We sold tons of Viscounts at the University Bike Shop (unnamed to protect the innocent in the 70's) We also received boxes of replacement forks, bbs, wheels, etc. because of failures and warranty issues. As the shop owner/manager, I used to thank God that Yamaha had purchased Viscount...because without those deep pockets, the warranty situation would have been dire, both in terms of the human injury toll and the financial ruin to shops that sold Viscount! So, no, it is NOT an urban legend...they wer truly poorly designed and made forks! Dean Patterson Alpine, CA USA
"Putman, Clyde" <cputman@mail.smu.edu> wrote: "Back in the day" I had a Viscount riding customer who came in the shop often...then did not show for a long time. That is because he was getting his face reconstructed after snapping one of the forks. True not every fork broke, I put a lot of miles on mine, but when they did it could be a VERY nasty fall.
Cheers from Dallas, TX, USA, Earth! -Clyde R. (Lambert Lovin') Putman
________________________________
From: classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org on behalf of lemansgtman@aol.com Sent: Sun 3/23/2008 7:42 AM To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: [CR]Re: Lambert-Viscount Death Fork... Urban Legend?
Just a point of interest...
I rode a Viscount Aerospace with the famed "death fork"?in Road Races & later Cyclo-Cross* in the UK for 4 - 5 seasons without any ill effect at all.
*Including at least one Three Peaks Cyclo Cross and latterly the 1996 UK Veterans' 'Cross Champs - after which the frame (not the fork) gave up the ghost - the clamp on the seat cluster fractured, so the frame went to the dump, I thought I'd had my money's worth, so wasn't grumbling...
But I still have the fork, now fitted to a late model 'improved' Viscount which came to me via ebay for $16 with a very nasty steel fork and very nice threaded B/B - so no prob's with fitting an axle.
Anyway.. I just wondered - has anyone out there actually had the 'death fork' fail on them? or known anyone who has? - or even can definitively name someone who knows someone? (you get the idea...)
Or is this just another urban legend - and we can blame the chap on the grassy knoll?
Just asking...
Incidentally, most of the rest of the bits that came on my new Aerospace in the mid '70s were basically crap, 'specially the pedals which by then had plain sintered bronze bearings and fell to bits in short order. Basically the only original?parts I now have left are the rear mech' (Shimano Titlist - excellent) and the fork.
Ian (30 years of living dangerously) Briggs LUTON, Bedfordshire, UK.
________________________________________________________________________
AOL's new homepage has launched. Take a tour at
http://info.aol.co.uk/
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Dean Patterson Alpine, CA, USA DPCowboy
---------------------------------
Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage.