|   Whatever happened to Suntour? | jaysee
Apr 3, 2002 6:17 AM | | Back at the end og the 80's Suntour and Shimano were battling it out a bit, but Suntour products were good stuff.
I got out of mtbing for a few years early ninties, but when I started again, no Suntour!!!
So can anyone enlighten me as to what happened?
Enjoy it all!! JC |
| read all about it | bn
Apr 3, 2002 6:23 AM | | here |
| That's a VERY interesting article - thanks. nt. | Philber
Apr 3, 2002 9:33 AM | | nt |
| cute article except the author doesn't know... | DeeEight
Apr 3, 2002 4:31 PM | | real world history as well as bike industry history.
First, SunTour licensed the Browning Electronic AccuShift Transmission (BEAST), the swinging gate crankset invented by Bruce Browning of machine gun fame. This eliminated the
front derailleur and provided almost instantaneous shifts.
The guy's who's famous for the machine guns was named John Browning. |
| Shimano put them out of business | WhataboutBOB
Apr 3, 2002 7:57 AM | | Typical Shimano, they want to be the only player in the industry.
Thats one reason I use SRAM, the other reason...it works better. |
| actually... | Cabin Fever
Apr 3, 2002 8:47 AM | | my shimano works pretty damn well... i'd rather use rapid fire over gripshift. |
| duh | kendog
Apr 3, 2002 9:22 AM | | Of course they want to be the only player. They did that by commanding a bigger market share than Suntour and making better products. That's the way a free market works. You should love it since it means better, cheaper products for the consumer. |
| duh | B1
Apr 3, 2002 2:39 PM | | So you think that it is OK that Shimano is the the only player in the industry? How boring would that be? Shimano's business practices suck.
Shimano copied Suntour's derailluer designs and put tons of money into development to push Suntour out. Back in the late 80's that seem to be Shimano's big mission. Suntour developed the parallegram derailluer, used by everyone now, they developed the cassette hub also. Shimano never had and probably never will have any original designs, mostly what they have has been stolen from whats already been done. About your statement on cheaper and better products, what the heck do you mean? have you ever tried SRAM for more than one parking lot test? SRAM is cheaper and in my opinion works more precise than Shimano with less maintenance. Sram also cost less based on a part for part basis. I happen to prefer the twist shifters over Rapid fire and can understand some people preffering the opposite.
Please know what your talking about before posting on this site, that goes for all you! |
| Shimano put them out of business | laffeaux
Apr 3, 2002 9:58 AM | | Shimano put them out of business by being more innovative, producing a better product, and having supieror marketing skills. Suntour did not have the abilty to adapt. It was sad to see them go, but in fact, they put themselves out of business by not keeping up. |
| Are they really out of business? | celly
Apr 3, 2002 11:49 AM | | I read somewhere they're still making parts for the low-end (a very lucrative market segment based purely on economics) in Japan and other overseas markets. I could be wrong. |
| Nope, can't be | makalu
Apr 3, 2002 11:59 AM | | As I have a crappy Suntour crank on my 2002 rig. |
| Name still exists, but not the company | laffeaux
Apr 3, 2002 12:08 PM | | "At the end of 1994, Mori decided to shut down their bicycle component business in March, 1995. Daisuke Kobayashi and Hideo Hashizume, the former owners of SR Sakae Ringyo,arranged a management buyout. The new management took over in July, 1995. They bought the SunTour name and the SR factory in Taiwan. Mori got out of the bicycle component business. Mori sold the rest of SunTour's Japanese facilities piecemeal."
The name is still there, but it's not the same company that made components in the 70's and 80's. |
| So, the schwinn doesn't exist by that logic either... | DeeEight
Apr 3, 2002 3:55 PM | | since its changed ownership about three times in the last 15 years. How about Fisher? Its changed ownership more times than that in twenty years. Kooka? Changed ownership once. Raceface? Went from being a division of Rocky Mountain to an independant company. How does ownership changing render a company non-existent?!? |
| So, the schwinn doesn't exist by that logic either... | laffeaux
Apr 3, 2002 4:39 PM | | Again, quoting the article:
"At this point, the old Maeda-SunTour had disappeared, and a new company, SR SunTour, had taken over. Taiwan Sakae Ringyo used the SunTour brand name because it had better recognition. SR SunTour owned the name "SunTour" but they did not own SunTour's patents, intellectual property, or the rights to any of the pre-1995 designs."
It's much like Indian Motorcycles that went under many many years ago. Recently another company started making bikes called Indian Motorcycles, and they use the exact same logo. However they have nothing to do with the original company, they only purchased the name, which in their mind helps with brand recognition. |
| Are they really out of business? | celly
Apr 3, 2002 12:20 PM | | I read somewhere they're still making parts for the low-end (a very lucrative market segment based purely on economics) in Japan and other overseas markets. I could be wrong. |
| Shimano put them out of business | B1
Apr 3, 2002 2:51 PM | | You can read my post above..or not. I do agree with you as far adaptibility and having superior marketing skills, but it was Suntuor who was the innovator on some products used today. It was Suntour who developed the parallegram derailluer, cassette hub and the ill fated U-brake, all of these and others are products that Shimano copied and with the above mentioned skills led to Suntour's demise. To say that Shimano in more innovative is a very unaccurate statement.
Unlike alot of people who post on this site, I know these facts to be true and accurate. |
| Shimano put them out of business | laffeaux
Apr 3, 2002 3:27 PM | | Compared to a lot of companies I think that Suntour was innovative. And in the early days, they were probably the most innovative. Shimano really road Suntour's coat tails through the '70s. The two Japanese companies, Suntour and Shimano, entered a market dominated by European companies and took over. Both recognized that mountain biking was a legitimate sport and were the first to introduce MTB specific parts. Campy tired to follow them, but had no significant sales.
I'm not a fan of some of Shimano's tactics, but in the late '80s and early '90s they had what it took to dominate the world of MTBs. Campy managed to survive for road bikes, and Sram appeared soon after Suntour bailed out, but Shimano saw the market and took it away from Suntour, who had just taken it from Campy, Huret, et al.
I've read that article before, and I think it's a great over view of what happened. In 1984, who would have guessed that Shimano would be what they were 10 years later. They did something right. |
| Yer not the only one who... | DeeEight
Apr 3, 2002 3:59 PM | | knows how little shimano innovated compared to suntour. Shimano got big by selling cheaper parts to department stores and bottom end bikes. That's where the BIG dollars are in the bike industry. Not selling fancy race level parts like XTR that the average consumer doesn't care about.
That's how they passed by suntour, who was more concerned about the performance rider/racer than the beginner market. So they lost market share on department store bikes and their profit margin shrank as a result. Selling 10,000 $1000 component groups isn't as good as selling 1,000,000 $100 component groups. |
| Hardly, they voluntarily pulled out of the US market... | DeeEight
Apr 3, 2002 3:52 PM | | when their parent company, who happened to be the #1 producer of commercial/industrial fork lifts in the world, decided to get rid of some of the non-related subsidiaries. So some taiwanese investors got together and bought SR/Suntour from its japanese parent company and presto, re-entered the US market about 18 months later. |
| |
