I need some Viscount cranks and chainrings for my Firenze. Along with a HUGE Schwinn branded sest.

Have so many threads that feature Viscount cranks amd chainrings.

Triple cRacked easily. Same spot as Campy. That was the story. Obviously a lot of these are anecdotal.

Didn't know. Avocet made them. Thought they are very sought after. I've had a couple requests for them from prominent members on this forum.

I'll look for cracks now.

I'm sorry, but I do not believe Olivier was ever World Champion.

Ofmega made them, apparently. Here's a post from this previous thread.

".Ofmega did make the Avocet cranks. There are, indeed, two variations. The ones with the unique spindles are quite distinctive, and considerably smaller in dimensions of the square taper and crank socket. There's no mistaking when you have one, because the cranks just won't fit onto a regular spindle. After a certain date ( which I have either forgotten or never knew), Ofmega went to a standard size socket and spindle.

"I have at least one of the Avocet triples here. The smallest ring is mounted on holes that are drilled and tapped into the spider arms. I imagine a lot of them have broken by now, because this seems to be asking those aluminum spider arms to do an awful lot considering the amount of material in their cross section. I don't recall what it took in terms of spindle length, but I decided to run it without the smallest ring anyway. I just used the spindle that came with it on the bicycle it was on."

Someone really, really needs to build a bike out of nothing but the best-known Death Components.

But, for the love of god, nobody ride it!!!

My thoughts exactly - I bet it was torqued until that square was tapered.

That's why I like hanging around here...folks who actually get these references.

The others of my generation only wants speak about is this thing called the "1990s" as nostalgia.

I doubt it. You find TAs with their original chrome and black stickers, or you find them with the sticker missing, but you don't find them with a copy of the Viscount/Lambert blackout sticker carefully re-added onto them.

That's mine.



Those are neither TA nor Stronglight arms - those are Sugino Pro Dynamic S. The rings were from a local BF member (who passed away a few years ago - may he rest in peace) who parted out his Viscount.

Pics that follow are circa 2009:



I believe the single ring that is on the Pro Dynamic arm is not the correct Sugino ring, but from something else entirely.



This is the Velobase picture for the Sugino Pro Dynamic. No idea if these rings are new repops cashing in on the Rene Herse look or period to these arms.



The Viscount:



It was too rough for me, so I kept the bits I wanted and sold off the bike. The final build wound up as a singlespeed (for better or worse) with the bottom bracket tapped to 68mm with Nevar cranks and the mystery ring installed.



It exists. The Itera.

-Kurt

Good point on the black outs, although..... that is exactly the type of thing I have been known to do.

Couldn't remember whose bike that was but it was my inspiration to use a Lambert chain ring on something else. I also saved it because the color looked like a good candidate for my '66 Raleigh Carlton.

You, me, and us odd ducks here at BikeForums would do it. The average owner in the 1980s...nah.

I still have a Lambert ring with a Stronglight arm (thank you pastorbobnlnh ) in the wings for the Bianchi Competizione that I need to refinish.

That chestunt color was one of the Trek Imron colors BITD. The urethane does make a difference in the look.

-Kurt

The pedal eye crack was the bigger problem of those Avocet cranks.

Only early production Lambert/Viscount cranks use a non-tapered spindle. Those are pretty rare by now. The only ones I've encountered in the wild have 2° tapered spindles.

No, they were made by a foundry in Birmingham, UK, along with the Lambert/Viscount seatposts, stems, pedal bodies, hub shells, brake calipers, shift levers, and forks.

Ah, then evidently Lambert "heavily borrowed" from the TA crank arm design LOL.

The 5-pin, 50.4mm BCD design was widely used BITD, by Stronglight, Williams, Sugino, Shimano, and others besides TA and Viscount/Lambert.

Yes, I know, I have examples of several. By "design" I was referring to the visual appearance. When laid side by side my old Lambert arms and my Specialites TA Touristes are nearly identical in appearance. My Shimano and Stronglights are very different.

It wouldn't surprise me if Lambert/Viscount used a TA arm to create a mold for making their own crank arms. Apparently, that how the aluminum fork was made: a steel fork was used to create a mold for casting the aluminum crown/blades piece.

"The good borrow, the great steal."

--Attributed to Picasso and many others.

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn.”

--T.S. Eliot