A PART of Olympic history, known only to a few close friends, was stored in a biscuit tin by Jack Lauterwasser with other precious cycling memorabilia until his recent death. He was the last of Britain’s 1928 Games medallists.

His Olympic success was the team silver medal won by Britain in the 168km road race. That description was a misnomer. The event was run as an individual time trial with riders starting at two-minute intervals throughout the morning.

Britain’s favourite for the individual gold was the revered Frank Southall. But he had to settle for silver, never to lose his belief that the winner Henry Hansen (Denmark) had omitted a section of the course.

Italy and Britain protested but the individual result stood and Southall, Lauterwasser, fifth individually, and Jack Middleton, 26th, won the team bronze.

Ironically, when our riders returned home they learnt that in the interim the Italians had been found guilty of an infringement and their team silver medals were awarded to the British trio — hence Lauterwasser’s two medals from one event. No one asked him to return the bronze, he claimed.

Lauterwasser’s first interest in cycling received a check when he was knocked down on his way to school by a cyclist who gave him a penny as “compensation”. Instead, he developed a competitive interest in swimming and, for his age group, was a talented performer.

It was not until later that he had a yen to cycle seriously and he joined his local Finsbury Park Cycling Club. Still short of his 14th birthday he won his first 25-mile time trial. The golden year was 1928, by which time his speciality was the longer distance trials of up to 12 hours, the stamina for which he developed by pleasure touring.

Apart from his Olympic success Lauterwasser broke the national Road Records Association (RRA) 50-mile record by almost three minutes with a time of lhr 54m 47sec and the 100-mile by more than 18 minutes, clocking 4hr 13m 35sec.

That year also gave him a major disappointment. He had established himself as the country’s best 12-hour rider, winning the Polytechnic CC “Gayler” trophy event with a British record of 237.8 miles. He and his supporters thought that he had become the first rider to cover 240 miles in competition — an average speed of 20mph — but the claims were dismissed. It took seven years before a re-measurement of the course, based on the Great North Road, confirmed that he had indeed ridden 24m 76 yards in 1928.

Lauterwasser, a skilled mechanic, decided in 1929 to open a cycle shop in London, building machines to special order and patenting his eponymous handlebar design, a style that he had used during most of his racing career.

“I fill a standard pair of bars with sand and then bend them to the style I want,” he once said, enjoying the fruits of a vogue he had developed. Lauterwasser handlebars are still in use. He later worked for Britain’s major manufacturers until 1965 when he joined Alex Moulton at Bradford-on-Avon whose production of a unique suspension design for small-wheeled bicycles “saved Britain's retail cycle trade and, thanks to Moulton, bicyles were back in fashion,” said Lauterwasser.

His knowledge of hub gears and his skill as an unparalleled builder of wheels saw Lauterwasser’s association with Moulton lasting until he was 90. It was only a fall in his home, when he broke a leg, that brought to an end a hard- working champion's employment.

There were a son and a daughter of his marriage to Amy Sibthorpe, who died in 1988. His son, Alan, became a successful cyclist.

Jack Lauterwasser, Olympic cyclist and engineer, was born on June 4, 1904. He died on February 2, 2003, aged 98.