The blog

Oakley glasses, MTB tyres, one-piece alu frames, Lefty forks: all created in the 1890s

by carltonreid / on March 04, 2013 /

Many of the things we consider ‘modern’ about cycling – even basic things such as anti-puncture gloop or hi-viz clothing – were available to Victorian cyclists. Below are a number of products from the 1890s which you may not not […]

John Kemp Starley, creator of the bicycle that “set the fashion to the world”

by carltonreid / on December 13, 2012 /

JK Starley is generally considered the creator of the modern bicycle. According to the editor of The Cyclist, a contemporary magazine, Starley’s Rover Safety bicycle “set the fashion to the world,” leading to a global boom in bicycle ownership. Commenting […]

Patently obvious

by carltonreid / on April 03, 2012 /

Bicycles were perfect by the 90s. The 1890s. While refinements such as the quick-release binder bolt and derailleur gears were the work of the early 20th Century, most of the key bicycle innovations had been invented by 1899. (Even plastic […]

MOTORISTS’ FRONT OF JUDEA: What Have The Cyclists Ever Done for Us?

by carltonreid / on January 20, 2012 /

REG: Cyclists have bled us white, the bastards. They don’t pay road tax, they run red lights. And what have they ever given us in return? XERXES: Pneumatic tyres. REG: What? XERXES: Pneumatic tyres. REG: Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did […]

Bicycle aerobars, 1896

by carltonreid / on December 29, 2011 /

The cyclists of the 1890s were a pushy lot, demanding better roads on which to ride their “wheels” (this was the US term for bicycles, hence League of American Wheelmen) and they were also an inventive bunch. While refinements such […]

"How cyclists were the first to push for good roads & became the pioneers of motoring." ROADS WERE NOT BUILT FOR CARS is a print, Kindle, iPad and free e-book about roads history.

The coming of the railways in the 1830s killed off the stage-coach trade; almost all rural roads reverted to low-level local use. Cyclists were the first group in a generation to use roads and were the first to push for high-quality sealed surfaces and were the first to lobby for national funding and leadership for roads. They were also the first promoters of motoring; the first motoring journalists had first been cycling journalists; and there was a transfer of technology from cycling to motoring without which cars as we know them wouldn't exist! Nearly seventy car marques – including Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin, Chevrolet, Cadillac and GMC – had bicycling beginnings.

'Roads Were Not Built for Cars' is a history book, focussing on a time when cyclists had political clout, in Britain and especially in America. The book researches the Roads Improvement Association - a lobbying group created by the Cyclists' Touring Club in 1886 - and the Good Roads movement organised by the League of American Wheelmen in the same period.

The book was published in a Kickstarter limited-edition in September 2014. Island Press of Washington, D.C. published a revised second-edition in April 2015.

Thanks to research grants and advertising support, text-only PDF chapters from the book are slowly being made available for free to read online. The free distribution model is being used in order to get the book seen by as many eyes as possible. The paid-for publications are richly illustrated; the free versions have had the pix stripped out and replaced with adverts.

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MOTORISTS' FRONT OF JUDEA: Apart from the pneumatic tyre, ball bearings, differential gears, roads, motoring, car ads, and aviation, what have the cyclists ever done for us?

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