Development of Cycling 

and how maps adapted to suit

Whilst two-wheeled devices go back to the start of the 19th century, these were mere playthings of young dandies. There was something of a ‘craze’ for velocipedes around 1819, after which things quietened down for half a century. Then, around the end of the 1860s, interest blossomed again in Britain, France and America. This was based on the application of pedals, or in some cases treadles, to the front wheel to provide improved propulsion – such bicycles soon being nicknamed “boneshakers”.

 The first big impetus to cycling was development of the 'High' bicycle, nowadays better known as the Penny Farthing, but which became known as the Ordinary because it superseded the boneshaker and outsold all other configurations of two-, three,- and four-wheeled machines – for a time. This was a vehicle that could function as a track racing machine or cope with the roads of the day, and rapidly became popular among relatively well-to-do young men. The late 1870s also saw the setting up of cycling clubs in towns and cities throughout the British Isles and the birth of touring by bicycle. 1877 saw the publication of Bicycling Times  newspaper, as well as numerous other journals and publications; in1878 the Bicycle Touring Club (later Cyclists’ Touring Club) was formed. Land’s End to John o’ Groats was first accomplished by bicycle in 1880. Bicycles and tricycles of all conceivable shape appeared. The Ordinary had the virtue of simplicity, but was ill-suited to riding in congested streets, was poorly-adapted for the carrying of more than a minimum of luggage and was out of the question for women riders in the clothes of the day. 

The next major innovation was the ‘Safety’ bicycle, reverting to two wheels of equal (or near-equal) size giving the rider a lower and rearward centre of gravity and a safer and more convenient riding position. The term ‘safety’ was originally applied to cycles, still driven via the front wheel, incorporating mechanical gearing by which the need for a large wheel diameter was obviated. This also overcame another, less obvious, shortcoming of the Ordinary: despite its graceful and speedy appearance it required a higher than optimum pedalling rate. The chain-driven Safety, driving the rear wheel, and particularly the ‘Rover’ introduced by Starley in 1885, soon showed itself the equal of the Ordinary both on track and road and quickly superseded it. Unlike the Ordinary and other front-drivers, it was both feasible and acceptable for females to ride. The tricycle, which had at one time seemed to represent the future, was similarly shunted aside.

 Successive improvements such as pneumatic tyres (1888) and weight and cost reductions brought about a boom in cycling: this in turn brought down further the costs of cycling, although it was still largely restricted to the middle and upper classes. The Cyclists’ Touring Club (CTC), nowadays branded as Cycling UK, offered support for the cyclist through a system of approved hotels and repairers, local ‘Consuls’ to offer advice and assistance, price reductions for publications such as maps and lobbying for the cycling cause.

What were the maps that these cyclists were using? Before the 1890s boom in cycling numbers, cyclists had to make do with those already on the market. With travel over any distance now using the railways, and no investment going into new roads, most available maps harked back to the old coaching days, prominently showing the latest railway developments but otherwise fossilised. True, the Ordnance Survey map, on its one-inch (1:63,660) scale was progressing and now covered all of the country, but revision of the earlier sheets was confined largely to the addition of railways. Cyclists were just another class of map users, along with pedestrians, anglers, huntsmen and general tourists. But contemporary with the start of cycling there were a number of changes in the printing industry which brought about cheaper map production whilst the expansion of state education generated greater demand for them.

By the start of the cycling era, the old process of printing maps and suchlike directly from engraved copper or steel plates had been replaced by lithography, which overcame the limit on the number of copies that could be made. Lithography allowed duplicate plates to be made from sections or combinations of the originals. meaning that older maps, which would literally have faded away as their plates wore down, could have their lives extended indefinitely. As a result, many small-scale ‘cycling’ maps which were put on the market by various publishers were actually road maps originally produced in the turnpike road age fifty years before, and by that time considerably out of date. Many even survived to be branded ‘motoring’ maps! But lithography also facilitated overlaps between maps and forming maps to new boundaries, such as one-off local maps.

 From the 1870s photo-lithography allowed a hand-engraved source for a map to be dispensed with altogether, and also enabled a source map to be reproduced at any required scale. Hand-colouring of maps had largely been superseded by machine printing, though both engraving and hand-colouring took a long time to disappear entirely. Cheap colour printing was to bring many improvements to cycling maps – distinction between water features and roads, the grading of roads according to surface condition (and later according to importance), distinguishing the height of ground, highlighting scenic roads.

