Santuri32

The Shimano Deore m700 group set was the second component set made for off-road/mountain bikes. It has been established that this group set was initially available for sale in the Fall of 1983. Of course, components were manufactured before this time and bear a stamp code in the form Year (H, I, J, K, for 83-86), Month (A-L, for Jan-Dec).

I suspect all 1983 stamped gear is silver, that super plate rear derailleur and maybe black components (cantilevers, shifters, and hubs) were made in 1984 for 1985 bikes, but would appreciate any documentation or samples showing something different to help satisfy my curiosity and that of several other members visiting this Classic and Vintage forum.

I’ll start with what I have seen:

1. Earliest Shimano published material showing the Deore XT group set is on the back of an October 1983 Shimano 600EX brochure, containing the typo “TOURINGDEL” for Touring Model, describing it as an off-road a touring system and showing a non-production RD cage.

2. Earliest date code is for some MC70 Cantilevers and was HG for a July 1983 date.

3. Earliest date code of a Shimano document showing the RD-m700- super plate is May of 1985.

4. Earliest RD-m700 super plate derailleur was stamped IA for January of 1984.

5. Only Shimano catalog I have seen showing Black Shimano XT m700 components is the August 1986.

6. Earliest black MC70 cantilevers had a date code HL for December of 1983 but its possible this was special order and would need documents showing earlier availability than Aug 86.

I hope this interests someone and pics and docs may be shared

Miele Man

Shimano Deore started as a road touring groupset.It's sown on the inside cover of my June 1981 BICYCLING magazine. At that time the pedals were the 1" Dyna Drive type.

Cheers

T-Mar

1st generation Deore XT (aka deer's head) debuted for the 1983 model year and was replaced by the 2nd generation for the 1987 model year.

tricky 

Santuri32 Disreali Gears has some great catalog and marketing material scans from 83 and 84 that include XT Deer head stuff. Documents - Shimano

Miele Man sounds cool! could you scan or take a pic and attach it to a post on this thread?

Santuri32

[QUOTE=tricky;21236886] Disreali Gears has some great catalog and marketing material scans from 83 and 84 that include XT Deer head stuff. Thank you, I'm familiar with that site they don't show SP or Black Deer Head component info. other than what I refer (Aug 1986).

. Yes, is about this group that I am looking info. about.

[QUOTE=Miele Man;21236774] Shimano Deore started as a road touring groupset.It's sown on the inside cover of my June 1981 BICYCLING magazine. At that time the pedals were the 1" Dyna Drive type. Thank you, but as T-Mar commented I'm searching info about the XT m700 group.

I have not seen Shimano catalogs of 1983 for any group (Nov and Dec 83 catalogs available online are for the 1984 line) or for the 1984 or 1985 XT line. 1985-6 loose brochure pages are incomplete and lack a printed year reference.

Thank you all.

Santuri32

I need to learn how to quote properly

Hudson308 

When modifying/shortening a quote, just remember to retain the opening and closing brackets. Works like a charm.
Interesting thread content!

Santuri32

Thank you Hudson 308, let's put it to practice

Santuri32

A Shimano 600EX group appears as early as in the June 1978 Shimano catalog but the XT is first shown on the back of the "New 600 EX" of an October 1983 brochure, although with a non-production RD cage. Deore Touring mentioned by Miele Man was in the 1982 Catalog, but that was never called the XT. A Deer Head icon was used on the boxes of this group, but no Deer Head emblem was on the equipment, thus the Deer Head name is given to the XT m700 only. The date of introduction for 600 EX is given as 1983 and 1982 for the XT in the Shimano History page, Should someone inform Shimano? or I am the one confused?

T-Mar

Both dates are correct but you need more context. Deore XT was introduced late in the 1982 calendar year for the 1983 model year. Similarly, a revised/2nd generation of 600EX was introduced late in the 1983 calendar year for the 1984 model year. Initially, it was called New 600EX to differentiate from the earlier 600EX but the "New" designation was quietly dropped from the official name for the 1986 model year, when the SIS feature was added.

When looking at bicycles and their components, the calendar year of commercial introduction is typically a year earlier than the model year (i.e. 1987 bicycle models are introduced in late 1986). Retailers want the new models in stores for the lucrative Christmas season. In order to accomplish this and compensate for the time lags associated with trans-oceanic shipping and distribution channels, manufacturers typically start building their inventory of new bicycle models around September or October. Of course, if the new bicycles are being built around this time, the companies building the components are manufacturing their new models in advance of that, in order to have the inventory to ship to the bicycle manufacturers in the autumn. Consequently, components for the upcoming the model year typically have their commercial release in the autumn of the calendar year, but can be in production several months prior to that. You have to take this into account when looking at component date codes, literature date codes and introduction dates. .

The Golden Boy 

Would this possibly be why those really out of place 600 cantilevers showed up? A need for off-road brakes, but not really the right group to put them in?

T-Mar

The 600 cantilevers brakes date back to the 1976 model year. At this time 600 was considered a mid-range road and touring group. To accommodate the tourers, the offerings included the cantilever brakeset, a long cage rear derailleur which could handle up to a 34T cog and a three bolt, double crankset with a 95mm BCD that could handle a 30T chainring. While the wide range gearing is certainly appropriate for off-road riding, this pre-dates the arrival of commercial ATBs. Shimano advertisements of the era clearly emphasize the group's touring suitability, though I don't have one showing the cantilever brake option.

Santuri32

I've seen the 600 cantilever as early as in the Dec ' 74 catalog, it was named the BE-100 then and after another name change it was included as part of the 600EX group in the '80s. I was featured with an '80s Mountain Bike frame set with the 1982 Schwinn Mountain Bike prototype and came as part of that frame set once it went on production in 1983.

stardognine

Cool stuff here. 👍 I just had a little flashback, to myself saying something stupid about Deore DX being a touring group, originally. 🙄 Obviously, I meant Deore, but without the DX. 😉

Kind of off-topic, I recently acquired some XT hubs, M739, that also say Paralax 110. The front wheel is extremely light, so I looked it up. Seems it was designed for suspension forks, and has an aluminum axle, instead of normal steel. 🤔 It seems fine, and spins great while riding, so I'll take it. 😎

stardognine

Out of curiosity, do you know if there was a "higher-range" groupset for touring, back then? 🤔 It seems like we would be familiar with it, if it existed, but at least in my case, that was slightly before my time, as far as high-end. 😁😉

Santuri32

Back to the m700 XT. I know the 1983 Specialized Expedition, Stumpjumper, and SJ Sport came with MC70 cantilevers in 1983 and yesterday I found this add saying MountainBikes would be the first to carry the XT component set, hey say prices effective Jan 8 '83 so perhaps that is the date they would have expected them. Therefore is likely Shimano had began making the group in the Fall of 1982. Does anyone has a GH, GI, GK, GL m700 stamped components?

I found today a set of cantis with HD (april '83) and maybe HB (feb '83 stamped on them), these are about the earliest I have seen, but I have a set of unstamped levers.

Santuri32

All components in this groupset are stamped
Levers and Shifters as in the blacks below, RD behind the parallelogram and FD behind the cage.




In case you didn't know Right shifter is stamped "1" and Left "2" on the hidden surface of the bottom clamp in addition to the R and L of the lever hoods.

T-Mar

While the BE-100 cantilevers first appear in late 1974, they weren't yet part of the 600 group. The only official 600 components at that time were the medium and long cage rear derailleurs. The matching front derailleurs were Shimano 60, while the levers were unlabeled. The closest crankset was Dura-Ace and the closest brakes were Tourney. A matching front derailleur and lever set labelled as 600 didn't come out until the 1977 model year. 600 didn't become a group until the 1976 model year, when the crankset and brakes were introduced.

T-Mar

The only thing that Shimano had that was higher than 600 at the time was Dura-Ace and I wouldn't consider it touring. At the time there weren't many "groups". Campagnolo had started the group concept and at the time had a mid-range Nuovo Gran Sport group, but I wouldn't call it or any of their other groups appropriate for touring. Most touring bicycles up to that time were pieced together using components from different companies. Shimano 600 was arguably the first group designed for touring.

