Clements was one of our best riders at the very dawn of massed start racing in this country. An altogether very nice piece of workmanship with that unmistakeable ‘ring’ of double-butted 531 about it.īut what really makes this special is that if it were really built in 1948 – and the style of the lugs suggests that it was of that era – then this is the same year in which Ernie Clements won a team silver medal in the Olympic games in London. The simple yet attractive lugs were finely tapered and the seatstays pencil-thin at their lower ends, while the area around the seatbolt had been cut or filed away to save weight. It also had very close clearances for the rear tyre at the chainstays, indicating that it was probably built for sprint wheels. When I eventually got it home and stripped all the rubbish away, it was clear that it was a particularly finely finished frameset and that it was also unusually light for a steel frame – lighter than my fillet-brazed CB. So without haggling (unusual for me), I bought the Clements.

It bore the name Alan Gee on the top tube whether this was father or son I know not. I was informed that it was an Ernie Clements frameset, that it was built in 1948 and that it had only one previous owner, who then gave it to his son.

Clearly he didn’t want to take it back home again. When I ventured over to take a look, the owner sensed that I may be a potential buyer and suggested a price so low that it was impossible to resist. Nobody showed the slightest interest in buying it. It had been painted white and covered in modern stickers, then further defiled by a motley selection of cheap 1980s componentry. I bought this Ernie Clements frame from a fellow enthusiast at a cycle jumble.

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