Suntour thumbies

[sastusbulbas]

Suntour thumbies, cant even remember the model, but they can do 7 or 8 speed, not sure if they work with Shimano? Never used them, been in a box of stuff for years.

 

[DoctorRad]

They're XC Expert, I have two pairs, plus a pair of XC Pro just fitted to my S-Works '94 FSR. They're running with a late 90s XT mech and an 8-speed SRAM cassette and shift surprisingly well, i.e. no skips once well adjusted.

 

[raleighmontage]

I had - and will have again- XC pros on the Montage and they were awesome. No skips, nice and comfy too.

 

[novekili]

I have XT thumbies and Xc experts, and suntours work better... nicer, sounder clicks

 

[sastusbulbas]

Old topic brought back from the dead to ask.........

Would these Suntour Experts work with an XTR 900 series 8spd rear mech???

 

[DM]

I could never get mine to work "perfectly" with a Shimano cassete.
But they're still the nicest thumbies to use.

 

[DoctorRad]

SunTour thumbshifters work pretty well with both 7- and 8-speed Shimano-spaced cassettes. SunTour cassettes are spaced at 4.8mm for half the block and 5.0mm for the other half; Shimano 7-speed is 5.0mm and 8-speed is 4.8mm for the whole cassette. So, get things spot-on in the middle of a Shimano cassette and they'll still be close enough to shift okay at the ends. Remember that Kona used to spec bikes with 8-speed SunTour thumbshifters and 8-speed Shimano cassettes and no-one seemed to complain.

I'm currently running SunTour XC-Pro 8-speed thumbshifters with a late-90s XT rear mech and a SRAM 8-speed cassette and the whole lash-up works a lot better than I ever expected it would... at least when it's clean

 

[DM]

In my case, tt wasn't the Suntour/ Shimano mix; The frame had a bent rear mech hanger [cough!]
Using indexed mode, the Shimano thumbies compensated for it better than the Suntour did.