Tour de France countdown: 1 day to go!

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!

Mrs Edward Kennard: A guide book for lady cyclists (London: 1896)
“If it were the fashion in this country for ladies of good standing and position to wear knickerbockers, and if they could appear as freely in them as in France, without shocking the non-cycling portion of the community, then, do doubt much might be adduced in their favour”. (p. 44)
(Shelfmark: 1896.7.1531)