Inducted in 1994 for Contributor

Biography
As a competitor Ernie was a Silver Medalist in the 1945 Junior Nationals and the 1951 Senior Nationals. He was the New York State Champion in 1951. Seubert was a past president and life member of the German Bicycle Sports Club  in New York City. Ernie participated in the club in the 1940’s and 1950’s when various ethnic communities had their own bicycle clubs.

Ernie won the 1952 Tour of Somerville 50-mile criterium race in the north-central New Jersey town (officially a borough) of Somerville when its importance rivaled the national championships. Back then Somerville’s Chamber of Commerce supported the race by donating dozens of bicycles, household furniture, and other merchandise as prizes. (In 1953, Hugh Starrs won and his prize was a shiny new Chevy.)

He is past president of the U.S. Cycling Federation (1971-1975) and served as an elected Director for over 30 years. He has also served as Vice-president, Secretary and Technical Chairman. In January of 1991, Seubert was awarded life membership on the USCF Board of Directors.

Seubert was the last president of the Amateur Bicycle League of America governing body when it was making the transition in 1976 to become the U.S. Cycling Federation, a long-awaited name change that aligned the United States’s cycling program with other governing bodies worldwide.

He has been a member of the USOC Executive Board since 1973 and was chair of the Athletes Insurance Committee. For the 1992 Olympic Games of Barcelona, Ernie was appointed Chief de Mission by the US Olympic Committee, now the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee

Ernie played an important role in over several years with others to persuade the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) to award the Junior World Championships program to the United States in 1978. Those junior worlds involved (a) track races held at the Lehigh County Velodrome (now called the Valley Preferred Cycling Center) in Trexlertown and (b) road races down in Washington, D.C.’s leafy Rock Creek Park.

Ernie was president of the organizing committee for the 1978 Junior World Championships. Organizing UCI junior worlds programs in separate venues was a tremendous challenge for Seubert and the committee.

In 1978, those junior worlds were important for U.S. cycling because the United States hadn’t hosted any worlds since 1912, or 66 years, which is effectively for the first time in memory. The 1912 Worlds in Newark NJ and the 1893 Worlds in Chicago were long forgotten.

Also, the successful organization of the 1978 junior worlds helped persuade the UCI decision to award the men’s and women’s Worlds program in 1986 hosted by the U.S. Cycling Federation. Seubert also chaired committees organizing junior and masters national road championships in Harriman State Park, Bear Mountain, New York including the 1993 Jr. Nationals.

Seubert was a passionate supporter of the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame from its inception in Somerville, N.J. in 1986 and continuing through its move to Davis, CA in 2010 and into 2021. He was a long-time member of the USBHOF Board of Directors and served many important committees including the Nominations & Selection Committee and Governance Committee  where he was active until his passing.

Ernie passed away on February 13, 2021 at the age of 91. He had been living in Monroe Township, New Jersey. Seubert was born in July 1929.

This biographical information information was assembled from USBHOF archives and reporting by Peter Joffre Nye.