Bridgestone History: A Timeline of Key Corporate and Bicycle Events

Shōjirō Ishibashi, whose name translates as “stone bridge,” begins making tabi, traditional Japanese sandals.

Ishibashi moves the company into tire manufacture. Around this time Bridgestone also establishes its original keystone-shaped corporate symbol carrying the “BS” lettering, a mark used with only minor refinements from the company’s founding through the early 1980s.

Bridgestone builds its first bicycles, alongside the motorcycles, cars and namesake tires the company would also become known for. Early models are Japanese-style city bikes with step-through frames, baskets and generator lights. Apparently the company made sporting bikes as well, though information about its early history is surprisingly hard to find given its size today.

Bridgestone Cycle Co is formally organized as its own entity, decades before BridgestoneUSA existed as a marketing operation.

The origin of what is now Team Bridgestone Cycling can be traced back to this year, making it the traceable starting point of Bridgestone’s competitive racing program in Japan.

During the early-to-mid 1970s bike boom, the same Japanese factory that built Bridgestone bicycles also builds machines for the U.S. market under other trade names, most notably Kabuki, a name chosen because it sounded distinctly and fashionably Japanese to American buyers of the era. As Sheldon Brown put it, “Kabuki was a trade name of Bridgestone (a Japanese company with a non-Japanese name!)”

Bridgestone’s dealer catalogue for the year introduces road models including the Altair, Antares L.D.T. touring bicycle and Sirius, each shown with color swatches, Cr-Mo tubing decals and frame-geometry charts.

Grant Petersen, later of Rivendell Bicycle Works, joins Bridgestone as BridgestoneUSA marketing boss, entering a company that already had thirty-five years of frame-building behind it. That same year Bridgestone adopts a new angular, red-accented “B” corporate mark, replacing the older keystone “BS” symbol; the new mark remains in use today.

Bridgestone’s catalogue for the year, titled “The Body and The Bike,” features a charcoal drawing of a cyclist in a low aerodynamic tuck on its cover.

A magazine review covers the Bridgestone MB-1 mountain bike, noting its flared drop handlebars and quoting Grant Petersen on Bridgestone’s collaboration with Nitto to produce an affordable “DirtDrop” stem for the bike.

Grant Petersen develops the moustache handlebar during his commute to work, refining the design across five prototypes and thousands of miles of testing. The first prototype is bent by a plumber out of copper tubing.

In a California Bicyclist interview, Petersen states his philosophy for the brand: “The best use of a bicycle is commuting, it’s not racing or competing or recreation or anything like that. Ultimately its best use is getting cars off the roads.”

Bridgestone’s catalogue for the year introduces the XO-1, a 650B-inspired all-rounder built on road-bike geometry for 559mm (26-inch) wheels and equipped with the moustache bar, alongside features on fork-crown craftsmanship referencing builders such as Cinelli, Colnago and Richard Sachs.

BridgestoneUSA closes, ending the last year the company sold bicycles in the United States. Some riders blame the controversial moustache bar for the closure, but it was actually a result of the dollar dropping precipitously against the yen. The 1994 catalogue also introduces the Bridgestone Owners Bunch (BOB), a club and bimonthly newsletter Petersen had founded before the closure.

Bridgestone’s Japan-based racing program begins competing as Bridgestone-Anchor.

Bridgestone refines its 1984 angular “B” corporate mark with a softer, rounded update, still in use today.

The Japan-based racing squad adopts an all-Japanese roster and its current team name.