Originally Posted by
ramzilla
Ishiwata reached perfection in the early 80's with the Fuji Valite bikes. Good, solid, heavy high tension steel alloy bikes. Wonderful to ride. IMHO the best. Be good.
T-Mar in a
www.bikeforums.net discussion states:
VaLite was reportedly a vanadium steel alloy. It was stronger than hi-tensile but not as strong as chromium molybdenum. It is commonly found on upper entry level and lower mid-range Fuji from the early 1980s. In order to control costs, lower models would often employ Valite main tubes with hi-tensile stays and/or forks, while the better models would often have VaLite forks and/or stays paired with a CrMo main triangle. Forum member Beaverstuff has reported VaLite frame with Ishiwata steerer, so these tubesets appear to have been made by Ishiwata for Fuji.