Santé

    In the mid to late 80's Shimano was quickly taking over from Suntour as the dominant component manufacture.  Suntour had until this time been making the best rear derailleurs and components, and to this day are still highly sought after. Components lines like Superbe Pro were revolutionary, bringing about the designs still being used today in rear derailleurs, hubs, cranks, pedals and other components.   Shimano however was far better at seeing the long term changes coming in the cycling industry and alas Suntour fell into the pages of history. 

    In the mid 1980's shimano had 2 top tier groups Dura-Ace and Shimano 600 both of which are still around today.  in 1987 they introduced a new group that fit inbetween their already successful groups and launched Santé.  Here is an Excerpt from the 1987 Shimano Santé dealer sales manual. 

like everything else in the modern world, the sport of cycling is changing.

While racing cyclists have always defined the performance limits of the sport, more and more of todays recreational cyclists are discovering the joys of riding hard and fast on a quality bicycle.

Along with this trend is a growing awareness of the bicycle as an expression of a physically active and involved lifestyle thats concerned with quality, performance and style.

This is the reason for Santé.  

Santé offers serious cyclists the high level of quality and function thay have come to expect from Shimano. Plus a modern new component look that more accurately expresses the performance potential of today's bicycle.

This complete manual came courtesy of Equus Bicycle.

 

   

Santé was made for 2 years from 1987 to 1989 and was a group I fell in love with from the beginning.  Owning a white Battaglin Download phil_bat1.pdf at the time, I was drawn to the white pearl components that matched perfectly. Even though my Stephen Roche team Carrera bike was too become so in frame only, I wanted them so I got them. I was never able to own the complete group then as it was too expensive but I did have most of the parts.  Cranks with replaced round chainrings, Shift levers, brake levers and derailleurs.   

   With the seriousness of Le Café Vérité taking shape I have been once again focusing on my collections and the Santé group was high on my priority list.  Here are some pictures of my current collection, I am working on the acquisition of 2-3 of each component so that I may have a boxed group as well as mounted group on a bike as yet to be determined. 

Comments

[Mrs. Casanta]

So that is where our coin is going? Sante groups, eh?
Well, they are kind of cool. Purchase authorized retrospectively.
Da G.