RADCLIFFE cycling hero Harry Hill, who was the oldest surviving male winner of an Olympic medal, has died.

Mr Hill, of Higher Ainsworth Road, won a bronze medal at the Berlin games in 1936 in the 4,000m team pursuit.

He died of pneumonia on Saturday at Fairfield General Hospital, Bury, where he was being treated after falling at his home the previous week.

He was 92 and leaves five children, nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. His wife of more than 50 years, Daphne, died in 2000.

Mr Hill was born in Padiham, near Burnley, in 1916 and later moved to Sheffield with his family.

He received his first bike on his 13th birthday and quickly became a talented cyclist.

He joined Sheffield Phoenix Cycling Club as a teenager and started racing across the country in time trials.

His abilities on two wheels caught the eye of the sport’s big names and he was chosen to represent Great Britain in the 1936 Olympic games.

Too poor to travel to London on the train to meet up with fellow Olympic athletes, Mr Hill cycled the 200 miles using the bike he planned to ride in the competition. But he still managed to pick up the bronze medal alongside team-mates Ernest Mills, Charles King and Ernest Johnson.

On his return to the UK, Mr Hill had no money left after buying an Olympic souvenir jacket, so he had to cycle back home to Sheffield.

His son, Hedley Hill, said: “He remembered that there was nowhere to train in Berlin, so he had to ride on the ordinary roads. The cycle track in the stadium was made of concrete.

“He was very proud of his medal and always kept it safe.”

After the Olympics, Mr Hill broke a world record when he became the first person to cycle 25 miles in 60-minutes on an indoor track in Milan, Italy, in 1937.

He turned professional and broke the British professional hour record in 1939.

But the outbreak of the Second World War ended Mr Hill’s professional cycling career when he moved to Barrow-in-Furness to help build submarines.

Shortly after the war he married Daphne and opened a garage business with his brother, Robert, in Bowlee, near Middleton.

Mr Hill moved to Radcliffe in the late 1940s and bought his own business — Ainsworth Road Garage — but he still cycled every day and competed as an amateur with Middleton Cycling Club.

He continued to run the garage until 1981 when he retired at the age of 65, and his son, Hedley, took over. To celebrate his retirement, Mr Hill visited relatives in North America and spent five weeks cycling from New York to Vancouver and back, covering more than 2,500 miles.

At the age of 80, Mr Hill attempted to equal his own world record by seeing how far he could cycle in an hour. He completed 23.5 miles, falling just 1.5 miles short of the distance he had achieved as a 21-year-old.

Mr Hill reluctantly gave up cycling in 2002 after falling off his bike in Spain and fracturing his hip.

It was only in his later years that he was honoured for his great achievement at the Olympic games. In March, 2005, he met the Queen, Prince Philip and Princess Anne at Buckingham Palace at a reception celebrating 100 years of the British Olympic Association.

Hedley said: “He was very pleased to get all this recognition. It was a real occasion for him to go to Buckingham Palace and meet the Queen. Nothing like that happened when he got home from the Olympics. His whole life was cycling and everything hinged on that. He really was a remarkable man.”

Councillor Alan Matthews, a member and former chairman of Bury Cycling Forum, worked with Mr Hill on a 10-year campaign for a cycle path along Pilsworth Road, in Bury. The Harry Hill Cycleway was opened in 2006.

Mr Hill’s funeral is at 12.15pm on Monday at Bolton Road Methodist Church, followed by a burial at Radcliffe Cemetery.