In the late 1890s, Britain’s biggest tobacco company was the main sponsor of a chain of Cyclists’ Chalets. There were plans to build a chain of 500 such chalets, all part sponsored by W.D. & H.O. Wills. Only 40 are […]
Continue ReadingJK 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 […]
Continue ReadingWith Olympic cycling champions coming out of our ears it’s easy to forget that before Chris Boardman’s victory at the Barcelona Games, no Briton had cycled to gold since 1920. Boardman’s crushing pursuit victory kick-started a revolution that eventually made […]
Continue ReadingGiven society’s addiction to cars it’s highly appropriate that the world’s first filling station was a drugstore. And it’s still standing. Stadt-Apotheke – or Town Pharmacy – in Wiesloch, south of Heidelberg, Germany, was where Bertha Benz first refuelled her […]
Continue ReadingWe tend to think of roads in the pre-motoring age as meandering rural backwaters. In some ways they were (and it was cycling organisations who first organised for improvements to roads) but these changing conduits were also conduits for change, […]
Continue ReadingJudge Simon Tonking of Stafford Crown Court has today written to The Times urging for cyclists to be banned from riding on many A-roads. Sounds sensible, doesn’t it? What kind of crazy bicycle riders want to ride on quasi-motorways? (Er, […]
Continue ReadingThe Wadebridge People is not The Thunderer and Andrew Gordon is never in any danger of winning a Pulitzer so I’m not losing any sleep over the editorial above but as a historian of roads one phrase jumped out at […]
Continue ReadingHovis, the bread company, is making good use of its brand ambassador and Olympic gold medallist, Victoria Pendleton. She’s been working with Hovis since 2010 and is now fronting a campaign to get more people on bikes via a series […]
Continue ReadingA generation after the gradual dissolution of the turnpike system, which had partially paid for the upkeep of thousands of British roads, cyclists voluntarily put their hands in their pockets to help pay for the finer metalling they craved. The […]
Continue ReadingAn otherwise positive article in today’s Telegraph neatly illustrates how much has been forgotten about the important role the bicycle played in the 19th Century. William Langley’s article about MAMILs on carbon composite bicycles, and cycling becoming the “most fashionable […]
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