Background
Engers was born in Southgate in North London. He worked night shifts as a pastry cook in Whitechapel while pursuing his cycling career. He first got a bike at 10. It weighed 45 lb (20 kg) on his bakery scales. He was a runner and swimmer at school but could do neither well after an operation to his kneecap after a fall from his bike when he was 14. The operation removed his right kneecap and tied the ligaments together.
He was expelled from school for "misbehaving on every level" and received his first Road Time Trials Council (RTTC) official written warning at 16.
He started club cycling, joining the Barnet CC, in 1952. In 1961 he was offered and took up an independent contract with Ted Gerrard Cycles for the 1962 season - independent status was a halfway stage between amateur and professional. Work and family commitments meant he rode only two races that season. He applied to be reinstated as an amateur in 1963 but was refused. He applied and was rejected every year, hampering his cycling career, until being reinstated as an amateur for 1968.
Engers' career included track racing - he raced against Tom Simpson and Barry Hoban at Herne Hill velodrome in 1963 and he won medals in the national pursuit championship. In July 1969 he won the national kilometre time trial on the track. His 1959 25-mile (40 km) time-trial record of 55m 11s, set when he was 19, was ridden on an 84-inch (2,100 mm) fixed wheel gear.
Read more about this topic: Alf Engers
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