"Whippy" refers to frame flex particularly around the bottom bracket during hard acceleration/climbing. If the chain grinds against the front derailleur when you stand up you're getting some of that flex.

I'm not a big fan of Simplex shifters and feel a switch to 1970s SunTour would be an improvement. Some will agree with me, some won't.

I have a question for the Lambert experts out here: Unless my eyes are fooling me that bike does not have the pressed in BB, I'm pretty sure I see a threaded lockring. I'm familiar with the marque in its Viscount form, did earlier Lamberts have conventional BBs? It's been mentioned that Braxton was a builder. Perhaps he threaded the BB shells for his customers he knew would be touring and might need a BB serviced at a shop that didn't deal with the relatively obscure Lambert?

Thoughts?

When I owned mine (and it as a later vintage than FxJohn's)
it had the pressed in BB. I wanted to upgrade to better components
(campy? what was I thinking?) and the only options was
to replace by having the BB shell taped out to Italian threading.
The first batch of lamberts (and I think this is one) had a standard
cup and cone bottom bracket.
As stated this one is an early one.
FxJohn, it doesn't mention Reg Harris on the bike anywhere, does it?
I'm thinking Braxton did maintenance on the bike and slapped his
sticker on it. The bike is a Lambert.
Marty

I'm sure there's some great touring out there, but haven't done much of it myself. When I lived there it was mainly hiking that we did. Most of the time when we headed out of town, it was to a hot springs over in Idaho (Weyr I think... I know how to pronounce it, never did know how it was spelled - awesome spot on the side of a cliff in the middle of old growth cedar trees) I'm not sure how the highways are for bikes, but heard that they were working on getting a rails to trails thing going from Missoula out to at least CourDeLane (sp?)... I wouldn't want to tour eastern MT though - just flat farmland.

Still, it surprised me to see his name here. That bike shop never seemed busy. It must have been people in the know and touring that gave them the money they needed to stay afloat. There were a lot of other local shops that had a lot more business.

I wonder what he is doing now?

Lotek, I will admit i don't know a darn thing about bottom brackets.
Never needed to yet

The sticker says "Assembled by Braxton"
I assume most bike shops have to assemble a percentage of the bike?
Hopefully this will be a cool bike and I'm not wasting my money.

FxJohn,

I think it looks just like this one:
https://www.classicrendezvous.com/Bri...bert_DBs_1.htm

There is also a set of pictures of the Reg Harris model which is the same
colour as yours, different decals though.
I think the Braxton sticker was a late addition.
Yes I think its a cool bike and not a waste of money!

Marty

OT: I have a Raleigh T-1000 that I bought "used" in '95. It has titanium tubes and steel lugs. I've never seen another one like it and have always been curious about it. Anyone know anything about it or how I might get more information about it.

Lambert update:

I've replaced the death fork with a steel fork that has chrome finish.
New Specialized armadillo tires, new headset, new clip straps, new cables.
Cleaned and lubed everything.
The only thing it needs now is a brooks saddle.
Maybe a shifter upgrade way down the road.

John

here's a picture

Looks sweet FXjohn. You did a good job and I guess the new chrome fork is like a simulated death fork. I hope you enjoy your little piece of history. That bike has plenty of it.

Cool Lambert. I'm curious; how do you like the ride? That first generation frame was built right around '73-'74 BTW. I have one of the blue ones just like Dale's on the CR site, and the red Reg Harris version pictured there belongs to my friend Alvin.

Hey Other Guy...I don't know yet.
When I got the bike it needed tires, and I haven't ridden it since it was given to me.
It wouldn't shift, but I have it all in order now. Then I ordered a fork, which took awhile, the first one didn't fit.
Tomorrow will be the first time. I need to dial in the seat first...it's pointed slightly up.

Wow. Found this site looking for some info on a vintage track frame and saw this thread. Here's the straight dope on the Lambert, Braxton Bike Shop and Sam Braxton. I worked there from 1985 through 1990; more on that later.

