The blog

ePub version of Roads Were Not Built For Cars

by carltonreid / on September 29, 2014 /

The ePub version of the book has illustrations, zoomable text, and has the same 170,000 words as the print book.

Hardback of Roads Were Not Built For Cars

by carltonreid / on September 10, 2014 /

The first edition hardbacks sold out online within six hours! A second edition hardback was published by Island Press of Washington, D.C. in April 2015. The hardback is available in select book shops and via Amazon.com. Island Press c/o Marston […]

Softback – Roads Were Not Built For Cars

by carltonreid / on September 10, 2014 /

The softback version of the book has 170,000 words, a 21-page index, 360+ pages and a 16-page colour plate section. The first edition softback was sold out within two weeks of going online. A second edition was published by Island […]

Kindle version of Roads Were Not Built For Cars

by carltonreid / on September 10, 2014 /

The Kindle version of the book – available on Amazon – has a great many illustrations, zoomable text, and has the same 170,000 words as the print book.

Hi-res Kindle version of Roads Were Not Built For Cars

by carltonreid / on September 10, 2014 /

The colour Kindle version of the book has hi-res illustrations, zoomable text, and has the same 170,000 words as the print book. The cost is £16 (which is about 20.0 Euros, $26, $AU28, $28CAD). The mobi file is available on […]

iPad version of Roads Were Not Built For Cars

by carltonreid / on September 10, 2014 /

The iPad version of the book has interactive elements, hundreds of illustrations, videos, sound files and more. (Click images to get hi-res.) It also has the same 170,000 words as the print book. The book is available from Apple’s ibookstore. […]

"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.

To get notification of the paid-for and free publications subscribe to the (infrequent) email newsletter. See below or in the sidebars.

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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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