Apparently the company made sporting bikes as well, though information about its early history is surprisingly hard to find given its size today.īridgestone had developed a high level of expertise in sport bike design by the early 1980s, further accelerated when the beloved Grant Petersen – now of Rivendell Bicycle Works – joined the company as BridgestoneUSA marketing boss.
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Not the sort of bikes stateside riders imagine when speaking of Bridgestone, but Japanese-style city bikes, with step-through frames, baskets and generator lights. tire manufacturer, Firestone, but along the way has built motorcycles, cars and – starting in 1945 – bicycles, too. The company is now best known for its namesake tires and also owns the U.S. Its founder, Shōjirō Ishibashi (the name translates as “stone bridge”) began making tabi, traditional Japanese sandals, in 1925 and moved to tire manufacture in 1931. market in the ten years it persisted.īridgestone as a corporation is gigantic, but it has always largely concerned itself with products related somehow to transportation.
Since then I have ridden exclusively Bridgestone bicycles and discovered a benign shadow world of riders who have a nearly cult-like devotion to the small portion of Bridgestone bicycle products allotted to the domestic U.S. The first Bridgestone I encountered was in 1994, the last year the company sold bicycles in the USA, when I bought an RB-T after a long search for a good touring bike that could be used for commuting - and which I could afford at the time.