Hi Jim,
Didn't Specialized sell the top model Spec'l-branded Sanshin hub aftermarket for a very reasonable price, with a lifetime warranty? IIRC, SunTour Japan wouldn't allow SunTour USA to sell the same SunTour-branded hubs with a lifetime warranty, and priced them higher than the Specialized hubs. Then wondered why the hubs were difficult to sell. They were much better at making parts than pricing and marketing.....
At the shop where I worked we were given a last-minute gig in '82 or '83 building race wheels for the Fuji/SunTour track racers, using those later Superbe Pro high-flange track hubs and deep-section aero rims (Ukai was Fuji's favored rim, but I can't remember if the rims were Ukai or Araya). They had fairly low spoke counts (20 front radial/24 rear, I think). We had to deliver the wheels to Trexlertown the night of the race, and despite our apprehensions about the low spoke counts they held up fine.
They are very nice hubs, and SunTour shipped a fair number of them. They have cold-forged shells with solid/slotless flanges and "completely serviceable precision sealed annular bearings;" they first appeared in catalogs in '84. They pop up on ebay sometimes. I built a rear wheel with one in '86 and still use it, now on an '83 Raleigh Team Pro road/fixed conversion.
Cheers,
Paul Brodek Hillsdale, NJ
On Sun, 11 Aug 2002 07:43:40 -0700, "Jim Merz" <jimmerz@qwest.net>
wrote:
[snipped]
>Sanshin also
>made huge numbers of hubs for Specialized. The top model worked very
>well indeed. Has anyone ever seen the late 1980's Superbe high flange
>track hubs? These were Keihin approved and were very nice.
>
>Jim Merz
>Bainbridge Is. WA
Paul C. Brodek
Hillsdale, N.J. U.S.A.
E-mail: pcb@skyweb.net