Viscount Aerospace Sport.

[Illaveago]

I bought this Aerospace Sport about a week ago. I had seen it on the bay and thought that I would have a go at bidding for it. I was beaten to become the first bidder but I was curious to know how much they had bid so I placed a bid using my tablet . I'm not supposed to use it for payment since a problem occurred with the bay. I remained the leading bidder right up to the final day. That evening I placed several bids using our laptop expecting a final bidding frenzy at the last few seconds. I was surprised to discover that I had won and that there hadn't been any further bids. I paid and contacted the seller to arrange a time to pick the bike up.

Once I had unloaded the bike from my car I set about cleaning it, a quick wash followed by degreasing with white spirit. This is my second Viscount, my first being an Apollo Tourer which has a lugged frame. I was so impressed by how well the bike felt and went that I thought i would try a fillet brazed version.

This picture is how the bike looked after its initial clean.

 

[midlife]

Nice .

The Viscount / Lambert frames were heavily advertised BITD, couldn't open a "cycling weekly" without coming across a full page advert.

As a bare frame they were as light as a comparable 531 but lacked the cachet. Paint finish was pretty good too. The lugged ones were nice too. The Viscount branded kit was solid but lacked a bit of flair (for want of a better word)

 

[Illaveago]

Cleaning the bike has let me see what components are fitted. From what I can see the bike looks to be pretty original. It even has the sticker from the shop which originally sold it, Johns Bikes, Cleveland Place, Bath. I can remember seeing the shop when we used to go to Bath back in the 70's. It was on the A4 on the left just before the traffic lights before you entered Bath.
The wheel rims and seat post are Birmalux, the brakes, levers, front and rear mech are Shimano, the cranks are Sugino Maxy . The LF hubs have sealed bearings and are unmarked. The frame has patina, several rusty chipped areas and some rust spiders underneath the paint. I will treat some of the bad areas as the frame material is thin . I measured it today as 0.67mm.

 

[Jenkins]

When I had mine a bit of reading around found a little warning from Sheldon Brown...

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/lambert.html

 

[Illaveago]

When I had mine a bit of reading around found a little warning from Sheldon Brown...

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/lambert.html

That was worrying as I noticed a touched up area there but it just looks like either touched in or a run in the paint .

 

[midlife]

The alloy death fork is an easy spot . The Viscount hubs were sealed bearings and a bit ahead of their time. Trying to remember if they were roller bearings. The pedals had sealed bearings as well iirc

 

[Illaveago]

The alloy death fork is an easy spot . The Viscount hubs were sealed bearings and a bit ahead of their time. Trying to remember if they were roller bearings. The pedals had sealed bearings as well iirc

The bottom bracket on mine still has the sealed bearings .

 

[Illaveago]

Nice .

The Viscount / Lambert frames were heavily advertised BITD, couldn't open a "cycling weekly" without coming across a full page advert.

As a bare frame they were as light as a comparable 531 but lacked the cachet. Paint finish was pretty good too. The lugged ones were nice too. The Viscount branded kit was solid but lacked a bit of flair (for want of a better word)

I can vaguely remember seeing the adverts back in the 70's in car magazines. I didn't pay too much attention to them as I had my Holdsworth Record at the time .

 

[biggs682]

Had a few of these over the years and have always found them to be a good ride

 

[Illaveago]

I took it out for a 6 mile test ride to see how it rode. The weather was sunny but there was quite a strong gusty wind blowing. My initial thoughts were that it felt a bit bouncy . It might have been that I had pumped up the tyres too much, 80 to 100 psi, I usually have mine around 60psi. One gust of wind almost blew me off! I carried on with my ride. The gear changes worked well and so did the brakes, even the suicide levers stopped me! I could get the bike wound up easily and seemed to fly along. I will have to do some more rides to get a proper comparison.
I have been doing some more cleaning. The lower fork ends are badly rusted and pitted. I had to wash off silver paint which had been painted on to get a better view. I have been trying to rub aluminium foil on it to try to make it look better.
I was wondering what year it was. I found a code on the back of the crank arm G 8 which seems to be August 1977 so 77/78.