CENTURION BICYCLE: SEMI PROFESSIONAL

This weeks “Japanese Bicycle of the Week” is a restoredAnchor 1976 Centurion Bicycle Semi Professional. Centurion was a brand of bicycles created in 1969 by Mitchell (Mitch) M. Weiner and Junya (Cozy) Yamakoshi, who co-founded Western States Import Co. The bikes themselves were manufactured initially in Japan by companies including H. Tano Company of Kobe, Japan, and later in Taiwan by a company called Merida.

The chrome lug work was painstakingly wet sanded and hand polished. Likewise, this process was applied to the handlebars, stem and seatpost as you will see in the following images. This work was well worth the time and effort as it really enhances the light blue paint job. There was also a Centurion bicycle Semi Professional in an orange color.

MONTHS OF SEARCHING PAY OFF

The bike came with a set of bar-end shifters. However, the new owner wanted to keep the bicycle as original as possible. To accomplish this, he had to install the standard black anodized Suntour downtube shifters. It took months of searching but as luck would have it, a friend of his in Canada just happened to have a set. He was actually converting his downtube shifters to bar-end shifters!

VELO ORANGE AND SCOTT/MATHAUSER COME TO THE RESCUE

The braking system was very important to the owner as he normally upgraded the brakes on all of his builds in one way or another. As with most components, there is a big jump in performance and adjustabilily between todays braking systems and those of the vintage years. In this way he can ride the bike confidently and ensure that the brakes are tuned perfectly. To accompish this, the owner upgraded the Dia-Compe Gran Compe brakes with Velo Orange metallic braided cable. Not only were they aesthetically appealing but they provided a very strong and smooth pulling cable. To top things off, Scott/Mathauser brake pads were installed to bring the bike to a screaching halt.

SUNTOUR TEAMS WITH SUGINO

The crankset was Sugino’s Mighty Competition. Subsequently, Suntour used other companies in addition to Sugino, to produce components that they could put together and sell as one group. This Centurion bicycle came with 2 chainrings, which was standard equipment for the time. Also standard was the chainring sizes of 52/42 and a crankarm length of 171mm. However, the touring models normally came with 3 chainrings to provide a wider gearing selection needed for various gains in elevation that would be encountered in longer rides. The dropouts were made by Suntour with single eyelets both front and rear most likely for either fenders or a rear rack (above right).

CENTURION BIKES USED MANY SUNTOUR COMPONENTS

Centurion bikes used many Suntour components. Suntour’s Cyclone derailleurs provides the transmission duties on this beauty (above left). These were most likely the 2nd edition, 5902 models that were released in 1976. Suntour invented the single-sprung pivot slant parallelogram rear derailleur. Comparatively, it was lighter than Shimano’s top of the line Dura Ace model. The seatpost is an SR Royal brand that is in beautiful condition. These were manufactured by the sakae-ringyo company which is no longer in business. It is believed to have evolved into the SR Suntour company.

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