Alpine Profile Road Book

Yesterday, I brought a copy of the CTC Alpine Profile Road Book along to the Wayfarers' Lunch, and quite a few people enjoyed looking at it.  For those of you who didn't get a chance to see it, here are a few pictures and a brief note.

The Road Book was published in 1910, towards the end of a series of CTC publications starting in the early 1890s and, effectively, ending with the First World War.  The British Isles were covered in detail, and revised several times, and there were Road Books for a number of European countries.

A particular attraction of this copy is the local association.  Although I did not buy it locally, the flyleaf is annotated 'EM and CL Rook, 32 Grove Road, Surbiton' and is dated 1935.  

I had particularly wanted to ask Keith if these people were relatives, but they are not, it is just coincidence.  The Rooks may have bought a second hand copy of the road book to plan their Alpine tour, but John Bassett raised the interesting possibility that they may have bought it new, as the guide was never revised. It may have been the best available at the time and still offered by the CTC.

It covers the Alpine chain from Geneva to Cortina, paying scant attention to the French passes now popularised by the Tour de France, not least because the railway infrastructure and road surfaces were much better around the Swiss and Austrian - or Austro-Hungarian - passes of the time.

There is no mention of bikes or gearing, but the book gives a number of helpful tips: to estimate the time to cover a kilometre, multiply the gradient by two - viz. it will take you twelve minutes per kilometre on a six percent gradient.  It also counsels caution when transporting your bike by train, as Romanians were apparently inclined to steal tools from tool-bags, and in a couple of places which it notes as particularly steep it advises paying a man to wait at the spot ready to push your bike up, so that you may walk unencumbered and enjoy the view ...

This summer, just like Michael Portillo with his Bradshaw's, Maggie and I plan to take our tandem over the Gotthard, Furka and Grimsel passes, using this book as our guide.  I think it will be fine.  For the Gotthard in particular, the road mentioned in the guide is still there.  It is now, in essence, a national monument, with a well-maintained cobbled surface, just as in 1910.  It was by by-passed by a new road in the 1930s, and by a tunnel in the 1960s, so there is little traffic now.

I'll let you know how we get on.

Mark