense of quality has incorporated the design, which was patented in 1964.  In the early '80's, you could practically hear other derailleur makers panting with anticipation of the day that SunTour's patent would expire, in 1984.  Within a year, Shimano was using the design in its new line of Dura-Ace derailleurs for indexed shifting.  Within another three years, all of Shimano's derailleurs would share their geometries with those of the SunTour VGT and Cyclone.  By the end of the decade, the other major derailleur manufacturers of the era--Campagnolo, Huret and Simplex--would also "borrow" the design as they tried desperately to reclaim the market share Shimano gulped down.

A sad irony  is that after all of those companies adopted the slant-parallelogram, SunTour tried to create an indexed ("click shift") system to compete with the Shimano juggernaut--two decades after SunTour developed an indexed system (and a cassette freehub) that, by all accounts, worked well but for which the world wasn't ready.  Sun Tour's new indexed system, which came out in 1987, didn't work nearly as well as Shimano's because SunTour didn't develop a freewheel or cassette--or a chain--that worked properly with their new derailleurs and shift levers.  Campagnolo made the same mistake with its "Syncro" (which some of us called "Stinkro") setup, in which indexed derailleurs sent stolid Regina chains clattering across imprecisely-cut teeth of Regina freewheels and chains.  Also, its first "Syncro" system used a modified version of its traditional dropped-parallelogram derailleur, which didn't adjust the distance between the top pulley wheel and the freewheel cog--vital for indexed shifting performance--as well as Shimano's new slant-parallelogram derailleurs with sprung top and bottom pivots.

Campagnolo Gran Turismo, circa 1971.  Don't you just love those red bolts? Unfortunately, they're the best thing about the derailleur.  Well, all right:  It was good for driving in tent pegs. I know, I did it.  From Speedplay.

I suspect that one reason why Campagnolo tried, in essence, to make their traditional derailleur design work with an indexed lever (which looked at least something like other Campagnolo levers of the time) had something to do with their experience with their Rally derailleur of a decade earlier.

SunTour VGT-Luxe, circa 1973.  From Disraeligears

Before SunTour came out with their slant parallelogram rear derailleur, most wide-range gearing systems--like the ones found touring bikes--didn't shift quickly or precisely.   After SunTour's Grand Prix, Competition and V-series derailleurs entered the market--at the dawn of the North American Bike Boom--Shimano, which was a very minor player in the bicycle components market, wanted to compete.  They couldn't copy SunTour's design for another two decades, so they found ways to modify Simplex and Huret's designs.  The result was something called the "servo pantograph", in which the parallelogram dropped at least somewhat (like Simplex) and the top pivot was sprung (Huret).  The resulting derailleurs--which would become the long-armed Crane and Titlist--shifted reasonably well over wide ranges--better, at least, than the European wide-range derailleurs but not as well as SunTour's.

Shimano Crane GS, circa 1972.  From Disraeligears,

Even so, the Shimano Crane and even the Titlist were seen as "better" derailleurs than the SunTour V and V-GT because they were more expensive and, to some eyes, more attractive.  That might be the reason why Campagnolo modeled the first edition of its "Rally" touring derailleur on the long-caged version of the Crane. 

Campagnolo Rally, circa 1975

I actually used one of those early Rally derailleurs for a time.  Once it was broken in (its parallelogram pivots had bronze bushings like the "Record" series derailleurs), it shifted about as well as a Crane--for about double to triple the price.

But certain segments of the European--particularly Italian--cycling community were not happy:  Up to then, the Japanese copied (with notable exceptions like SunTour derailleurs) European designs.  The reverse wasn't supposed to happen, or so they believed. 

Some of those who were upset that Campagnolo was making a "Japanese" derailleur (or, as one unfounded rumor had it, that a Japanese company was making it for Campy) felt vindicated when Rally derailleurs snapped in two at the "neck" just below the top pivot bolt.  Some Cranes and Titlists of the same era failed in the same way.  So, the Campagnolo birthers, if you will, believed that the design of the derailleur--which was Japanese--was to blame.

The second generation of Rally derailleurs addressed the problem by beefing up the "neck."  There were very few reported failures.  Then again, not many second-generation Rally derailleurs were sold.  Some who wanted all-Campagnolo touring bikes actually went back to using the Gran Turismo derailleur, which Frank Berto very aptly dubbed "Campy's Edsel".  Others--mainly in the US, and to a lesser extent in the UK--decided that maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to equip their otherwise all-Campy bikes with a SunTour rear derailleur, which shifted much better, and lasted longer, than the GT or Rally-- at a fraction of the price.

