DISRAELI GEARS
SunTour suffered from a serious but very creative case of multiple personality disorder. On the one hand it created exquisite, refined and delicate jewels like the Competition and the first generation Cyclones. On the second hand it created eccentric designs of freakish originality like the Skitter and SMS Max. And on the third hand it was all about raw power, brutal strength and primal simplicity. This last, and possibly most genuine, tradition gave us the SunTour 888 Wide pull chain derailleurs and these derailleurs, the SunTour Honor and SunTour GT.
The SunTour GT was the long cage, steel workhorse of the SunTour range for two decades. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t light, it wasn’t sophisticated, being steel it was a touch noisy and it certainly wasn’t going to impress your europhile friends in the local cycling club. But it was cheap, strong, reliable and effective.
I have referred to this example as the second style of SunTour GT, as it corresponds to my second style of SunTour Honor. There was an earlier style of GT which was very similar, but had a pulley cage very like the second style of SunTour V GT. I have only ever seen drawings of this earlier style.
This second style of SunTour GT has a hex headed hanger bolt (hidden by that oh-so-subtle black plastic cap), the adjuster screws have locking springs, the adjustable cable outer stop is mounted on the inner parallelogram cage plate and the cable clamp is mounted on its own pivot (it is not integrated with the parallelogram pivot).
Browse associated documents.
Mel Pinto catalog - 1970 to 1975 scan 54 of 61
Mel Pinto catalog - 1970 to 1975 scan 54 of 61