The introduction of maps with roads highlighted by colour was not universally popular. It had been met with dismay by ‘red-inkers’, cyclists who liked to mark up the routes they had ridden and who now found their custom stymied. It is quite common, on old maps, to find routes coloured in, evidently travelled over by the original owner, and speculation as to who made such journeys and when can add interest to the map, rather than detract from its value. One map publisher, E. J. Larby, offered a plain Route Marking Map to provide a purpose-made outlet for such appeals to immortality; however, as the scale was 16m to an inch only  main roads could ever be ‘bagged’. 

 When cycling was beginning to take off the road network was in a poor state. At that time most main roads were still turnpiked, though as the railways had creamed off all long-distance traffic there was little income from tolls for the maintenance of the roads and the turnpike trusts were being replaced, first by Highways Boards and later County and Borough Councils. In Ireland, the much fewer number of turnpikes had been all wound up by 1858, their maintenance thence being funded through local taxation as for other roads. This brought better road maintenance and by the end of the century widespread investment in steam rollers - indeed, the regular passage of the roller was probably probably only second to pneumatic tyres as a boon to cycling. Properly-constructed roads were termed ‘metalled’ or ‘macadamised’ and comprised a firm, cambered base with a topping layer of small stone that with steam-rolling and the passing of traffic would become compacted, the wetted dust (aided by animal dung) helping to cement the surface together and giving resistance to water penetration. At its best, this ‘waterbound macadam’ was little inferior to modern road surfaces: however, if too dry it became dusty and if too wet slippery and rutted. Roads in chalk and oolite areas were particularly prone to break up in winter.

 At the time of the initial cycling boom, rural cycling was predominantly confined to the main roads, rather than country lanes. The former were more individual and varied than they have since become, with generally manageable gradients, and sufficient width for the safe overtaking of horse-drawn traffic, flocks of sheep and the occasional pig. This width was crucial, as horses then (as now) were apt to shy at these strange and fast machines. The cyclist might even feel the touch of a whip from an unsympathetic carriage driver. Carters might deliberately steer up the middle of the road to prevent cyclists from passing - the original ‘road-hoggers’ were those going too slow, not too fast. Another hazard was drunken farmers trusting their horse to find the home from market while they slept in the back of the cart (autonomous vehicles are not new). At night, only the cyclist was obliged to display any light, and closed gates were another hazard on back roads. The appeal of the wide and silent turnpike road over the winding alternatives can be appreciated. Maps had yet to catch up with leisure cycling, and offered no information other than for main roads. 

 Tarred roads were a 20th century development, and the term ‘metalled’ appeared in map keys until the 1970s. In towns stone setts were common, as well as wooden blocks and limited lengths of asphalt, a mix of sand and tar either from natural deposits or as biproducts from gas works. Whereas cyclists appreciated the smoothness of asphalt, this gave less grip for horses, and was not particularly durable under wheeled traffic and so was mainly restricted to footways. Tram routes were expanding rapidly in cities: these provided a further hazard for cyclists, who would reroute considerably out of their way to avoid them. Tram rails were particularly troublesome for cyclists, more so than today, as the rider would be the fastest user of the road and so constantly overtaking slower-moving hand-carts, horse-drawn vehicles or horseriders, while trying to keep his wheels clear of the track grooves.

 The start of the twentieth century saw cycling still growing in popularity, but also the birth of motoring after the repeal of the Red Flag Act in 1896 allowed motor traffic more freedom. Previously the cyclist had needed only to contend with slow-moving traction engines or steam lorries – the ‘locomotives’ still referenced on old prohibition notices on canal bridges.

