I was sucked in by Grant Petersen's ad copy.
It was 1992 and I was riding my first road bike, a '91 Cannondale with Criterium geometry. The bike was fun to ride and quick as all hell, but on the long rides I found myself doing frequently, it was too stiff and too quick steering for comfort.
I saw the Bridgestone ads in magazines talking about the all day comfort of traditional stretched-out European roadracing geometry and quality steel tubing on their top of the line RB-1. The straightforward approach and simple but effective design appealed to me.
I knew from reading reviews that Bridgestones were well made, well designed bikes. Just before tax refund time that year, I walked into my LBS and saw a Bridgestone catalog. The shop manager told me that they had just signed on as a Bridgestone dealer. I told him to order me a red RB-1 size 57.5 without ever test riding or even seeing one of the bikes in person, and that is how I became the first person to buy a Bridgestone bicycle from Bike Tech in Macon, GA.
Flash forward to 2007. I have ridden that bike tens of thousands of miles, dozens of centuries and I am making plans for my 2nd major component upgrade instead of buying a new bike. Ribby turned out to be a good fit.
Too bad they stopped making them in 1994. But Grant now has his own brand, Rivendell.