Re: [CR]Rino Crono rear derailleur

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Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 16:42:13 -0800
From: "Chuck Schmidt" <chuckschmidt@earthlink.net>
To: "classicrendezvous@bikelist.org" <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Subject: Re: [CR]Rino Crono rear derailleur
References: <E1B3P0c-0001Zz-00@barry.mail.mindspring.net>


Louis Schulman wrote:
>
> I recently acquired a Rino Crono rear derailleur on eBay. It appears
> to be a very high quality Italian knock-off of a mid-70's Suntour
> Cyclone. The derailleur has very unusual removable screw pivots and
> ball-bearing jockey wheels.
>
> The thing is, unless Rino (whoever they were) had a license, the
> derailleur would clearly violate Suntour's patent on the slant
> parallelogram design.
>
> Does anyone have any information, history, or experience with this
> derailleur and/or the company that made it?

If I'm remembering correctly from the early 1980s bike trade shows I attended:

Lon Haldeman (RAAM record holder) and his wife Susan Notorangelo (sp?) were sponsored by Rino at one point in their careers, and Rino was owned by Beatrice Corp. (Foods). The Rino stuff never hit the mail order catalogs or the local bike shops either, that I was ever aware of. Anyone else have the same recollections?

Chuck Schmidt South Pasadena, Southern California

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