 Membership of the CTC peaked between 1900 and 1902, contemporary with the production of Bartholomew’s half-inch maps, which soon established themselves as the cyclist’s favourite. . Leisure cycling was still the preserve of the middle and upper classes, and the subsequent decline in membership was in part due, incongruously, to the expansion of cycling: acceptancy had been won, there were repairers and dealers in every town, all hotels welcomed cyclists and road surfaces were less of a gamble. As a result, there was less need for the ordinary cyclist to join the CTC.  Another factor was that motoring was becoming more socially acceptable, comfortable and reliable, and the upper classes were finding cycling becoming too cosmopolitan and infra-dig. As a result, although ‘utility’ cycling continued to expand, CTC membership started to decline. As well as losing a number of cycling advocates, the rapid expansion of motoring made the roads less pleasant and safe for other users, and there was the unfortunate effect that motor vehicles raised large clouds of dust from the road, coating users, as well as weakening the road surface. Eventually the influence of the motoring public led to more money being spent on the roads, and the sealing of road surfaces (‘waterproofing’), by periodically spraying them with heated tar. Later, from about 1905, the road wearing courses were themselves made out of tar-coated stone (tar-macadam). Even so, many main roads were not so treated until after the First World War. 

 The upgrading of minor roads through tarring was a very gradual process that did not end until the 1970s. Nowadays, with the emphasis on off-road cycling and ready access to right-of-way information, it can be forgotten that previously the only way for a cyclist to be confident a minor road was a right of way was for it to be tarred, and indicated as ‘yellow’ on the Ordnance Survey or Bartholomew map. As a result, ‘white’ roads and tracks were avoided, rather than sought out as now. It was also a shock to see, when rights of way began appearing on maps, how many tracks long used by cyclists were being marked as footpaths only. As an example, the Cam Fell Road in Yorkshire, now forming part of the Pennine Bridleway and once a turnpike road, was branded a footpath for many years.

 Some of the last roads to be included in the ‘tarred’ category were the Gospel Pass in the Black Mountains and the Tregaron to Abergwesyn road, in South Wales, both well-known to cyclists. In Yorkshire what is still the only motorable road out of upper Nidderdale, from Lofthouse to Masham, was only improved to that standard in 1963. In Scotland, the minor road from Altnaharra to Loch Hope and the northern coast was shown as untarred on the 1962 Ordnance map. Modern cyclists might be surprised that many such routes now taken for granted were only tarred in the 1960s.

 The Ordnance Survey, which had by the end of the 1870s completed its one-inch map coverage of Great Britain, viewed itself as a map producer rather than a map seller, and its maps were relatively expensive for the small sheet size and area covered. Having initially provided triangulation data to commercial mapmakers on a pro bono publico basis, it tolerated actual map information being utilised, provided the resultant map was not a direct competitor to its own one-inch product. Indeed, the question of whether copyright could exist in Crown publications was uncertain. Also, it was not until the start of the 20th century that the OS began producing its own road maps on scales smaller than one inch to the mile. All commercial map producers were to claim their maps, however old they may be, to be revised from the Ordnance Survey, or to be ‘Reduced’ Ordnance Survey. A better term would be ‘maps based on the Ordnance Survey at a reduced scale’. However, in some cases it was literally true – photographic reductions of the OS one-inch map to the half-inch and three-quarter-inch scales were marketed in the 1880s.

Elsewhere in this production I have commented quite frequently on the availability, or otherwise, of ‘spot heights’ on the various producers’ maps. In cycling’s early days steep descents were problematic and ‘dangerous hills’ started to be marked, but there seems to have been more concern on the resulting effect on distance travelled rather than time taken although the latter is much more significantly increased. As a Rule of Thumb, I take a hundred feet of ascent as being equivalent to an extra half-mile in distance on the flat (those with metric thumbs might take 40 metres ascent as being equivalent to an extra kilometre). This is only a rough guide, and sadly deductions for descents are usually trivial. Now, when the Ordnance Survey began its trigonometric mapping at the start of the nineteenth century, a requirement was the accurate determination of the heights of the triangulation stations, and subsequently heights of hills and mountains began to appear on maps. To get the heights of hilltops involved ‘levelling’ back to a point of known height (and ultimately sea level) and so intermediate heights were recorded along roads: this ‘spot height’ information was later to prove of great utility to cyclists when added to maps from the 1890s onwards. Without them the Contour Road Books, showing the vertical profile of roads  and popular with cyclists, could not have been produced. Nowadays, of course, GPS will give this information.

