Damn that is one tall frame!
@juvela
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Fear I have little to contribute to the thread.
First met Grant in '77 when he was clerking at the REI branch in Berkeley, California.
When he became the head of Bridgestone USA his particularness regarding cycle fittings had the effect of making the products less competitive with other marques on a "bang for buck" scale.
Industry in Japan, for example, is organised on a
keiretsu basis - what we might term in the West a trade association or export group. In the cycle trade names such as Maeda, Sugino, DiaCompe, KKT, Sansin Matsumoto, & others were all part of one group. Grant invariably made specifications for the Bridgestone products which went across
keiretsu. This has the effect of raising costs at the OEM level.
When the Bridgestone XO-1 launched I "got" it instantly and loved the concept. XO-1's are highly valued today at the "pre-owned" level.
When the Rivendell entity launched received the first couple issues of The Rivendell Reader. Always enjoyed them.
As time went forward Grant kept making new marques and I failed to keep up. It got to where I would see a machine locked up somewhere tranferred with an unfamiliar name but which appeared decidedly Grantian; so I would figure it was yet another of his badges.
Humourous anecdote: one o' me other interests is coffee. Some years back stopped in at a relatively new small storefront roastery / coffee bar in Santa Barbara which had been begun by some cyclists.
Just inside the door and leaning up against the then idle roaster was a cycle of a marque unknown to me. It had a decidedly Grantian appearance so I asked the counterperson if it was one of the Grantian marques and it was not.
Enjoy these fabulous treasures!
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