DISRAELI GEARS
With the XC Pro groupset SunTour tried to take the fight to Shimano by claiming the high ground above Deore XT. This derailleur is very well made, with a high gloss finish, sealed bearing pulley wheels and a solid business-like feel. As was de rigeur at the time, it has two sprung pivots and a slant parallelogram. It was a fine piece of equipment, but Shimano had better chains, better sprockets, better marketing and a better reputation.
This is the short cage version, widely regarded as a beautiful, jewel-like item that signaled that its owner was one of the mountain bike cognoscenti. As with many of the 'most beautiful’ models in this collection, this example is particularly battered. When I got hold of this derailleur it looked like it had been dredged up from the wreck of the Titanic by a star-struck lunatic in a midget submarine. It was completely encrusted in a substance that was half way between rust and sedimentary rock. Its threads were all seized and its various joints barely articulated. After a couple of days soaking in WD40 it rose from the dead, and is now a very rusty, but fully functional mechanism.
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