Viscount Aerospace I rehabbed for my wife.

Colleagues,

A couple of months ago, I obtained an intact, but neglected Viscount for $20. My interest in it was its tiny size so that I could have a vintage bike for my (equally tiny) wife to participate in the monthly Camellia City vintage rides that occur in Sacramento, California. 

At the time, I knew next to nothing about this British bike manufacturer that started under the Lambert marquee, but it seemed like a well put together bike, so off I went down the rabbit hole of this Lambert/Viscount/Trusty/Yamaha project. (Oh, it’s pronounced “Vy-Count”!) Luckily, this particular bike benefitted from the later interventions of Trusty and Yamaha. It was equipped with many conventional parts from Shimano and Suntour, plus, the infamous Lambert Death Fork had been replaced with a conventional Tange chromed steel fork as a result of the massive recall Yamaha initiated to address the regularly failing Lambert aluminum alloy forks. It does still have the sealed bearing hubs and bottom bracket, but they seem to be functioning well after a good cleaning and greasing.

Many of the parts were made in-house or special made for Lambert/Viscount in the early days of the company, and many of the parts on this bike still bear the Viscount labeling. The brake levers are still even labeled Lambert! The pedals were a chore to service because the needle bearings had seized together from not being greased in decades. Used a sonic cleaner to ungunk them and clean away the rust and they actually functioned well after reassembly.

All components were deep cleaned and reassembled. Some touch up paint and new decals helped it come together as a pretty sharp looking and well functioning bike. Nothing particularly special, but a small part of vintage cycling history and now my wife has an authentic 10 speed drop bar bike to go along with her 1971 Peugeot mixte.

It actually rides very nicely and is very light for the era. Only things that are new are the bar tape, cables and housings, chain and decals. I also used some 1k automotive white spray paint to do some touch ups where the paint was in rough shape. Found a set of tires, a pump, a bottle cage, and mounts in my stash that were a good match. I actually spent less than the $100 budget for the Bike Forums Clunker Challenge on this bike. Not too shabby!

Below is a link to the Google album of the restoration. 

photos.app.goo.gl/pkinUpJWtQ6KUTtF8