Tour de France countdown: 5

In honour of the coming of the Tour de France to Cambridge on 7th July, the Special Collections blog will feature a daily image from one of the Library’s early books on cycling in the week leading up to the big day.  Many carry eye-catching illustrated covers, showing early bicycles and pioneering lady cyclists, and are an important resource for the study of early cycling in Britain.  Most came to the Library in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, under the Copyright Act, and live in the Tower.  We hope you enjoy the display!

Charles Freeston: Cycling in the Alps: with some notes on the chief passes (London: 1900).
“Very nebulous ideas are prevalent with respect to Alpine cycling. The available literature on the subject is extremely scanty, for which reason is it scarcely to be wondered at if the pushing of a machine up along a long pass is regarded by many as a ludicrous performance…” (p. 1).
(Shelfmark: NE.7.51)