 There was much plagiarising between map producers, but breach of copyright cases were difficult to prove, especially when maps were an amalgam from many sources. Gradually, however, the sheer quality of the Ordnance Survey map and newer commercial maps ‘reduced’ from it saw off the zombie maps.

The map situation had improved significantly by the closing years of the 19th century. As one cycle writer put it:

Within recent years wonderful improvements have been made in cycles, but not more so than in the matter of map production. Fifteen years ago it was a matter of difficulty to get a decent map, other than the somewhat cumbersome one-inch ordnance, the usual alternatives being a county map printed from plates made at the end of the last [eighteenth] century. Now excellent maps in many respects can be obtained at any railway bookstall or stationer’s, though it must be admitted that some terribly old fossils are often exposed at country stationers under new smart covers.

Even when the base map was relatively up to date, what might still be nominally a ‘main’ road might not necessarily be well adapted for cycling, as for half a century roads had been losing traffic to the railways and some had fallen into virtual disuse, as the following comments in a letter to the CTC Gazette in 1900 show:

In the [Bartholomew] 4-mile-to-an-inch map now in use, what are called “driving and cycling” roads are coloured; “other roads” are not coloured. It is a case of “a distinction without a difference” … many of the “other” roads are every whit as good for cycling or driving as those marked in colour… In the Fen District of Lincolnshire (sheet 6) there are any number of first-rate cycling roads, none of them coloured. On the other hand, a coloured road from Woodhead to Holme Moss can hardly claim to be rideable… or take the road from Loughborough to Melton Mowbray – the surface is good enough, but the colouring of the road would not lead the touring cyclists to expect that he must dismount and open a gate near Prestwold, and another at Six Hills. At this last-named place, moreover, the Fosse Way northwards is a grass drove, quite unrideable, southwards it is a good cycling road; both are alike uncoloured on the map .

The ‘quite unrideable’ Fosse Way was rebuilt in tarmacadam in 1913. In 1923 it became the A46, and a few years ago was rebuilt as a grade-separated dual carriageway, with the original Roman alignment mostly retained as a service road. Its is perhaps the best illustration of how, a little more than a century ago, long-distance road freight was virtually non-existent, such traffic being carried by the railways and waterways. Local trade would have been concentrated on nearby Nottingham, leaving the Fosse Way of no more importance than a country lane.

Bartholomew were not the only (and far from the worst) culprits to assume what was one a main road was automatically a good cycling road; even some roads which had fallen out of use still cropped up on cycling-era maps as ‘main roads’. Some further notes on map errors, or rather the failure to correct them, are given on the Black Museum page. 

 Towards the end of the nineteenth century the CTC decided it needed its own specialised map dedicated to cycling; initially pushing for one series on the half-inch scale or thereabouts, for ‘local’ riding, and a series on a smaller scale, such as a quarter-inch to the mile, for touring cyclists. After some negotiations with the leading map producers they put in hand arrangements with Bartholomew for road quality information to be added to that company’s latest half-inch maps. This first appeared in 1901. The smaller-scale special map never appeared, as very quickly all such existing or future maps being published were being geared towards cycling and the increasing number of motorists.

 By 1904 cyclists had an excellent range of maps to choose from. The main publications were

 

• Ordnance Survey (OS) one-inch map, recently reissued in larger sheets with colour and contours

• OS half-inch and quarter-inch maps, reduced from the above

• Bartholomew’s half-inch maps, Scottish series with contour-colouring, similar England & Wales series just completed. Now including road quality information from the CTC. Also shortly to appear in an edition by G. W. Bacon

• G.W Bacon & Co. -  a bewildering selection of maps, some modern, some ancient

• Gall & Inglis half-inch maps, some recently drawn and available in special ‘cycling’ formats, but others the old ‘Cruchley’ maps

• W. & A. K. Johnston’s three miles to the inch maps of England, Wales and Scotland.

• George Philips’ new series of half-inch and three miles to the inch maps of England and Wales. These superseded the old Philips’ county maps

• Bartholomew’s quarter-inch series of England & Wales, reissued 1897 and Scottish equivalents

 All the non-OS maps, except for the ‘Cruchley’ sheets, were reduced from the new OS series, so very up to date. Ireland had the same range of OS maps, and from 1904 a quarter-inch series by Bartholomew. . Later additions to the producers of cycling maps – though these were more likely to be termed ‘motoring and cycling’ – were Geographia and Michelin. There were many other map publishers – Edward Stanford, W. H. Smith, Houlston & Son, H. Grube Ltd, Letts, Larby – but in nearly all cases it will be found that the actual maps were produced by one of the companies listed above.

