> Larry mentions the cool "Guaranteed World Finest Bicycle Presision Mechanism" downtube stickers on the early to mid 70s C.Itoh bikes. I've posted a picture of
> the sticker and a couple pics of a bike on my "clubphoto" site. http://members2.clubphoto.com/
> I think the stickers are one of the coolest things about the bike. At that time, I was coveting my friend's Raleigh Pro with "Campy" parts, so I thought the
> stickers were cute. Of course, since "everyone" promptly copied the Suntour slant parallelogram design as soon as the patent ran out, maybe there was some truth
> to it after all.
My father bought this bike around 1975 or so. It had a Bridgestone sticker pasted on the metal head tube badge, which we promptly peeled off to see what was underneath. Lo and behold, it said C.Itoh. Now I wish we had left the Bridgestone sticker on there. The bike is too small for me, so I have a super long seat post and different stem and bars on it, but the original ones are in my parts box somewhere. Clincher rims and the cool Suntour ratcheting shifters were added later.
Sheldon Brown's site says that the C.Itohs weren't that well made. (Actually he says, "pretty crummy") I was riding a Fuji Newest at the time and the brazing on this bike definitely suffered in comparison. It was more like the "Paris Sport" frame one of my friends was riding at the time. But, like the Paris Sport, it was still a fun ride. The Suntour deraillers and Sunshine hubs functioned great, just as well as the slightly higher end ones on my Newest. I rode this bike back to NJ from Montreal one time and grew to like the user friendly "sport tourer" geometry, and even the funky unpadded-with-no-leather-cover plastic saddle. The components have proved bombproof and the bike looks cool with the chromed fork and stay tips. I still ride it often as my commuting / rainy day / indoor training machine.
My dad finally gave the bike to me a year ago when I told him it wouldn't fetch much on Ebay. I hope I didn't steer him wrong.
Brad Swanson
> Subject: [CR]RB 3 (was: RB 1 on ebay)
> Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 23:45:03 EDT
> From: ABikie@aol.com
> To: ABikie@aol.com, ferness261@voyager.net, rauler47@hotmail.com,
> Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
>
> OKAY, so I tuned in late, so then I went to check out RB's on Ebay
> Whoa!
> There's a n0-reserve RB3 on there now (hurry, gang!!)
> From time to time I've known to hang onto things with some of my values, but
> even here I'm way out of some kind of loop.
>
> Even though I'm not too serious a Bstone cultist (I think much of the hoopla
> behind them is 'On Purpose')I can't see much in this at all.
> I have some very interesting catalogs, calendars, and many neat relics that
> even pre-date the Kabuki name.
> Surry fellas and galks, I mean "C.Itoh, Precision Bicycle with Finest
> Mechanism', nit the Jupiter Prince.
> Or was it 'Finest Tested Bicycle with Precision Mechanism' on the whole
> length of the downtube?
>
> Go take a look
>
> Larry Black