The Sun-Bow Adonis 600 was a conservatively designed, solidly engineered, highly chromed, 1970s derailleur that (I believe) was launched in the 1980s. It had a lot of the SunTour Honor about it - with the crucial exception of the slant parallelogram.

The Adonis 600 had a high p-pivot and a relatively short pulley cage, possibly indicating that it was designed for sporting, even racing, gear ratios. But this is hard to square with its exclusive use of not-at-all-thin-guage steel and its resulting 370+ gram weight. Perhaps it was for building muscle-mass on your training bike.

And finally it was clearly a contestant in the ever-popular competition to be the derailleur with the strangest name. Shimano had launched its rather svelte, lightweight, conspicuously attractive Shimano 600 in 1974. Sun-Bow's belated response was to name this chunky, over-weight and unavoidably plain contraption after Adonis, a youth so limber and beautiful that he was the human toy-boy of not one but two Greek goddesses. Sun-Bow, for good measure, then added the number 600. Insanely random, but cool!

• Derailleur brands: Sun-Bow
• Country: Japan
• Date of introduction: 1981?
• Date of this example: unknown
• Model no.: unknown
• Weight: 372g including hanger plate
• Maximum cog: 28 teeth?
• Total capacity: 28 teeth?
• Pulley centre to centre: 50mm
• Index compatibility: friction
• Chain width: 3/32”
• Logic: top normal
• B pivot: unsprung
• P pivot: sprung
• Materials: steel

Ref. 2054