Category Archives: Book cover

Blurbs

The front cover of Bike Boom can be seen above, but here’s the back cover, too. It contains the all-important blurbs. Text too small to read? Click for a larger version or read the full text is below.

The book majors on the bike booms of the 1930s in the UK and the 1970s in the USA. Between 1934 and 1939 Britain’s Ministry of Transport paid local authorities to install cycle tracks. Seventy or so schemes were built, resulting in perhaps as many as 280 miles of cycle tracks, some of them protected with curbs. The great majority were built – 9-ft wide and both sides of the roads – next to the new bypasses of the era; a few were built on “trunk roads” through residential areas, such as in Sunderland and Oxford. The Kickstarter for this project is now LIVE.

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Journalist Carlton Reid sets out to discover what we can learn from the history of bike “booms” in this entertaining and thought-provoking book.

Advance Praise for Bike Boom

“Bike Boom is full of heroes fighting for safe places for bikes, up against the goliath of mass motorization. Carlton deftly tells the stories of the major battles over bikes in Europe and the U.S. from the 30s through the 70s. Not much has changed: we are still facing the same forces today, with the same arguments for and against. The book is a loving testament to yesterday’s scrappy champions with lessons for all who persist today.” —Martha Roskowski, Vice President of Local Innovation, PeopleForBikes

“Carlton Reid brings an essential—and often forgotten—historical depth to ongoing debates about cycling and cycling infrastructure. In Bike Boom, he maps the deeply political struggles that are hidden behind seemingly technical, or even banal, issues. Indispensable reading for those trying to grasp cycling, but even more so for those who are fighting the continuous fight for its place in contemporary cities and societies.” —Marco te Brömmelstroet, Academic Director, Urban Cycling Institute; Associate Professor in Urban Planning, University of Amsterdam

“Carlton Reid is one of the most well respected authors in the cycling world today, and with good reason. He is renowned for his political insight and meticulous research. Building on his earlier works—which delve into the history of this multi-purpose machine—Bike Boom is a beautifully fluid account of contemporary cycling and raises Carlton’s reputation as a leading cycling aficionado to new heights.” —Chris Boardman, Senior Policy Advisor at British Cycling and Co-founder of Boardman Bikes

CARLTON REID is the executive editor of BikeBiz magazine, a publication for the bicycle trade based in the UK. He is author of Roads Were Not Built for Cars.

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Bike Boom will be available in June from Island Press, Washington, DC. The index and 800+ footnotes for the book are already online.

Final Bike Boom cover can be revealed

Here’s the final cover:

Bike Boom cover

Four cover designs were submitted to Kickstarter backers of the book, and the above was the runaway winner.

The photograph is from a 1972 fashion shoot in America’s Mademoiselle magazine. The main protester is a model, but I have discovered the San Francisco demo she hijacked – along with another model and the photographer – was a real one. The background story to this tale will be in the book, available in Spring 2017 from Island Press. (Kickstarter backers get earlier copies, of course.)

If you want to be kept informed of the book’s progress, drop your email into the box on the right.

Thanks.

Carlton