From many years of bike wrenching, I can't buy the idea of a spring
weakening under compressed storage--we'd all be replacing brake springs at
some interval if that were the case.
One strong point of Suntour backwards front derailleurs was their shifting
across triple chainrings; their cage design wasn't any better evolved than
any of their contemporaries but being able to use the lever and cable to
force the chain through the middle-to-small shift made up for a primitive
cage design. One experiment I'd like to try would be to take one of the
later bass-ackwards Suntour front changers such as a Mountech and connect it
to a (sorry, Dale, for non-vintage here) Shimano triple STI control and see
if the sprung upshift and forced downshift were a good combination with that
lever.
David Feldman
<classicrendezvous@bikelist.org> Sent: Monday, November 26, 2001 9:44 AM Subject: RE: [CR]Re: Suntour reverse actoin front der.
> William Epping wrote:
> >
> > I had a mountain bike outfitted for commuting. I used the
> > suntour reverse action derailleur on it because I used it
> > (and stored it) mostly in the big ring. The spring was not
> > compressed and it lasted longer than any other front I've used.
>
> Interesting - I have never heard of a spring wearing out. Does anyone
else
> store springs in a relaxed state to make them last longer?
>
> With my weak grasp of materials science theory, I'd say springs don't
> (can't) get weaker, unless they're used beyond their elastic range -
> unlikely except for a very badly designed or improperly heat-treated
spring.
> Thus compressed or relaxed would have no effect. But I'm open to real
world
> experience that contradicts this.
>
> Mark Bulgier
> Seattle, Wa
> USA
>
> _______________________________________________
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