They may have been made after the Suntour patent expired. At that point everyone copied it including Campy and Shimano. Seems to me Rino sponsored some winning RAAM riders for a couple of years.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Houston, TX
> 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?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Louis Schulman
> Tampa, Florida