T-Mar

The probability of having the components packaged, shipped trans-Pacific, clear US customs and delivered to the distributor in less than a week is infinitesimal. Also, it would almost certainly have been seen on some bicycles at the fall trade shows, were store owners place their bookings for the upcoming model year. It's improbable that Deore XT wasn't being manufactured in late 1982.

stardognine

So you're saying it was high-end, low-end, and mid-range, all at the same time? 😁😉 That's what I thought, but didn't know if there was something else, maybe in a foreign market or something. 🤔

T-Mar

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. However,as I stated, it's arguable and depends of you definition of a "touring group". Shimano 600 was the first homogenous group to offer what I consider to be wide enough gearing for multiple day, fully loaded touring. Prior to that it was a mix and match situation for bicycle manufacturers.

Kuromori

I think it's more than Shimano had a jumble of parts in the early 1970's, like the Crane RD. Dura-Ace used to just be another name in this jumble of parts, used for some centerpulls that would later be branded Tourney, and some brake levers with a turkey lever option, lovingly embossed with Dura Ace on the extensions.

Shimano's first attempt at a group in 73(?) was taking the flagship Crane RD, the existing Titlist FD, and either designing or rebranding existing parts to say Dura-Ace to create an "ensemble" around it, with the RD still branded Crane. Dura-Ace started off as the Shimano top-shelf designation for parts to pair with the flagship Crane RD. This was somewhat of a problem though, Titlist was a tier down for RDs, which went Crane, Titlist, then Tourney, then lark derivatives, so in 74(?) Shimano introduced a Dura-Ace FD. Once Dura-Ace became the flagship name they branded the RD Dura-Ace with some design revisions. There was also a Dura-Ace track group added. All of these were racing parts because that's what was top shelf.

By 75, Shimano introduced a new line of derailers, the 600 and 500 series (which some consider ur-Ultegra and ur-105), presumably to replace Titlist and Tourney. Shimano then decided to give the same treatment 600, to fill out a group of second-tier (and at this point, midrange before Shimano had countless discrete tiers), since not everyone has the money for Dura-Ace, nor the strict racing needs of Dura-Ace. So the 600 group was filled with Shimano's second tier and touring parts, which weren't given the same care in design and manufacture as the top shelf racing parts. 600 was more or less Shimano's second best and more affordable road parts, and Shimano's best touring parts, equivalent quality to second tier road parts, and better than the jumble of ungrouped parts below.

Later, early 80's Shimano went full in on the groupset thing around proto-aero era, with many group names that are now forgotten. 105 is later introduced as Golden Arrow, and established as the lowest groupset that gets the top end tech and features, and that's still true today. Whenever a new 105 is introduced, it shares features with Dura-Ace, even though that Dura-Ace is scheduled to be replaced in a year or two at that point. At this point, 600/ultegra becomes cemented as the high end (middle of the groups that are "current") but not top shelf road parts. This is also the era Deore is introduced, since Shimano realized that touring parts didn't clearly fit into the racing parts hierarchy, and this would eventually get expanded into a parallel line up of MTB parts.

stardognine

Gotcha, thanks. 👍 Between this post & T-Mar's above, even a dummy like me can start understanding this stuff better.

I've never actually owned any Deerhead parts (yet at least), but I've always kinda settled in, with XT- level parts. I do have some XTR, but generally can't easily afford it. Like everyone else, I guess. 😁😉

The Golden Boy 

Deore was Deore 2 and Deore DX. All the same- sitting directly under XT.

Shimano's "touring" stuff was the ATB stuff. So, M700/M73x stuff was the high end touring stuff, followed by the MT-60/62/M650.


Deerhead was XT. Same thing. Just earlier. M700 vs M73x.

I replaced most of the Deore DX parts on my Miyata 1000 with some M900 XTR parts (and XT crank). I think the RD could probably use a longer cage, but it's pretty slick.


No Bikes Allowed by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr

1990 Miyata 1000LT by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr


1990 Miyata 1000LT by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr

For whatever it's worth- XTR was inserted at the level ABOVE XT. So the top of the line XT was now second tier.