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Zeile 114: |
| * [[American Eagle]] | | * [[American Eagle]] |
| * [[Azuki]] | | * [[Azuki]] |
| | * [[Bianchi#Japanische Modelle|Bianchi]] |
| | * [[Bridgestone]] |
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| Bianchi
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| While Bianchi is best known as an Italian brand, it was having bicycles built in Japan to its specifications for several years in the late 1980s. These were particularly nice bikes, with better workmanship than the Italian models.
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| Bridgestone
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| Bridgestone is an enormous multinational company, one of the largest tire companies in the world...and a fairly small bicycle company, with its own factory in Japan. In the late 1980s and early'90s, its U.S. bicycle division was run by Grant Petersen, a brilliant, talented and idiosyncratic designer.
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| Petersen, a hard-core cyclist, marched to a different drummer than most of the industry. He introduced many innovations to the market, and also strongly resisted other trends and innovations that he didn't approve of.
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| Bridgestones have a backwards numbering system, and, generally, the lower the number, the higher the quality.
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| Road Models RB-1, RB-2, RB-3, RB-T
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| Bridgestone "road" bikes, particularly the legendary RB-1, combine frame design taken from classic Italian road bikes of the '70's with excellent Japanese workmanship and functional, reliable parts. The RB-1 was extremely popular with racers, and held its own against competing models costing hundreds of dollars more.
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| The RB-2 had the same geometry as the RB-1, but with slightly less expensive tubing and considerably less expensive parts.
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| The RB-3 was a low-end model, of little interest.
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| The RB-T was a touring bike introduced in the early '90s, a time when touring bikes were extremely out of fashion with manufacturers. It was a very nice bike, but had trouble competing with the left-over stock of mid-80s touring bikes still in the pipeline. This bike also came with Avocet slick tires, which are splendid tires, but difficult to sell, since most people assume (incorrectly) that they will provide poor traction.
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| Mountain Bikes MB-1...MB-6
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| Bridgestone was one of the first companies to jump onto the mountain-bike bandwagon in the 1980s, but from a "road" perspective. Early versions of the MB-1 came with drop handlebars and 126 mm dropout spacing!
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| The predominant style of mountain bikes in the early-mid '80s had the "California cruiser" geometry inspired by the Schwinn Excelsior "klunkers", with 44 inch wheelbases, 18-inch or longer chainstays, and frame angles in the high 60-degree range. These bikes were very stable for downhill use on Repack hill, but were not very good climbers. Petersen's Bridgestones had much steeper frame angles and much shorter chain stays, making them considerably more maneuverable and nimble than the older designs, and considerably better climbers. In the '80s, this design was considered "radical", but it proved itself on the trail, and was copied by everybody a few years later. This Bridgestone design still is the standard for rigid-frame MTBs.
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| Some MTBs were made in Japan, others in Taiwan, different models in different years. You can easily tell which, because the Japanese models all used lug construction, while the Taiwanese models were T.I.G. welded.
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| In the early '90s, the Taiwanese MB-0 (a.k.a. "MB-Zip") pushed the envelope of lightness for steel-framed mountain bikes. These top-of-the line bikes were amazingly light, but, unfortunately, a bit too light, and prone to frame failure if ridden hard off-road.
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| The XO series
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| The CB-1...CB-3
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| There was constant tension between Bridgestone USA and the parent company in Japan. While the bosses realized that Petersen was a very talented designer, he was perhaps a bit too individualistic and eccentric for the corporate culture. There were forces in Japan that wanted to make a more mainstream bike, like everybody else. In the give and take between the divisions, some models went one way, others the other way. The CB-series (City Bike) was intended as a bike for the non-enthusiast. There was nothing wrong with them, but nothing special, either. These were all Taiwanese models.
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| Bridgestone bikes tend to have long top tubes.
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| This site has an extensive separate Bridgestone section, including complete catalogue scans from 1987-94, click here.
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| Centurion | | Centurion |
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