DrewSavage
Retro Guru
I've just bought an early 1990s Nigel Dean World Tour from a friend of mine at my running club. It looks like 20 years ago she was sold a lovely touring bike, except that it was too big for her... so she was never very comfortable riding it, eventually gave up, and it's spent the last 5 years in her shed.
There's a little surface rust here and there but generally it's in very good nick and looks like it will clean up really nicely. It has a Reynolds 531 frame and forks, an ITM stem and 3TTT Podium handlebars so I reckon it must have been decent in its time.
But the groupset is what really interests me. It's a mix of companies yet it all seems to be part of the same range.
SunTour front and rear gears (the back derailleur is long cage) with handlebar-mounted shifters (Power Control for the front, AccuShift Plus for the back) with kind of butterfly tin-opener kind of levers on them, Dia Compe cantilever brakes with drilled levers, and a Sakae triple chainset.
Yet it all matches, it's all in black and all carries the same logo - X-1. SunTour X-1, Dia Compe X-1, Sakae X-1. Yet I thought SunTour used to make all these things themselves. Was this a late development when they were going under and trying to compete with Shimano?
Was it any good in its day? Is it any good now? I know SunTour Superbe stuff is lovely, and vastly sought after, but did the X-1 come after SunTour had gone off the boil?
Oh, and the wheels are SunTour hubs (doesn't say any particular model kind) with Alesa rims. The look like good strong touring wheels.
There's a little surface rust here and there but generally it's in very good nick and looks like it will clean up really nicely. It has a Reynolds 531 frame and forks, an ITM stem and 3TTT Podium handlebars so I reckon it must have been decent in its time.
But the groupset is what really interests me. It's a mix of companies yet it all seems to be part of the same range.
SunTour front and rear gears (the back derailleur is long cage) with handlebar-mounted shifters (Power Control for the front, AccuShift Plus for the back) with kind of butterfly tin-opener kind of levers on them, Dia Compe cantilever brakes with drilled levers, and a Sakae triple chainset.
Yet it all matches, it's all in black and all carries the same logo - X-1. SunTour X-1, Dia Compe X-1, Sakae X-1. Yet I thought SunTour used to make all these things themselves. Was this a late development when they were going under and trying to compete with Shimano?
Was it any good in its day? Is it any good now? I know SunTour Superbe stuff is lovely, and vastly sought after, but did the X-1 come after SunTour had gone off the boil?
Oh, and the wheels are SunTour hubs (doesn't say any particular model kind) with Alesa rims. The look like good strong touring wheels.
