Classic Bike: Sean Yates' Emperor Sport

Sean Yates was one of only a handful of British professionals who went from the UK time trial scene to the Tour de France. The bike you’re looking at could claim to be the one on which it all started in the late 1970s, when Yates cut his teeth on the dual carriageways up and down the UK.

This brilliant red Emperor Sport frame has a  fixed wheel with a 78.5in gear courtesy of a 51/17 Campag drivetrain. The gearing is scribbled on the top tube with a marker while Yates’s name graces the frame sticker that sits underneath. 

The frame number, EMP-79-250, indicates a 1979 build of Mick Coward at the Emperor Sport shop in Sutton, near to where Yates grew up. The simple build means the only other Campagnolo kit needed is a front brake caliper and lever, and headset. It’s completed with a Cinelli bar and stem. 

The saddle is a Concor. There’s a good chance Yates also used this when racing at Herne Hill by simply whipping off the brake caliper and swapping out the bars and stem.

Emperor Sport was opened by Tony Mills and Mick Coward, who were both ex-professional riders. Mills was front of shop, with Coward building the frames out back. In 1978 the shop expanded with Coward staying at Manor Lane, building the frames and Mills running the second shop in North Cheam.

However, Mills would eventually leave the partnership and open Cycles Dauphin at the top of Surrey’s Box Hill where he was, for a time, the main importer of Campagnolo equipment.

As for Yates’s ‘Animal’ nickname? He explained to Cycling Weekly in 2022 that was given to him by his Peugeot team-mate Francis Castaing because he never felt the cold, and never wore gloves, arm or leg warmers. The name stuck as Yates got a reputation for making his team-mates suffer in training and team time trials. No doubt this bike suffered beneath him too.