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 madly 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 the SunTour Honor and SunTour GT.

The SunTour Honor was the mid range, 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.

The second style of SunTour Honor still has a hex hanger bolt (under the natty plastic cover) but has the adjustable cable outer stop mounted on the inner parallelogram plate, and the cable clamp mounting reinforced by passing its mounting rod through both sides of the front knuckle.

This black example (the main parts of the gear have been thickly powder coated) is the blackest gear in the collection. A nightmare to photograph!

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• Derailleur brands: SunTour
• Categories: SunTour - the Honor story
• Country: Japan
• Date of introduction: 1970?
• Date of this example: unknown (no two letter date code, but spring cover, both pulleys and parallelogram plate are stamped ‘Maeda Industries Ltd.’)
• Model no.: 2600
• Weight: 402g including hanger plate
• Maximum cog: 30 teeth (Sutherlands 4th edition and SunTour)
• Total capacity: 28 teeth (Sutherlands 4th edition and SunTour)
• Pulley centre to centre: 57mm
• Index compatibility: friction
• Chain width: 3/32”
• Logic: top normal
• B pivot: unsprung
• P pivot: sprung
• Materials: steel

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