Viscount bicycles!!

[Bendo]

That's a really nice find. What was the final price? hehe!

Random thoughts: If you've got the Viscount hubs and matching skewers that's excellent.
Can you give us a close-up shot of the brake calipers?
The cranks are higher spec than their little brother chainwheels.
That quill stem is beautiful!
Not a fan of the bullhorn bar meself but they could be a comfy position. A bit naff with the drop bar levers.
The forks look a bit nasty, but it's hard to tell in those pics.

Bascially that frame is good enough to take any gruppo you want to put on it. Period correct of course! That's what I reckon anyway. b

[dnrc]

Final price was £51, i got it for a discounted 50!!

The forks are nasty, kinda pink and faded. they will want painting or replacing sharpish!

Apart from that it's not bad at all, there are a fair few chip but that's to be expected, a good cleanup will do wonders. I've ordered a seatpost (i believe it's 26.8?) so i can swap the saddle. I quite like the bullbars myself so may run with that for now. Will obviously tidy the cables and change the bar tape and brake levers. Either for aero's or TT ones. Unless anyone has other suggestions?

The stem is nice!

A few more pics:

[triitout]

And now it's three Viscounts! I recently went for a Viscount Gran Touring off Craig's List which cleaned up very nicely. It's pretty much all original with the steel rims, fixed rear wheel, suicide brake levers, stem mounted shifters, and half painted fork. I've still got my original 1976 VGT in blue but in the course of "upgrading" I got rid off most of the stock parts. Haven't seen a post from Busaste in a long time. Hope he busy with Viscount related projects!

[Bendo]

@triltout - Never seen that yellow colour scheme before. The paint and chrome looks in excellent nick though. Hey, how about some pics of where your blue VGT is at now?

And yes I agree it's been a while since the OP posted!

@dnrc - Fifty quid is a pretty good deal. Looks like our admiration hasn't pushed the price of Viscounts up too much as yet... Pics please when it's all cleaned up!

Here is a pic of Victor with his new mudguards:



b

[quiksilver]

Some nice bikes there ! I have the overwelming urge to liberate them all and convert them to fixed gear

[busaste]

Just picked this bad boy up this is my first bicycle since i was about 7 (19 now) and i have to say, im so happy i chose this viscount out of all the bikes down there,
Ive absolutly fallen in love with them and now im trying to get all the info i can on them, ive been going through this thread but i still cant identify this bike completely, so if any one could help that would be awesome.
Its a 5 speed with mostly shimano parts. im not to sure on how many of the parts are the originals.
I have the original stem with the v dust cap i just have to find a new allen for it before i can throw it on.

What a NICE bike!!! It is a Viscount Aerospace Sport, probably late 1976. It will originally have come with a Shimano 50 front derailleur. Also the Sugino 42 tooth front chainring is missing. Whoever took that off must have huge thighs because the gearing is very high with a 52 tooth front chainring!
For some reason blue Aerospace Sports are not that common. Back in the day, most people seem to have gone for the red ones (myself included, ahem).
The down tube gear levers, bar stem and bar tape are the most obvious none original parts. It looks like the 'V' branded seat post pinch bolt is missing too.
I have new genuine Aerospace Sport top tube stickers if you want them. I sold some to Bendo a while back. Thing is I can't remember how much for! Bendo if you are reading this, can you remember?
Polish, ride and enjoy.

[busaste]

Just aquired a fixie from a LBS who was using it as an advert fro their shop in town.

any experts out there? Its a Viscount frame I think circa around 1978, with a sturmer archer dropout(facing forwards kinda) a nice flip flop on a rigida french wheel. TA straight cranks (only one banana for a Q).

My problem is no amount of googling will nail the frame date and model. I think it says Viscount President, but a bit worn. Anyone an expert on Viscount frames?

And I love riding it. everyone should try riding a fixie at least once. need to perfect my skid and track stand but itll come!

15 miles each way commuter (soon to be 20)

Posts: 366
Location: Kent

photo album taken this morning , Im off to work on it now!:

https://picasaweb.google.com/wyadvd/Jul ... directlink


http://www.endomondo.com/profile/756236

The frame is off a Viscount 'President'. This model was out in 1978.

The President had a sit up and beg riding position, 3 speed SA hub gears, sprung saddle, flat bars, steel hubs/rims, Weinmann side pull brakes, steel cottered chainset, a large plastic saddlebag, full mudguards and a dynamo lighting set. It was a kind of commuter come weekend tourer bike.

