See also: SunRace documents

Country: Taiwan

SunRace is one of the brands of Sun Race Sturmey-Archer Inc. based in Taoyuan. Sun Race Sturmey-Archer Inc. began life as  Roots Enterprises Co Ltd., established in 1972 by Tony Hsu, in Taipei. Tony Hsu chose the SunRace name in the early 1970’s, when SunTour (the obvious inspiration for the name) was still relatively obscure, but rising fast.

For much of the 1970’s and 1980’s SunRace was a fairly typical producer of knock-offs of Shimano pressed steel derailleurs. However they have always been slightly more adventurous and ambitious than many of the other Taiwanese and Chinese manufacturers - as their copy of the Shimano 600  EX Arabesque amply demonstrates.

In 1995 SunRace responded to the melt-down of SunTour by opening a sales office in the USA, in 1999 they moved to a state-of-the-art factory in Taoyuan, in 2000 they started to sponsor the SunRace/Santa Cruz mountain bike racing team and also acquired the Sturmey-Archer hub-gear business from Raleigh and in 2001 they launched their Juju range of ‘high-end’ (for Taiwan) derailleurs. More...