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Suntour Superbe Tech |
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Written by Wally Wallace
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Monday, 07 August 2006 |
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Suntour Superbe Tech Derailleur Circa 1983
1983 Marked SunTours entry to the mountain bike market with a Dirt Component group that included the Mountech rear derailleur. 1983 also marked the introduction and quick departure of the Superbe Tech rear derailluer as well. Like the Mountech the Superbe Tech featured a spring housed inside the upper pulley wheel that moved a second parallelogram. This design feature made for one of the smoothest shifting derailleurs ever produced. Unfortunately it also rendered the derailleur nothing more than a ticking time bomb the could fail at a moments notice.
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Both the Mountech and the Superbe Tech featured the spring inside the pulley wheel. While this was an ingenious design if you where looking for the best possible shifting and largest chain wrap capacity in a clean laboratory environment. In the real world of dirt and contamination the design failed miserably. The seal protecting the spring from the elements was inadequate and with in a short time the pulley wheel would bind and the spring would fail.
The Superbe Tech took the unique design one step further with a very elegant enclosed main parallelogram housing some very unique internals. The derailleur used a spring mechanism with gears on either side to facilitate the smooth shift. The derailleur looked amazing but was next to impossible to work on. Inevitably the spring and or the gears / pivots would fail and you would end up with a very expensive paper weight.
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The Superbe Tech derailleur also offered a unique cable routing. The bare cable would come straight from the bottom bracket shell guide to the derailleur pinch bolt. By eliminating the need for cable housing SunTour also reduce the friction on the cable to aid in the smooth shifting performance.
The Superbe Tech and Mountech fiasco proved to be the first chink in SunTours reputation. SunTour rushed the products to market in 1983 without proper testing and many bicycles in 1984 had already committed to spec the parts before the fallout began opening the door for the Evil Empire to break through... While there where plenty of good days ahead for SunTour, Shimano had a foot in the door and you know the end of the story.
 
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