Third-generation Rally derailleur, circa 1980

Although Campy's heart was always in racing, it didn't want to lose the high-end touring market.  So, some time around 1977, the Rally was redesigned.  Essentially, it had the same parallelogram as the Nuovo Record, but a longer cage.  Ironically, it mimicked a "hack" that many custom touring bike builders, particularly in England, devised:  They used to make long pulley cages to fit onto Campagnolo parallelograms.  In one way, it makes sense when you realize that the Nuovo Record was sturdier than almost anything else available (especially before SunTour came along) and mechanically simple:  an advantage when one is away from civilization!  Still, it didn't shift nearly as quickly or crisply as even the least-expensive SunTour derailleur, especially with bar-end shifters.

But at least it still pleased the blowhards purists.  And it would be another decade before Campagnolo "borrowed" a Japanese design again.  By then, Campy was desperate and the public was ready.

Spence Wolf grafted a home-made long cage onto this Campagnolo Record derailleur in the 1960's/

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.

What If Sanko Ruled The World?

Most of us who came of age around the time of the '70's Bike Boom believed that in the beginning, good bikes and components came from England, France, Italy and a few other European countries.  Reliable but heavy and clunky bikes were made in the US; Japanese manufacturers copied what Europeans and, sometimes, Americans did.  And, until the time of the Bike Boom, the Japanese stuff was of lesser quality.  Some of us still believed that narrative long after reality proved otherwise.

Thus, we thought that if you were a racer, super-high mileage rider or simply wanted to ride without being weighed down by your wallet, you equipped your bike with Campagnolo components, especially the Nuovo Record rear derailleur.  In our heart of hearts, we knew that SunTour derailleurs shifted better.  But if a Campy costs four times as much, it must be better, right.

So, while racers and other active riders--or rich blowhards--opted for Campagnolo, in-the-know cyclotourists, recreational riders and other types of cyclists soon learned that, whatever their gearing needs, a SunTour VGT (or, later, Cyclone) was their best bet.  Eventually, racers and those with pretentions toward being racers would realize that SunTour derailleurs--and, by extension, other top-flight Japanese components--had "caught up" with or, in some cases surpassed, their European counterparts.

The funny thing is that none of us knew that more than a decade earlier, a Japanese manufacturer made a derailleur that far surpassed anything else that was made at the time.  Legend has it that so much was spent to reseach, develop and make this derailleur that it bankrupted the company.

Just a year after Nabuo Ozaki designed the single most influential derailleur in the history of cycling--the Sun Tour Gran-Prix--a smaller Japanese company came up with a "best of" derailleur that incorporated the best design features--except for SunTour's slant parallelogram--of other derailleurs.  To be fair, whoever designed the derailleur I'm about to mention may not have known about SunTour's design, as it may not have gone into production and in those pre-Internet days, such information would not have traveled as freely or quickly.  Also, I think that even had this derailleur's designer known about SunTour, he wouldn't have incorporated its design as it was so new and radical.  He probably would have thought it best to copy, as closely as possible, European designs, as most Japanese bike and component manufacturers did at the time.

The derailleur in question was, apparently, produced for only one or two years and was never exported, at least not in any significant quantities.  Thus, to this day it remains all but unknown to cyclists outside of Japan. Even within Japan, not many were sold, as it was more expensive than the Campagnolo Record or any other derailleur.  Because of its rarity and quality, it is one of the most sought-after components by Japanese collectors, who tend to favor vintage French (and sometimes British) stuff.

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The derailleur I have been talking about is the Sankyo Procyon PV-III.  I have never seen one in person, but what I've seen in photos of it leads me to think that it was indeed of the extraordinary quality attributed to it.  The knuckles and parallelogram plates were made of nicely-finished aluminum.  Recall that at that time (1965-66), Campagnolo's top-of-the-line derailleur, the Record, was still made of chrome-plated bronze.  

The Procycon had two sprung pivots, as Simplex derailleurs had. (Only the lower pivot on the Campagnolo Record was sprung.)  This allowed, in the absence of a slant parallelogram, for the chain to ride closer to the cogs than it would with a Record.  Also aiding the shift was a clever mechanism that kept the cable stop and cable clamp in alignment, and a pulley cage with an offset pivot.

And the build quality, from what I've read and heard, has never been surpassed, not even by Campagnolo's or Mavic's derailleurs.  While SunTour derailleurs had an overall better design, they didn't have the otherworldliness, or perception thereof, that the Procyon had.  

Now here's something to consider:  What if the Procyon, rather than the Campagnolo Nuovo Record, had become the derailleur of choice in worldwide pelotons?  Would SunTour have become as influential as it did?  If SunTour derailleurs had less influence, would Shimano have copied their most salient design feature and created a successful indexed shifting system?  And what would, or wouldn't, other derailleur makers like Huret and Simplex have done?

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".)