I fell in love with Viscount bikes when I was at college in the late 1970s. A friend had a red Viscount Aerospace Sport with fillet brazed frame. It seemed beyond cool. At the time I had an ancient and nameless British lightweight with a pull chain rear derailleur and a suicide lever front derailleur. When I could afford it, in 1981, I went to buy a bike like my friend's but found that Viscount had discontinued the fillet brazed frames, so I bought a blue Viscount Aerospace 400. This had a nicely lugged 'Aerospace' frame. It cost about two hundred pounds, which was quite a lot then but I guess less than a traditional high quality lightweight. I still have this bike although the frame has cracked across the bottom bracket and I have used the components on other bikes. This picture shows the 400 in its original glory.
I worked in the Lambert / Trusty cycle factory in Bilston England . I was there from opening until it closed and moved to Potters Barr . My uncle Jack Robinson , was the first frame shop supervisor and my other uncle Earnie Sargent was Forman . I was employed on the welding line , hand brazing the frames . I still have a lot of the original stick on decals .
ReplyDeleteVery happy memories , Martyn Sargent.
Hi Martyn. Great to learn of your recollections of Bilston days. have you seen the online Viscount bikes forum. There's a link in this blog somewhere, but for convenience, here it is again: https://viscountandlambert.boards.net/
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of Viscount enthusiasts that use the site, in the UK and the US, with a couple in Australia. We try to have a Viscount Rally somewhere in England the summer. We missed a couple due to coronavirus but are starting to organise one for this year. In the past, a couple of ex-employees have joined us and it would be great to see you if you were able to make it.
Best wishes. John