Picture story: When Bridgestone built (brilliant) bikes

Not a lot of people these days know that tyre manufacturer Bridgestone once built very competitive bikes. Competitive because of their design and finish (rotary valves, six gears, automatic oil injection, aluminium alloy cylinders, triple-layered paint), less so on their price, which was high.

Bridgestone built a range of fast, sweet-handling two-strokes from 50s to 350s from 1958 to 1971, until the choice became stark: expand the tyre-making side of the business and continue to supply the booming Japanese OE market, or continue competing with them on the bike front and potentially lose all their business.