Ernie Clements

Ernie Clements was a member of the Great Britain silver medal-winning road race team at the 1948 Olympics, and was also a three-time British Amateur Road Race champion, but it was his involvement as a bicycle manufacturer that Clements was to later find fame.

He first entered the world of cycle racing at the age of 15, but a broken wrist and facial injuries marred his début. However, it did not deter the youngster, and it would not be long before he was seen as an excellent track and road race prospect, and his full promise was seen at the Wolverhampton Racing Club in 1941 when, shortly after his 19th birthday, he won the club 10-mile handicap by 36 seconds, off scratch. He joined the British League of Racing Cyclists (BLRC) in 1942, and the following year enjoyed 12 wins, including the National Road Race Championship. Only a puncture robbed him of a repeat victory in the National in 1944, when he came second to the Wolverhampton stalwart, Percy Stallard. Clements then enjoyed a successful 1945, when he became the first person to win the National Road Race and Time-trial Championships in the same year. He also finished second to Ted Jones in the National Hill-climb Championship. Also in 1945, Clements won the first stage, from Brighton to London, of the 483-mile stage race from Brighton to Glasgow, beating a group of French riders by half a wheel at the Putney Bridge finish. Re-instated by the NCU in 1946, Clements joined Birchfield Cycling Club, and won the National Road Race title for the third time (and later gained another second place in 1948). He was selected to represent Great Britain in the 1947 World Championships in France.

As a cycle manufacturer, Clements started making his own machines in 1945, and in 1947 moved into a factory at Wellington (later Telford), Shropshire, until 1955, when it folded. By the early 1950s, Clements had become the managing director of Coventry Cycles, who were responsible for the famous Coventry-Eagle marque. After Clements became head of Falcon Cycles, Coventry-Eagle was renamed simply Falcon. He was appointed chairman and managing-director of Elswick-Hopper in 1980, the new Falcon parent company, when it was also announced that the Coventry-Eagle marque would be revived. After retiring from business, Clements started his own cycle shop “Cycles Clements” at Ledbury, Herefordshire, in 1990, and it remained in the family after Ernie’s death in 2006.