Hey there

I often ride to Hadrian’s Wall from my home in Newcastle — I get a kick out of this linear landmark’s spectacular past. If I love history-themed bike rides, perhaps others do too? That’s the concept for my proposed new book A History of Britain in 100 Cycle Rides

Part guidebook, part coffee-table art book, A History of Britain in 100 Cycle Rides will be a glorious selection of the 100 most historic and beautiful cycle rides and destinations in Britain. Mostly circular, these will be physical explorations of the past that will set your pulse racing. 

Britain is jam-packed with history, cheek-by-jowl with delightful trails, lanes, and holloways, and cycling is the perfect way to explore this scepter’d isle.

Drone selfie, Holkham Hall, Norfolk

I’m Carlton Reid and my new routes book will be published in 2025. Pop your email in box below to give up to date with the book’s progress.

A History of Britain in 100 Cycle Rides will be a beautiful book crammed with lavish photography. How lavish? One of my bike touring photos to be featured in the book — that’s it below — was a finalist in the prestigious and international Travel Photographer of the Year competition for 2024. The pic is an iPhone selfie taken on a former inclined railway line in Derbyshire.

A History of Britain in 100 Cycle Rides will be a glorious selection of the 100 most historic and beautiful cycle rides and destinations in Britain.

It will be a fascinating, fact-packed book featuring one hundred historically significant cycle routes, linking landmarks and locations that are emblematic of significant events in British history and pre-history, from short rides to Runnymede where the Magna Carta was signed through to longer tours of East Anglian WWII United States Army Air Force bomber bases.

The book is for history buffs seeking any excuse for a bike ride, or bike buffs seeking any excuse for a history trip.

A pleasure to browse, A History of Britain in 100 Cycle Rides will be a joy to read, inspiring you to ride more.

Some of the routes will be short, suitable for a morning’s outing. Others will be much longer, including some multi-day routes. Several of the one hundred locations could be ticked off in a single ride.

More details soon. Meanwhile, please add your email address here and you’ll be informed of the book’s progress:

Please keep me informed about “A History of Britain in 100 Cycle Rides”

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AUTHOR PROFILE

I am a journalist, author and historian and have been writing about bicycles and bicycle travel for nearly 40 years. 

A serial founder of bicycle magazines (Bike Biz, On Your Bike, BikeBizBible) and writer on cycling advocacy I’m now a tech, sustainablity and travel specialist. My tech articles for WIRED (I write about spaceships, iPhones, Tesla Cybertrucks and 3D-printed trainers), my sustainability pieces for Forbes.com, and my travel pieces for The Guardian and Mail Online and more can be found on my Authory page.

I am the author of Roads Were Not Built for Cars and Bike Boom, both of which were launched on Kickstarter. Also successfully funded on Kickstarter was my project to research the Dutch-style cycleways built in Britain by the Ministry of Transport in the 1930s. This research led to one of the period cycle tracks getting more than £1 million in renovation funding from the Department for Transport. I launched a Kickstarter campaign for A History of Britain in 100 Cycle Rides on December 2nd but removed it within 24 hours when it was discovered that print book orders were only being accepted by Kickstarter’s smartphone app and not the main website.

The book will be back! Why? Because I love riding my bike and compiling this guidebook was a great excuse for lots of riding. In the summer, it was great to ride thousands of miles in a three-month research trip and more mileage will be needed to complete A History of Britain in 100 Cycle Rides for publication in 2025.

CARLTON REID

NOTE: This website is owned and run by Carlton Reid, Benton Bridge Cottage, Jesmond Dene, Newcastle on Tyne NE7 7DA. Email: carltonreid@mac.com