Vincemachine
Member
Have a black lightning I love all tuned up but can’t seem to find a black and gold RD to match the rest of my set.
Black and gold edge RD
- Thread starter Vincemachine
- Start date
What year is your BL? They used different models of RDs depending on year.
Vincemachine
Member
I believe an 89. It has a 4050 sun tour edge set.
I found several Edge and 4050 derailleurs here including a couple that are NOS. Unfortunately none are black. I have a couple of more places to look.
Vincemachine
Member
Thanks so much, it’s the only thing missing from original aside from the tourney shifters that it came with. Would just like to get it all back to original. Hope your hunt is better than mine. When I bought this pre Covid I saw a few on eBay and now it seems to have dried up.
One will show up eventually. I have another box of SunTour stuff at my shop. I'll try to get there later today. You might check around for a black Sprint also. That was used on 1987-8 Black Lightnings. Have you replaced the Tourney shifters with Edge? I think I have a pair of black 7 speed SunTour shifters but they may not be Edge. I know I have 7 speed Radius, but they are grey rather than black.
Vincemachine
Member
I like the tourney a whole lot and I guess I intend on putting a different saddle and seatpost on it so not looking to restore it really. I’m not digging the idea of down tube shifters but to be honest I’ve never ridden them. This is my first road bike and I don’t know why but not having the original RD is irritating.
Vincemachine
Member
My hard tail mountain bike is like the Ship of Theseus, but none of that irks me the same.
Downtube shifters have their pluses and minuses. The best thing about them is that there is very little cable length inside housing, so shifting is quicker, especially when moving to smaller rear cogs. The second best thing is that they are dead reliable. I've probably owned 20+ bikes with downtube shifters and only recall one shifter failure. That was with first generation Shimano 600 which had a design or manufacturing flaw.