Cycling UK Forum

Bendo, thanks for your reply about forks. There is more information on this thread as well. I think Busaste knows someone who was actually hurt by fork failure on an early Lambert. The big point is that the company didn't do an immediate product recall but improved the component until, by Mark III, it was sufficiently reliable for cyclo cross - as some people did.

My Lambert will have an original RD for the Rally. There's a picture of it on the Flickr group. I'll probably take a spare just in case!

The chain on my 400 IS a bit short. I fitted a new chain I had to hand, using all the links, but perhaps I had taken off some in the past. It works fine with the early Dura Ace RD, but perhaps I will add a couple of links

Fellow Viscount enthusiasts might be interested in some photos of my latest build – based on a rather nice early (1979?) lugged Aerospace 400 frame (with a conventional bottom bracket). I have also used the forks, stem, bars and brake levers from my original, bought new in 1981, Aerospace 400; which is now in honourable retirement having suffered a crack across the bb shell. I aim to fit mainly period Dura Ace parts to make something approximating to a Dura Ace Viscount. At present it has wheels with Viscount hubs and Fiamme sprint rims. These are so good that I will probably stay with them.
I hope to attend the Death Fork Rally with my ’24 carat gold plated’ (I kid you not) lugged Lambert with mainly NOS parts and Mark III Death Fork. For pictures of this and other Viscount & Lambert bikes see the Flickr Lambert, Viscount & Trusty Group - http://www.flickr.com/groups/1119963@N21/ - includes some Viscount advertising material from 1982, useful to see almost the last product range.

quiksilver wrote:A quick check of Google maps and Streetview seems to show that Cranborne Rd no longer exists

Looking a bit further afield on the map I found a Cranborne Road in Potters Bar EN6, but the full Post Code does not point to it. This isn't unknown. Either search on Cranborne Road, Potters Bar or search on EN6 3JS and look around 1km due west, on the other side of Potters Bar Golf Course. The road starts about 500m NW of Potters Bar railway station. The southern end looks residential but the north end (which bends round in a loop) is an industrial estate. Incidentally, there is a company listing for VISCOUNT CYCLES LIMITED (Registered No 01585666) on Cranborne Road, listed in about 1981 (but now dissolved). I did not realise that there was a company known simply as Viscount Cycles without 'Trusty' or Yamaha.

Nice frame busaste. Almost worth it just for the BB.

There isn't really an answer to the likelihood of the price of Viscounts rising the more we talk about them. The alternative (as far as I can see) is not to talk (or even to rubbish the bikes) or to operate a sort of secretive cartel to rig the market and keep general prices down. Not very attractive ideas. The prices are rising a bit, from a very low level, and have a way to go before reaching Hetchins / Rene Herse heights. It cuts both ways since more knowledge about the bikes might avoid people being ripped-off by the odd unscrupulous vendor (for instance describing a Taiwanese Viscount as 'Aerospace').

Hi. I share Bendo's enthusiasm for the 1970s Dura Ace group set. Viscount must have been an early adopter, fitting Crane (1st. gen. Dura Ace) RD's and sometimes DA FDs, when Shimano were trying to break through into the market dominated by French & Italian components. Rumour says that there was a Pro produced with a full DA gruppo - anyone seen one of these? Later on, in 1981, a rather lovely 'Team' bike is shown in a catalogue with all Dura Ace components (I have this picture but cannot up-load it from this computer). Did any of these make it from the factory?

I live in London so a Viscount meet in the south would be good. Does Busaste know if there's anything left of the Potter's Bar factory?

Hi everyone! I have just realised that I can register for the CTC Forum without being a CTC member. Duh!!

I'm a long-standing Viscount nut having bought an Aerospace 400 new in 1981. This has the lugged Aerospace (Cro-Moly) frame and came with Shimano hubs & Mavic clincher rims, Dura Ace FD and Shimano 600 RD. The chainset, stem and BB were SR, Weinmann levers and 605 sidepulls. I used it for commuting to college and occasional trips to France. It was stored for many years and only used occasionally but came into its own when I started cycling to work a few years ago. Unfortunately it developed a crack across the BB shell (no, I'm not starting a Death Shell story) and is currently retired.

At the moment I use a largely original, but tatty, late Aerospace Pro for day-to-day travel and have a beautiful Aerospace 600ex for best. The 600ex has the lugged Aerospace frame and came with (perhaps surprisingly in view of Viscount's tendency to mix 'n' match components) a full 600ex gruppo; apart from 3ttt bars and the ubiquitous Zeus Olimpic 64 pedals. I also have a late-ish red Aerospace Sport. This came with Shimano components, but I have substituted mainly Viscount-branded bits. Also a gold Corsair Wayfairer (Aerospace) frame.

This discussion has not branched off onto Lamberts, but perhaps I should mention that I have a Lambert Professional from (probably) 1973, with the fillet brazed frame, virtually original, and a gold-plated Professional Grand Prix frame with most of the NOS parts to build it up. This is one o the very early (1972?) lugged frames.

I have started a blog, mainly talking about my experiences riding and reparing Viscount & Lambert bikes - see http://viscount-lambert-bikes.blogspot.com/ You might also be interested in the photos of Viscounts posted on Flickr. There is a group - see http://www.flickr.com/groups/1119963@N21/

Happy pedalling.
Cusqueno