lungimsam

Found an LBS that has a new one, if you can believe it. They have the mixte version new, too.

Still have the lifetime frame warranty. Die Cast Lugs, Suntour, ORIGINAL IKU Tire Driver Speedo

They want ~770 for one of 'em. Worth it?

I am into lugged steel frames and they have my size.

norskagent

no

FastJake

No way. You can get near mint bikes that are way nicer than any Kabuki for that kind of money. NOS is cool, but not that cool.

zukahn1 

I would say no. nicer 80's Japanese Road bikes a lot nicer can be found for a lot less. While great riders and well built there just isn't this kind of value in most Japnese road bikes from the 80's exspecially one of a slightly lesser brand like like Kabuki. 80's Japanese usually means $300 or so for a realy nice example average ones ready to ride about $200.

FrenchFit 

No, they are nice riders built as SS, ...pretty too. But, not worth lusting over.

lostarchitect 

No. For $300, yes.

lungimsam

Thanks, All.

I have no idea what Vintage bikes are worth. I can't believe they are asking so much! Arrrghh! I'll wait for a Rivendell. Can't believe they are asking so much either!!!

cycleheimer

I owned one "back in the day". Pretty much an entry-level type bike. Ride it a few times and you'll have a $150 bike. Much more serious bikes...including many that didn't see much use...for that type of money (and less). You'd be better off with a mid-level Fuji from around the same time period.

zukahn1 

As for Japanese 80,s bike I would also take Miyata,Shugun, Nishiki, Unevega, Panasonic,Centurion, Diamond Back, Kuwahara all before Kabuki just to name few.

Kozeemoto

I don't know about the price, and this may be an old thread but the uniqueness of this bike puts it in a very special category, a very lonely one.
This was part of a line that Bridgestone called expedition, so the name reveals part of the intentions.
The wheels are not 28/700 but are 27. Probably 650b tires can fit. The space allows either wide offroad rubber or larger road wheels.
The rear brake was weird, like a drum, protected from mud, grass etc.
The frame is more of a cousin to Radac rather than to other Kabukis. The main tubes are stainless steel bonded into steel lugs. The Radac rf5** series had a hybrid aluminum frame with two top aluminum lugs and bottom steel with rear triangle being steel and also a steel fork. The other Radac's were all aluminum, still the same bonded technique that beat all others. There have been no reports of bonded Bridgestone frames coming undone even in destructive accidents. This frame has double eyelets for fenders and racks which reveals part of its identity. A good frame to use touring the coastline of Tasmania or something along those lines. Something ultra reliable that will not suffer from bad weather and flooded streets or mud roads.
Why is it called a sub-mariner? Not only for those three SS main tubes, the rest of the bike is also made of either ss or aluminum. The cables and jackets are also SS, and so are the rims. This bike can live in a boat for 50 years and require just lubrication. Even the cassette is made of SS sprockets.
Would it make a nice bike to ride? Probably not, but ask what bike would weather the marine environment for long.

So this is something very unique that requires a bit more respect and admiration. It would probably take 5 figures to construct and equip something like this these days. You can slap some aluminum components to a carbon frame and have ss nipples and spokes, but what about the rest of the components.

T-Mar

The Submariner frames were not bonded at least not in the traditional sense like on the Radacs. There was no adhesive involved. The lugs were aluminum, not steel, and were die-cast around the ends of tubes that were flared (to resist pulling out) and plugged (to prevent being filled with molten aluminum). This allowed Bridgestone to build frames using dissimilar materials and permitted more automation to reduce costs by eliminating most of the costly hand razing operations. The die cast lug technology was called Technart.

All the Submariners that I've seen have had stays and blades that were carbon steel, not aluminum. Kabuki and Bridgestone both offered an all aluminum model prior to Radac, It was called the Superlight and used the same Technart technology.

Kabuki was not a Bridgestone brand but was owned by C. Itoh, a Japanese trading company who imported and distributed both Kabuki and Bridgestone in many countries outside Japan, prior to Bridgestone setting up their own foreign divisions for bicycle sales and distribution. Bridgestone built many of the Kabuki bicycles for C, Itoh but not all of them.

