Originally Posted by bikingshearer
My old, long-dead-and-buried 1992 Bridgestone RB-1 had Ishiwata tubing. (You should have seen the crack - down tube, seat tube and BB shell all involved. An aluminum or carbon fiber frame would have disintegrated instead of merely getting a tad wobbly.)
Originally Posted by beaverstuff
What did you DO to the poor thing? Ishiwata bikes have feelings.
I'm not 100% sure. My best guess is that the crack started as the result of a pretty hard crash (front tire blowout at 30mph+). I didn't see anythig wrong with the frame afterwards. A year or two later, I'm riding up a shortish hill with a couple friends when I look down and see my chainrings swaying a lot more than they should have. Checked the chainring bolts - all there. Looked around a little more carefully, and there is was.
Are the two events related? Like I say, I'm not sure, but I can't think of anything else that happend that might have caused that crack to start, and I'm sure not going to blame Ishiwata or Bridgestone - not that it would have done any good at that point, even if I had wanted to.