Dirk Feeken wrote:
>When I fiddled around with some old Suntour Cyclone brakes
>yesterday, I was again amazed how exactly the quick release
>resembled Campagnolo's, which is covered with "Patent" markings.
>This brought up an old question I always wondered about since I got
>my first italian leighweight bicycle in the 80s.
>I don't know of any mass produced mechanical device which has so
>many "Patent..." engravings like a classic Campagnolo equipped
>bicycle. On the other other hand I don't know of any mass produced
>item that has been so often and exactly copied as exactly these
>parts.
>While Campagnolo was kind enough to wait 25 years for the end of
>Suntours slant parallelogram patent, Suntour and others copied
>Campagnolo parts up to the detail, especially the parts with
>"Patent" odr "Brev" markings.
I'm pretty sure that Sun Tour licensed those parts. Back in the day, both Sun Tour and Shimano were trying to crack the Campagnolo monopoly on high-end racing bike parts. They had different strategies.
Shimano's strategy stressed innovation and improved performance.
Sun Tour's strategy attempted to appeal to race mechanics by making their high end parts serviceable with the same tools and small hardware parts as Campagnolo, since that was what the race mechanics had in their tool boxes.
Sheldon "Guess Who Won" Brown
Newtonville, Massachusetts
+------------------------------------------------------------+
| "Shimano's policy was that ten percent of their work |
| force must be graduate engineers...By the mid-1970's, |
| Shimano probably had more people working on research and |
| development than all of their competitors combined... |
| the (1985) SIS Dura-Ace was the first computer-optimized |
| rear derailleur...In 1985, Shimano had about 40 percent
| of the U.S. market...By 1994, Shimano had more than 90 |
| percent of the U.S. market." |
| --Frank Berto: "The Dancing Chain" |
+------------------------------------------------------------+
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