Are suntour components any good?



Cyclist14 said:
I don't have any, just wondering
New or old? Alot of the new is junk. As for the old it ranged from bottom of the barrel to comparable to campy or shimanos best.So, the answer is: it depends.
 
I have a few pairs of old track and road "rat-trap" (toe-clip style) Superbe Pro pedals which are great.

I bought one pair from a former 200m track pro sprint world record holder (John Kennedy) who says the bearings are as good as just about anything else.
 
I have the Suntour mountech fd, and the Le Pree rd on a schwinn le tour luxe (1985) and their still going strong, I have not had one problem, and they have never been adjusted either, truly maint. free (excluding cleaning). I sure wish they were still around (The original Suntour co.) I also have the Suntour BB which is still flawless, thought I'ed have it checked out this past summer and the guys at bicycle sport said it was like new (sealed unit), also the front and rear hubs (large flange) are sealed units, and again also flawless. I've put approximately 10-15,000 miles on the bike since new in '85.
 
The reason so much of their stuff is not as good anymore is when they went bankrupt the owner sold all the engineering data and the tooling went for scrap iron. So really its impressive they have recovered that much.

I am a diehard old SunTour fan. The old stuff was so far ahead of its time it puts a lot of current stuff to shame.
 
My wet weather trainer/commuter is an old 1990 carbon/kevlar MTN bike that had Suntour. I really liked it and put a zillion miles through it until I rebuilt it this year. I even did a 67 km race (test of metal) in Squamish, B.C. The derailer/freewheel/chain were completely worn outand the rear hub shot I upgraded the rear wheel and used the 9speed Shimano stuff I took off my Blur(went with SRAM) But I still like the front Suntour non-indexing shifter.

DAve
 
Conniebiker said:
The reason so much of their stuff is not as good anymore is when they went bankrupt the owner sold all the engineering data and the tooling went for scrap iron. So really its impressive they have recovered that much.
Well, they haven't recovered. Anything new with the suntour name on it has not connection to the old Suntour. The name was sold to to another company.
 
Old Specialized Mtn bike from back in 1990 had Suntour components, which were really good. Unable comment on anything Suntour from later in time.
 
I've got old Superbe Pro components from the late 80's and they still work great. I even crashed the rear derailluer and it still shifts fine :) . I bet I have over 30k miles on this equipment with hardly any maintenance, just the occasional drop of oil on the pivot and minor cable adjustments. Only one problem and that was I broke the rear axle, funny thing was that I didn't notice any drag in spinning the rear wheel only just the rubbing of the wheel against the chainstay under load (thought I had fractured the frame). I replaced the broken axle and inspected the races that were good shape considering I probably put over 1000 miles on the broken axle.

It wasn't till last year (last month) that I finally broke down and got myself a road bike with modern equipement :D . Hopefully this new equipment is as good as the old stuff.
 
Cyclist14 said:
I don't have any, just wondering
My first real road bike ('87 Cannondale R400), had it (alpha 2000) and it was ****. The index shifting was alway off and it never stayed in tune. The brakes were single plane and they were junk too. I switched to Shimano 105 and the difference was night and day. I would probably stick to Shimano or Campy since the parts are easy to find and they are both high quality in the top three gruppos. My current bike has Campy Record 10. I'm spoiled now.
:cool:
 
Cyclist14 said:
I don't have any, just wondering
I have an old 1987 Bianchie with sun tour ... I really like it a lot. But sadly I have to upgrade the back wheel to a free hub shimano unit because I bent the axel (note this happens to me on all bikes that are not freehubed (i.e. I had to do this upgrade on all the bikes I have owned that were not freehubed) This does not mean that sun tour is bad it just means I am big and bend axels)

Pete
 
Have an early 90's Cannondale tandem with Suntour equipment (but Scott canti brakes), and the components are quite servicable. Very well built.
 
The first serious bike I purchased in 1978 had SunTour components (Superbe).
They were very good and I never had a minutes problem with them. I wondered what happened to them since as they were pretty popular then.
The link to that article was very interesting.
 
I used to be almost exclusively a mountain biker so when the guy who builds my bikes suggested I use a set of old (but never used) Suntour Superbe Pro cranks on my track bike I had horror flashbacks to the $200 front suspension K-Mart bikes with Suntour front suspension we used to scoff at so much!

He managed to convince me that the 'old-school' gear was o.k. and I must admit I have been pretty stoked with the cranks.

That article linked to above is an interesting read and more than anything else points to the reasons why Shimano has been so successful.

I would still think that any modern suntour gear would need to be given a fairly wide berth!
 
Suntour Superbe is their top of the line, but that's 3 decades ago.
Are you looking for answers for old stuff or modern trash?
 
I'm a huge fan of Suntour, I still have my last racing bike I bought in 84 which I had equipped with Suntour Superbe components, that bike now has over 160,000 miles on it and still operates like new! The only part that ever failed on that bike was the front derailleur band snapped, but I had another Superbe in storage so I put it on. I also have a 85 Schwinn Le Tour Luxe with the Mountech front and rear and I use that on touring rides and so far, though admittedly I only have about 3200 miles on that bike, but it's been a great system, it shifts a the wider range rear gears fast and sure.

Overall though I think the older stuff lasts far longer than the newer stuff will ever even dream of lasting; and what's really weird is that I have the older SIS stuff too, that SIS stuff shifts faster and more positive than either of my Campy Ergo or my Shimano STI stuff, in fact I would put the Egro and STI very close in shifting performance to the Superbe friction! . Here comes the lynch mob.
 
Lucky You Froze, wish I have had the pleasure of riding w/ a full Suntour Superbe series. I only had the derailleurs, btw you might get the front deraeailleur band from Denmark. I once needed to get hold of the same, and a rather famous custom-builder (steel) and he had what I needed laying around somewhere (check it out here: http://schroeder-cykler.dk/en/
 
Originally Posted by Grydeklar
Lucky You Froze, wish I have had the pleasure of riding w/ a full Suntour Superbe series. I only had the derailleurs, btw you might get the front deraeailleur band from Denmark. I once needed to get hold of the same, and a rather famous custom-builder (steel) and he had what I needed laying around somewhere (check it out here: http://schroeder-cykler.dk/en/
Thanks, it was and still is great stuff.

I was deciding between Suntour, Shimano, and Campy at the time but because Suntour sales were down I got a great deal on the package, and then about a year later I heard they might go out of business so I bought a spare set of pedals and a front and rear derailleur in case one of those broke due to wear or a crash...they never did except the band issue. The band on mine Superbe is very thin, (just measured it) at 1mm thick to reduce weight, I haven't seen that thin band on sale anywhere, but about a year after I replaced the derailleur (back around 2000) I did find a NOS same derailleur so I bought in case the band ever snapped again!