Chombi1 

They are good quality bikes, but they tend to be quite heavy.....
Couldn't really figure out why they were so heavy. I suspect, it's because the SS frame tubes were straight gauge/not butted.
Maybe $350 max., NOS, to the right buyer. More likely $300 to most.

tkamd73 

Whose, lifetime is the warranty good for? Interesting bike, but not really worth even half, of the asking price.
Tim

cb400bill

This thread is from 2012.

Kabuki12

I have owned a few Submariners and they are very heavy bikes . They seem to hold up well especially in beach communities. The problem is the spokes tend to rust so what I did was lace the wheels with Stainless Steel spokes . This was my wife’s favorite bike until someone else liked it better than her and cut the lock. They stole it from the deck of our sail boat! We went back to the bike shop and by then they were not available unless ordered and we had no car. She decided on a Raleigh Touring 14 which was a much better quality bike. I never paid more than $100 for one and never got more than $200 for on even after lacing with SS spokes. Not worth much more regardless of condition. IMHO Joe

wrk101

zombie by wrk101, on Flickr

greatscott

Well the NO's win! Those bikes were heavy clunkers at around 31 pounds, used lower level mid end components, plus they had a odd quill seatpost. I saw one of those about 6 months ago list for around where I live on Craigslist in really nice condition for $150, I hope that price gives you a clue.

The stainless steel part of the frame was made by Ishiwata and they had a system of sticking the frame tubes into a special mold and forming cast aluminum "lugs" in place around the ends of the tubes. There is some discrepancy concerning those lugs, I've read they were glued just before they were cast in place to assure a bond, but I've also read they were not glued at all, I also remember from years ago when those bikes sold for new the bike shops said they were bonded and had cut away frame sections to show it...well I just don't know.

T-Mar

To be fair, when Kozeemoto resurrected this thread, he did acknowledge that it was old. It would appear that he was commenting only to add information about the Submariner.

T-Mar

Neither the patent documents nor era roads tests mention adhesive bonding. I'm not aware of any adhesive that would have been been able to survive the die casting process. Here's a photo of a sectioned sample given to Kabuki dealers to demonstrate the construction. You can see how the ends of the tubes are plugged to prevent filling with molten aluminum and how the ends of the tubes are necked and flared to prevent from being pulled out.

xiaoman1 

It might still be for sale at that price or gone up a bit due to inflation..best to check B.F.'s for valuation.
Ben

Kabuki12

Ben, you may be right! The last Submariner I had I really had looking nice with Stainless Steel spokes and a Selle San Marco saddle . I got $220 for it and felt VERRY fortunate! Joe

Kozeemoto

My fault for assuming it would have been as the radac because of disimilar metal joins.
The particular Radac that I find interesting, as if the all aluminum ones are boring, is that hybrid frame (hybrid due to materials not design and purpose) that has the bottom lug being steel where on two sides two aluminum main tubes meet and two steel chain stays are connected, Those seem like they were brazed, about the only spot that I can safely say there is such a technique used. The seat stays (steel) meet the flange of the seat post lock, 1 bolt going through the top lug with a classic slit, and through the eyes of the seat stays.
A frame builder/metalurgist friend noticed what I had not noticed. The eyes on those seat stays are cast aluminum, so the bolt goes through what appears 4 aluminum pieces. The way those eyes look and the technique described and shown above seem very similar. I bet they did cast those aluminum eyes on top of the ends of the seat stays with a similar technique.

Here is some pics of that hybrid frame seat stay area (note that on other full aluminum radacs the joint of the stays is a rigid bond with the top lug and the bolt is on the lug behind the stays).
https://blogimg.goo.ne.jp/user_image...811db6d3cc.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/O7wAgHj.jpg --> pic from this topic
Bridgestone Radac RD-570 - Page 2 | Retrobike

The bike under that bridge is my actual bike before I bought it. It has been undergoing full restoration, but I ride it in the meantime
The hybrid Radac went even further to a bike with aluminum lugs that looked very much like the other all al-alloy radacs but had carbon fiber main tubes. It seems as they had a pot with cards of different materials and picked 2-3 at the time and made one.