When the shop first started in the 70s, Sam started building frames after taking a class from Albert Eisentraut. He dealt in some of the European bikes of the time, especially Stella, Gitane and Frejus, and was dismayed at their quality. His standard procedure was to strip the frame of all of the components, tap and face all threads, HS, BB, align the dropouts, etc., then reassemble the bikes with fresh bearings and new grease, and often better quality components. Hence, the "Assembled by Braxton" sticker he had made. This continued until the late 70s, when he took on Sekai as a primary bike line, to be followed with Peugeot, Univega, and later Cannondale, Fisher, Ritchey, Giant and Muddy Fox, not to mention the boutique racing bikes we built up. Gianni Motta was one of his favorites, and there were Olmos, Ciocc, Masi, a Cinelli or two, and Vitus 979s galore. As the Japanese grew stronger in the industry and quality improved in the 80s, the reassembly became less necessary, although every single bike we sold, down to the cheapest $200 "mountain" bike, got the dropout alignment and BB repack. So, regarding your Lambert, it was probably a good quality bike for the era, carefully built to perform better than when the factory boxed it up for export to the USA.

The shop did well in a lot of segments of the marketplace. Sam was best known for his expedition touring bicycles, many of which travelled the world; I remember one in particular that we outfitted for a trans-Sahara trip. Sam was a contemporary of Angel Rodriguez in Seattle, and was also a friend of Phil Wood; the best-selling product for years was the expedition touring wheelset -- Super Champion Mod. 58 rims, 14g stainless spokes laced to Phil hubs, 40-hole front and 48 rear. The things were amazingly bulletproof; I remember replacing a pair or rims on one guy's bike where he'd actually worn through the sidewalls in several places, and yet they stayed true to the end. For a while there it seemed like we were shipping at least 6 pairs each week, and it got to the point where I actually got tired of building them.

Sam also built the Combie, an early (70s) Mountain bike of sorts, with dropped bars, low gearing and fat tires -- originally 650Bs, then 26 x 1 3/8, and finally 26 x 1.75 ATB standard as rims and tires became available. Made for bombing around the logging roads in the area. My dad still has one of the early ones, with Mafac cantis, TA Cyclotourist cranks, Simplex Super LJs and bar ends, phil hubs, Brooks saddle. Sweet ride. Can't get tires for it anymore, so it hangs in the garage. Sam also built racing bikes -- everything from flyweights with Excel tubing to a couple of "funny bike" TT frames for a local racer, and two bikes that a local couple rode in the Ironman in '88 or '89. I have two of his bikes; I own the last mountain bike frame that he built, largely a mix of Reynolds and Ishiwata tubing, pretty steep angles (at my request), prototype Phil hubs (some of the first aluminum shells Phil made). It lives in the garage now, not fully assembled at the moment. I was also given a real treasure -- Sam's personal fixed gear "work bike" -- a frame he built and assembled to run errands around town. I'll post pics and a component list in the fixie section sometime.

It was an amazing place to work, and an amazing education. I started as a junior mechanic in high school (my dad worked with Sam on the railroad) and moved up to wheelbuilding, selecting components for and assembling the custom bikes in addition to the daily assemblies and repairs. The parts room would make you cry, with literally hundreds of chainrings from TA, Stronglight, Campy, rims that spanned the range from the aforementioned Mod. 58s to a huge stack of blue annodized SSCs, Nisi Sludis and Lasers, Wolber Profil As, etc. etc. etc. The vintage Campy stuff in the shop would have probably put Sam's grandkids through college, and he was a particular fan of the funkier Italian stuff. My first road bike from the shop was a Gianni Motta, Italian tricolor with all black anodized Galli components. We built a passal of Vitus 979s with Galli in matching colors, and we used a lot of Excel, OMAS, Gipiemme and Edco bits, too. When Shimano introduced the first Dura Ace indexing group, we all sort of knew it would be the end of the more esoteric components, and Sam started hoarding it.

I don't really know what happened to all of the stuff. He passed away in the winter of 1989/90, non-Hotchkins Lymphoma. It was fast, and brutal. I was 21 at the time. I worked at the shop for another six months for Sam's son, Dalt, who had the knowledge, but not the passion. I moved to Madison, WI to finish college, ended up in a shop there, and was in Minneapolis when the shop finally closed in the early 90s.

Sam's wife, Shirl, is in her 80s now, and is still a fixture in Missoula cycling circles. She goes on the group rides and was always a fan of pink, from her custom Braxton touring bike with Assos sew-ups (!) to her later custom pink Cannondale. I've been away from Missoula for about 8 years, and haven't seen her in awhile. Perhaps my biggest regret was not buying the shop when Sam first became ill and talked of selling. Sigh.

Long post for my first one. Felt good. Enjoy your Lambert!
Derek