Pity.* They look cute. But maybe you need the waxed ‘tache to truly make the look work for you? The 25 cent cotton caps – and the more expensive silk ones beneath – were advertised for sale in an 1889 […]
Continue ReadingThe cartoonist in the League of American Wheelman’s weekly magazine didn’t pull any punches, in 1889, when he imagined the punishment that ought be meted out to those horse-and-carriage drivers who were less than kind to cyclists. They should be […]
Continue ReadingThe first elevated highway between Pasadena and Los Angeles was an ambitious toll-road built by one of Pasadena’s richest residents. In the first year of the 20th Century this grade-separated highway towered over train tracks, road junctions and slow-poke users […]
Continue ReadingIn the July 1900 US edition of the mass-circulation Pearson’s Magazine, journalist W.L. Alden wrote of a grandiose plan to construct a long-distance “asphalt cycle track” between Damascus and a Red Sea port, possibly Aqaba. “An enterprising American engineer…proposes to […]
Continue ReadingThe new visitor centre at Stonehenge opens this week and the new Twitter account is already live. From tomorrow you won’t be able to park a car near to the hallowed stones, you’ll have to take a shuttle bus from […]
Continue ReadingIn 1948, Britain’s Minister for Transport Alfred Barnes introduced the Special Roads Bill. This would – eventually – lead to the creation of Britain’s motorway network. But where are the cycleways promised in the 1948 plans? Apart from the New […]
Continue ReadingMy (very) forthcoming book has a long, detailed article about the cycling back-stories behind a great many automobile brands, including GMC, Ford, Land Rover and 77 others. I’m including a quote from libertarian American satirist P.J. O’Rourke. He’s not a […]
Continue ReadingColonel John Jacob Astor was an interesting chap. Stinking rich, too. He was one of the wealthiest men of America’s Gilded Age. Educated at Harvard, he thought highly enough of his own literary talents to write a science fiction novel. […]
Continue ReadingToday, there’s a justifiable concern that HGV drivers on piece-work are causing havoc on London’s roads. In 1898, there were similar complaints. About bicycle-riding “scorchers”. Note: the scorchers may have hit pedestrians but they didn’t tend to kill them. “One […]
Continue ReadingYou have to love pedestrians. Pedestrians make up the greater part of mankind. Not only that, the finer part. Pedestrians created the world. It was they who built towns, raised skyscrapers, installed drainage and plumbing, paved the streets and lit […]
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