“Modern London is mainly fed by steam. The Express Meat-Train, which runs nightly from Aberdeen to London, drawn by two engines and makes the journey in twenty-four hours, is but a single illustration of the rapid and certain method by […]
Continue ReadingI’m currently putting the finishing touches to the chapter about the road rights of pedestrians, equestrians, cyclists, and motorists. The right to “pass and repass” on Britain’s highways is ancient and has long been cherished. Many of these ancient rights […]
Continue ReadingAccording to a report from Transport for London, in 2012 there were 134 deaths of non-motorists: 69 pedestrians, 27 motorbike/scooter riders and 14 cyclists. Perhaps amazingly, the death rate in 1870 was almost the same as today (albeit the mix […]
Continue ReadingThe War of the Worlds, the pretty Dibble sisters, Occam’s Razor, women’s liberation, and the London Olympics: all are linked by the “most famous cycling highway in the world.” On Saturday, July 29th, 2012, a fast-moving peloton of professional cyclists […]
Continue ReadingToday is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens. The great novelist was born on this day in 1812. On 9th June 1870, he died. Sadly, the old chap never got to ride a velocipede, which had arrived […]
Continue ReadingIn August 1867, the Paris correspondent of the New York Times wrote an editorial that resonates down to us today. (And by today I mean today: The Times of London has a cover story on an eight-point plan to increase […]
Continue ReadingThis is a line-drawing of the world’s “first header”, a forward fall from a bicycle. It’s also a line-drawing of the probable creator of the world’s first pedal-operated bicycle. The rider is Frenchman Pierre Lallement. The location is Birmingham, close […]
Continue ReadingViewed from a windscreen, roads look as though they were built for cars and trucks. Britain’s motorways and the elevated arterial road systems of the 1960s and 1970s seem to bear this out but such car-centric highways are the exception […]
Continue ReadingThe famous Emanicipation Run of 1896, the drive from London to Brighton, now reenacted each year as one of the key events in British motoring history, was organised by a bicycle designer and bicycle company owner. Harry Lawson was the […]
Continue ReadingI’m writing a book about the US and UK cyclist organisations of the 1880s and 1890s which lobbied for good roads – and got them – before the motorcar came along and stole their thunder. ‘Roads Were Not Built For […]
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