The submariner seems to be about 4kg heavier than your current average city bike with lights, fenders, and racks.
It makes more sense what you (all) are saying about aluminum lugs on stainless steel (sellers of those bikes and frames have listed steel lugs, so who was I to doubt them). What is really surprising to read is that with SS spokes being so common who would have thought they went through all this trouble and use regular steel spokes for a marine environment bike. That is just plain weird.

SS is also not one single material, it comes in great variety of alloys with different qualities. Some are magnetic, but not all. Some are good to medical use some are not. I know that mariners go around with a magnet locating magnetic ss as it is not good for marine use. Some are really sensitive to bleach, some are brittle and some are elastic. I doubt it was the ss tubes that made the difference in the high weight, but the lugs even as aluminum they look very crude. Very unlike bridgestone quality. SS is also very weird in welding, especially dissimilar alloys, like if lugs were made of SS as well.

The other company that cross sold bike with Bridgestone was Anchor. Bridgestone I believe is still in a business of making track bikes, but in the past many of their track bikes were made by Anchor. Once you realize some of the details of how Anchors were made you can easily identify a true Bridgestone and a true Anchor. The NJS regulations don't allow much development and variation on those Japanese track scene bikes, so they all evolved to be almost the same bike.


In the age of robotized hydroforming and welding mass production I find those earlier labor intensive frame building techniques fascinating. I am very glad I resurrected this topic.

T-Mar

The Submariner was a fairly heavy bicycle, even back in it's day. However, the Japanese manufactured brands, in general, were heavier than their European competition during the early 1970s bicycle boom. Personally, I attribute it to marketing. The bicycle boom arrived a mere twenty-five years after the end of World War II. There was still a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment and Japanese products still had a reputation of being inexpensive, poorly designed and unreliable. As a result, I believe that the Japanese intentionally over designed their bicycles in order to build their reputation, especially on the entry level models intended for the average consumer. The easiest (and least expensive) way to increase the reliability is to use heavier gauge material, which will make the product stronger and more durable, at the expense of weight. To the average consumer raised on Schwinns, something like a Submariner would still seem very light. It suffered only in comparison to the European models.

The stainless steel used in the Submariner's main tubes was 18-8 series, which is equivalent to 304. Typically, the variation in the alloying elements of steels does not greatly affect the density, as their percentages are very small. However, in the case stainless steels, the chromium and nickel contents are very high. Still the density of 18-8 is only 0.8% higher than the 1020 steel typically used on entry level models of the era, so the weight difference in the three main tubes would be very small, in the order of ~15g. The far bigger factor in the weight is the heavier gauge tubing. Seat posts on Submariners were 25.4mm, indicating a 1.5mm wall thickness for the seat tube, while most European counterparts were utilizing lighter gauge tubing.

The simplicity and crudity of the lugs are the result of the construction, material and goal of low cost. Aluminum lugs are going to be thicker. To achieve the cost effectiveness of die casting the lugs onto the tubes, they had to plug the tubes and couldn't go with a flush fit like on later, adhesive bonded frames, where the tube fit over a smaller diameter neck on the lug. The ends were square to lower tooling costs, facilitate die casting and provide equal omni-directional strength for the square cut tubes. Bridgestone tried to dress up the lugs a bit by casting in faux spear points. Overall they weren't much worse than adhesive bonded frames of the era such as the Alan and Mossberg, and they they were certainly better looking than the riveted Hi-E Cosmopolitan. The one thing that they could have done to drastically increase the appearance of the lugs would have been to polish them, but that would have increased the cost and detracted from stainless steel tubes.

The Submariners were spec'd with stainless steel spokes through at least 1975. Sometime after that, the spokes were down graded as a cost concession.

Though at least 1977, there was a Kabuki Diamond Track model. A few of these have surfaced on the forums and they have had Bridgestone format serial numbers. So while there may have been an association with Anchor, Bridgestone also built track models.

Schreck83 

https://scranton.craigslist.org/bik/...026212933.html

TugaDude

FWIW, I absolutely loved my Submariner. I had the stainless steel one with blueish lugs. It was in near-mint condition when I got it and I make it look practically new. Ended up selling it because mama said something had to go and I didn't want to leave.
Mine wasn't particularly heavy, heavier than some of my road bikes but not a boat anchor by any means. It was pretty lively too.