• I'm still trying to find information on the groupset and wheels so I emailed Mike Sweatman who runs the excellent http://www.disraeligears.co.uk/Site/Home.html blog and he has this to say:

    "I am afraid that I don't know much about FiR groupsets. The very little that I know about FiR derailleurs goes like this:

    (i) I have never seen a FiR derailleur in the flesh - so am not an expert of any kind! If you ever find another please let me know.

    (ii) I am not entirely sure, but I think that I have seen pictures of three different designs of FiR derailleur. These would be your top-end highly polished model, a slightly less posh road racing version that also had the distinctive adjustment screw placing of your model, and the ATB model in the pictures below.

    (iii) The designs are generally unique to FiR - they did not just badge up other people's models. The ATB model is clearly derivative of a SunTour design - but it is not just a rebadged SunTour. I don't know if FiR actually manufactured the derailleurs - or got someone else to do it for them.

    (iv) FiR may still exist, see http://www.fir-ruote.it. I have never managed to get a response from their email address at info@fir-route.it, but I haven't tried for a while.

    (v) There was a time in the 1990s when relatively successful European niche component manufacturers (possibly like FiR and Mavic) were in a blind panic because the mainstay European 'groupset' manufacturers (like Sachs-Huret, Simplex and Campagnolo) were getting deservedly murdered by the combination of Shimano and the rise of Mountain Bikes. The European niche component manufacturers depended on bike makers using European groupsets - so they started to make groupsets themselves. These FiR groupsets would fit into that general pattern."

    I still haven't found any more out about the hubs.

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