A curiosity seen at the Bicycle Museum Cycle Center in Sakai, Osaka last week. We are always partial to a classic MTB so were naturally drawn to this high end Sunn bikes full bouncer...
Closer inspection reveals a piece of MTB history and we are not talking about the Kujo tyres! The bike is equipped with the Shimano Airlines gear shifting technology...
One of the weirder ideas that has come from Shimano, the 7 speed, downhill specific groupset was released in 1999. The supposed advantage was the speed of the gear change, with no cables to shift the rider only had to dab the lever to change gear instantaneously, apparently a huge benefit in a DH race...
Regardless of how genius or dumb you view the Airlines idea, we so, so want this classic XTR chainset!
The Araya disc rims are a nice touch too...
The wonderful Disraeli Gears has a stack more information on this curiously, erm... "overlooked" bit of kit.
Closer inspection reveals a piece of MTB history and we are not talking about the Kujo tyres! The bike is equipped with the Shimano Airlines gear shifting technology...
One of the weirder ideas that has come from Shimano, the 7 speed, downhill specific groupset was released in 1999. The supposed advantage was the speed of the gear change, with no cables to shift the rider only had to dab the lever to change gear instantaneously, apparently a huge benefit in a DH race...
Regardless of how genius or dumb you view the Airlines idea, we so, so want this classic XTR chainset!
The Araya disc rims are a nice touch too...
The wonderful Disraeli Gears has a stack more information on this curiously, erm... "overlooked" bit of kit.
