The blog

Here’s an English arterial road with a very wide lane for cyclists

by carltonreid / on September 05, 2013 /

It’s good to look to the Netherlands for inspiration on how to embed cycling into our everyday lives but it’s also worthwhile pointing out that decent cycle infrastructure has been…

My boilerplate on cycling infrastructure

by carltonreid / on December 18, 2014 /

…whenever you profess support for infrastructure change, it is typically qualified and diluted to within an inch of its life. Comes over hollow. I suspect I’m not entirely alone in…

Cyclists are like a “plague of locusts”, says urban planner

by carltonreid / on October 02, 2014 /

…available as a Kindle file on Amazon.com. The hi-res and standard Kindle files are also available on Gumroad.com (which doesn’t take as much of the action as Amazon) and there’s…

Full and free – Chapter 11 – AMERICA’S FORGOTTEN TRANSPORT NETWORK

by carltonreid / on November 21, 2015 /

…via click-flicky Issuu.com. And by “due course” I mean “eventually” because I’m always kind of busy. There have been other chapters placed online already, including SPEED, WHO OWNS THE ROADS,…

London’s new Embankment cycleway used to be a tram route

by carltonreid / on October 21, 2015 /

…of how to cater for non-motorised transport. London catches up with the 21st century. At long last. Only 300yds so far but wow. Oh, and the sun’s out pic.twitter.com/omSqusluiD —…

Full and free – Chapter Six – WIDTH

by carltonreid / on September 18, 2015 /

…via click-flicky Issuu.com. And by “due course” I mean “eventually” because I’m kind of busy, especially with book tour talks. There have been other chapters placed online already, including SPEED,…

On tour …

by carltonreid / on March 21, 2015 /

…or the following book stores. Amazon.com Amazon.co.uk Blackwell’s Waterstones The Book Depository WHS Island Press c/o Marston Book Services, 160 Milton Park, PO Box 269, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4YN Tel:…

“Some motorists think roads belong to them – we need to change that,” says UK’s Minister for Roads

by carltonreid / on November 27, 2014 /

…him this event – which commemorates the 1896 Emancipation Run – was founded by a bicycle designer and bicycle company owner. Harry Lawson was the creator of a pre-Starley safety…

Parliamentary talk with All-Party motoring and cycling groups

by carltonreid / on November 05, 2014 /

I’ll be giving a history talk in committee room 8 in the House of Commons on 19th November. The talk is invite-only and I have a tiny number of invites….

Hardback of Roads Were Not Built For Cars

by carltonreid / on September 10, 2014 /

…in select book shops and via Amazon.com. Island Press c/o Marston Book Services, 160 Milton Park, PO Box 269, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4YN Tel: +44 (0) 1235 465521 Email: direct.orders@marston.co.uk…

"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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