The SunTour Love (1600) is a tiny derailleur - almost a scale model of the real thing - see how it is dwarfed by the hanger plate. SunTour intended it for children, as children’s bikes in Japan at that time often had narrower three or four speed freewheels, small cogs (because they had small chainwheels) and single chainwheels (so they did not need huge total capacity).

Despite all this the Love could handle a 28 tooth cog and could (just) cover the width of a 5 speed freewheel. Its construction borrowed a lot from the SunTour Skitter - although the Love has separate springs for the parallelogram and the pivot.

Ideal for cycling through Haight-Ashbury with flowers in your hair.

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• Derailleur brands: SunTour
• Categories: SunTour - weirdness
• Themes: Small wheels on my wagon
• Country: Japan
• Date of introduction: 1975?
• Date of this example: 1976 (two letter date code is SI)
• Model no.: 1600
• Weight: 246g including hanger plate
• Maximum cog: 28 teeth (SunTour)
• Total capacity: 21 teeth (Sutherland’s 5th edition for SunTour Volante)
• Pulley centre to centre: 41mm
• Index compatibility: friction
• Chain width: 3/32”
• Logic: top normal
• B pivot: unsprung
• P pivot: sprung
• Materials: largely steel, aluminium rear knuckle