The frames were made in Taiwan from what is affectionately known as 'gas pipe' tubing. Don't let that put you off though because the frames area very strong if a bit on the heavy side. In the 1970's Taiwanese frame building was relatively new but as we all know know, they got it right and have since all but taken over. Viscount just helped them along!

[busaste]

There are fully lugged aerospace frames. The very early and late ones had lugs, they're the strongest aerospace frames. It even has a 'hand crafted in England' Viscount sticker. Does it have a frame number anywhere, try under the bottom bracket?

If you don't mind, I would like to add a bit more information here.

The early 'Aerospace' frames were always lugless EXCEPT the Aerospace Victor model which had lugs on the headtube only.

The very first Lambert frames used the same 'Aerospace' frame tubing as Viscount and were fully lugged.

In Viscount's later years - 1980 onwards - they offered fully lugged frames made with what they called at the time "Viscount tubing" (which was the old Aerospace tubing which they still had stocks of).

There are a few fully lugged old Aerospace frames but these were one offs made primarily for professional cyclocross racers. One of those would be nice!!!

Hope this clarifies things.

[busaste]

Hi everyone, I've been following this topic for a couple of years now and thought it was time I added my own contribution.
I bought this Grand Sport on 31st August 1979, it's frame number is 11244, it cost me £147-00 and I still have the receipt from the LBS where I bought it, which is also where my Dad bought my first tricycle in 1949 when I was three years old, (support your LBS!!).
It has Shimano 600 mechs with SR Apex chain rings, Weinmann 999 centre pull brakes and SR stem, I changed the seat-post to an SR one, the saddle to a gel one, I still have both the originals, and added EsGe mudguards. It now rolls on Conti Ultra Sport tyres and the BB has never given up, yet. The gum rubber brake lever hoods are cracking now but I have a pair of Cane Creek replacements, black but they fit OK.

Stunning Grand Sport!! Museum quality condition too. What more could any one want?

Although you got it in 1979 it is a 1978 model.

It is worth noting that by 1978/79 the huge stash of Lambert parts were all but gone resulting in great reliance on Japanese parts mainly from Shimano and SR.

[busaste]

Final price was £51, i got it for a discounted 50!!

The forks are nasty, kinda pink and faded. they will want painting or replacing sharpish!

Apart from that it's not bad at all, there are a fair few chip but that's to be expected, a good cleanup will do wonders. I've ordered a seatpost (i believe it's 26.8?) so i can swap the saddle. I quite like the bullbars myself so may run with that for now. Will obviously tidy the cables and change the bar tape and brake levers. Either for aero's or TT ones. Unless anyone has other suggestions?

The stem is nice!

A few more pics:

It is a 1976 Viscount Aerospace Sport. WHAT A BARGAIN! Due to its age a few parts have been changed which is to be expected e.g. freewheel, bar stem, pedals, forks, chainset


The forks are NOT original. Best swap them for some full chrome jobs!

Here's some pics of my Viscount Aeropsace Sport. It is the same age as yours and is original apart from the rear derailleur cable. Hope it gives you some ideas.

Click on them to enlarge.
Cheers.

[dnrc]

Hi mate.

cheers for the info. I did actually use that pic of yours for comparisons before I bought it as i figured it was the same model.

In what way is my chainset different? it looks the same as yours (although your pic isn't the biggest)

I'm going to clean it up, change the seat and bars/brakelevers and paint the fork to start with and see where we go.

[busaste]

Hi mate.

cheers for the info. I did actually use that pic of yours for comparisons before I bought it as i figured it was the same model.

In what way is my chainset different? it looks the same as yours (although your pic isn't the biggest)

I'm going to clean it up, change the seat and bars/brakelevers and paint the fork to start with and see where we go.

Hi

Sounds like you bike will be fantastic when it has been cleared up. Would be great if you posted some pics of the finished bike.

Your chain set is a Sugino 'Super Maxy' rather than the good old Sugino 'Maxy' fitted to the Aerospace Sport. I think that the Super Maxy chainset is a later model and is of higher quality too.

[Bendo]

Hey Mr OP, good to have you back! See how your correspondence piles up in your absence?

Re the decals, the price was 12 quid, including postage.

