DISRAELI GEARS
In common with the SunTour aRX, I associate the SunTour Cyclone (6000) series with the death of SunTour, even though that actually happened almost exactly a decade later. I had always been a devotee of SunTour’s Cyclone range of derailleurs - until they produced the Cyclone (6000) series. This was the first Cyclone series that I had no wish to own or use.
In 1983 SunTour had suffered a couple of technical setbacks - the top pulleys on their long cage ‘tech’ derailleurs had worn badly and the innovative parallelogram system on the Superbe Tech derailleurs had proved unreliable. Their response seemed to be a company wide decision to ditch anything sophisticated or minimalist and go all-out for brute strength.
For the Cyclone series, the epitome of minimalist sophistication, it was a bit like a corps de ballet deciding that, from now on, Sumo wrestling was going to be their thing. The Cyclone 6000 series is heavy, ugly and brutal - but I would not like to try to bend it.
It was an odd design in many ways, the outer cable stop is oddly positioned, the shape of the inner pulley cage is odd and, oddly, there are no inner ‘plates’ on the pulley wheels - instead there is a moulding on the inner pulley cage plate.
This 6000 version has the ‘mid range’ pulley cage. There was also a 6000 with a ‘racing’ cage (although, strangely it was the same length as the 6200), a 6800 with a long cage and a ‘3 pulley system’ version whose model number is unknown to me.
Note also that this later, 1985, Cyclone (6200) has a chamfered edge between the two adjustment screws. Up to 1984 this edge was squared off.
