Companion to the CTC Road Book

I've been lucky enough to find a copy of the 'Companion to the CTC British Road Book', published in 1898, and I am very pleased with it.  The series of CTC Publications at the time was the 'Handbook', published annually, which covered hotels, some maps, and useful cycling information;  the 'Road Books', which cover the mainland in four volumes and Ireland in two more, and this volume, the only one I have ever seen.

This is a very good find - the Road Books cover, in very great detail, the roads; the surface, the hills, dangerous corners and so on.  They are a fine body of work, and historically interesting, but the 'Companion' is a much nicer thing.

The 'Companion' describes the rides, with notes on the places you will pass through, views, local history and much more.  The area covered is the same as the Road Book, so this volume, the first, covers Southern England.  It is well written, and includes a number of illustrations.  It also confirms, for me, what I had learned from other writings of the period.  The most common tour for club men and women of the time would be quite short, a day or two, with luggage being sent ahead.  The right hotels were important for lunch, tea and overnight stops, and riders were happy to use trains to pass uninteresting or unsuitable sections of their ride.  Distances ridden, however, could be quite large, given the poor road surfaces and sturdy but unsophisticated cycles.  A hundred miles in a day was not uncommon, and the 'Handbook' counsels that, just because you can ride a hundred miles in a day, you don't have to - stopping to take in the view or a place of interest is quite all right.

As I say, I haven't seen a 'Companion' before, so I don't know if the series was ever completed.  The CTC of the day was well organised, so I would expect that it was.  I'll keep an eye out for the others - this one is a very good read.

Mark

Post Script:

This edition is annotated 'Entered at Stationers' Hall'.  There is a record of it in the British Library catalogue, and in the Library of Congress.  There is also an entry in the catalogue of the Modern Records Centre, Warwick University.  However, no further editions are listed.  So 'Volume 1' may well be the only volume.