Thanks for all the info on the last batch of forum members' bikes. Very interesting to a Viscount tragic like myself.

Speaking of full chrome forks, I had my original forks rechromed a while back. When my frame finally came back from the powder-coater (took 4 months, but that's another story...) and my mechanic was cleaning up the frame, he found that the headset locking ring just kind of floated down over the steerer tube thread. The [rude word removed] chrome-platers had left the forks in the dip for so long it had eaten the thread. Couldn't tell to look at, but now totally useless.

Upshot is, that build has just incurred an extra $150 for my mechanic to source some comparable forks. And it's still not finished.

More nerdy detail you might be interested in, my mechanic also said when he was preparing the frame and taking off some of the original paint, he thought it wasn't powdercoat because of the kind of primer or something. Said he'd be prepared to put money on it being some kind of enamel.

Another thing (and this is really trainspottery and pointless), I'm putting in a first gen Dura Ace BB set as my BB shell was tapped with an Italian thread years ago (original BB seized when water got down seat tube). The mechanic found that, not being and Italian BB shell it was 4.67mm too narrow to take the Dura Ace cups securely. So he machined up two spacers, each 2.33mm thick. Kind of nice to know the guy working on your bike works to those kinds of tolerances!

b

[Bendo]

Hehe! They don't let you say b@st@rd on this forum! b

[busaste]

Hey Mr OP, good to have you back! See how your correspondence piles up in your absence?

Re the decals, the price was 12 quid, including postage.

Thanks for all the info on the last batch of forum members' bikes. Very interesting to a Viscount tragic like myself.

Speaking of full chrome forks, I had my original forks rechromed a while back. When my frame finally came back from the powder-coater (took 4 months, but that's another story...) and my mechanic was cleaning up the frame, he found that the headset locking ring just kind of floated down over the steerer tube thread. The <i>[rude word removed]</i> chrome-platers had left the forks in the dip for so long it had eaten the thread. Couldn't tell to look at, but now totally useless.

Upshot is, that build has just incurred an extra $150 for my mechanic to source some comparable forks. And it's still not finished.

More nerdy detail you might be interested in, my mechanic also said when he was preparing the frame and taking off some of the original paint, he thought it wasn't powdercoat because of the kind of primer or something. Said he'd be prepared to put money on it being some kind of enamel.

Another thing (and this is really trainspottery and pointless), I'm putting in a first gen Dura Ace BB set as my BB shell was tapped with an Italian thread years ago (original BB seized when water got down seat tube). The mechanic found that, not being and Italian BB shell it was 4.67mm too narrow to take the Dura Ace cups securely. So he machined up two spacers, each 2.33mm thick. Kind of nice to know the guy working on your bike works to those kinds of tolerances!

b

It's great to be back.

Thanks for letting me know the price.

Just recently, I have had a lot of wheel problems. Specifically, the bearings have become loose in the Lambert/Viscount hubs. When this happens you cannot take out the side to side wheel play with the adjuster nuts. Hmmmmmmmmmm.

Now, this problem has reared its ugly head on both old hubs and wheels I had built up with new old stock hub too. What's going on then?

It seems that the wheels did not have very straight axles (yes even those with new hubs!) causing excessive strain on the bearing cartridge as the hubs turned. Over time (i.e. barely 100 miles on one bike with new hubs!) the bearing outer race (steel) ever so slightly enlarges the recess in the hub (alloy) where it sits. I've managed to save the odd wheel by using new bearings with bearing lock. Yes, the new bearings are effectively glued in place with the lock compound filling the small gaps between the cartridge and the hub recess. What a pain but, so far, the glue is holding every thing in place!

As if that wasn't bad enough, I have had to scrap one hub because it has lost its shape! That's a first for me. When you look down on the wheel and spin the hub whilst holding the axle you wouldn't believe how much the hub wobbles.

I've heard rumours in the past that there were quality control issues with some of the Viscount parts and that the alloy in the hubs was too soft. Well, it seems that there is some truth in this if my experiences are anything to go by. Or, I may have been unlucky and been using factory reject parts that somehow got out into the market. Suppose I'll never know.

Just thought I would share these experiences with you all.

The Shimano hubs on one of my Viscounts are perfect by the way and can take any amount of abuse.

Finally got my wheel problems sorted and set off for a ride only for the left hand crank to fall off. But that story will have to wait for another day.