At the time, all newspapers would have a cycling correspondent, or a syndicated cycling column, supplying news and comment, and replying to readers’ queries as to the best cycling route from, say, Upton Snodbury to Great Snoring.  The temptation to reply ‘buy a bloody map’ must have been strong. Generally, new map issues were lavishly praised, though in most cases this seems to be by regurgitating the map publisher’s press release. However, the following response to a reader, published in the London Daily News, 1905, throws light on contemporary cycling and maps:

'Most so-called road maps, including some even that bear famous names, are utterly unreliable soon as one leaves the main roads. Thanks to variable [i.e. multiple] gears, the hilliest by-roads are now brought within comfortable compass. and the maps on which we pinned our faith ten years ago are thrown aside. There are two road maps to-day which far excel all others. One is the new one-inch series issued by the Ordnance Survey Office, Southampton. I believe that only few sheets of this map have been issued, but they are the most beautiful and accurate maps yet published by any country in the world, and they are moderate in price. They are the first maps to show both contour lines and hill-shading, and yet leave the letterpress as legible as if they were not there at all: for the contour lines are thin red, the hill-shading pale brown, and the letterpress black. Waters are blue and woods green. The scale, of course — one inch to the mile — makes it more the pedestrian’s map than the cyclist’s, for footpaths are accurately shown besides all by-roads. 

'The best road maps for cyclists by far are Bartholomew’s Reduced Ordnance Survey of England and Wales, of Scotland, and Ireland. There are 37 sheets of the first, of the second, and 7 of Ireland the scale of the first two being two miles to the inch, and Ireland four miles. The whole issue is complete. The outstanding and — apart from its accuracy— the most attractive feature of this series is the fact that elevation is shown by means of colour, so that you see at a glance which roads go over the hills and which go round them. As the levels nearest that of the sea are shown bright green, and the highest rich brown, the colouring of Nature is to a large extent reflected in a very suggestive and delightful way. My querist may rely absolutely on the accuracy these sheets in the matter of by-roads. I have put them to very severe tests, and only once have I thought I had caught them tripping. That was in the matter of a dotted line suggesting a footpath through the grim fastnesses of the Rhinns of Kells, in Galloway, of which I found the shepherds had no knowledge. These sheets are more than guides and counsellors - they are friends, and excellent good company. The colouring of the roads according to their quality is, course, arbitrary and unreliable, as it always is in every map, whether issued by the Government or revised by the C.T.C.. The colouring of main roads is not often far astray, but by-roads are often good one season and bad the next, and the philosophical cyclist takes them as he finds them, without grumbling.'

Maps themselves had changed in format to meet the need of cyclists. Originally, small-scale maps were generally derived from county-based atlas sheets and usually came in stiff board covers with the map on paper with a cloth backing. It would be folded with the map ‘inside’, so had to be unfolded to view it. Many maps were available in a ‘dissected’ format, in which the map was cut into rectangular segments which were glued to a cloth backing, allowing a little space between them along which the map could be folded. This format gave improved durability, though coming with a higher initial price. Generally, maps covered a single or pair of counties, with scant information beyond the county boundaries. Price would be a few shillings. This was fine when maps, like books, were treated as heirlooms, but made them less practicable for the rough and tumble of life on the road. Folded size therefore reduced for cyclists’ editions, and various attempts were made to weatherproof covers and maps.

 The first attempt at the waterproofing of maps appears to have been made by G. W. Bacon, in the 1890s, with maps printed onto flexible cloth, or linen, variously described as weatherproof or waterproof. Although advertised as an option for many years, it seems not to have acquired wide popularity.  A second, and for a time more successful, venture was with the production of maps on thin, paper-like cloth treated with pegamoid, a nitrocellulose lacquer. Despite glowing testimonials (“I have tried and failed to tear it. I have crumpled it into a ball and carried it in my pocket and it is no worse”; “Almost indestructible”; “Thoroughly waterproof”; “Perfection from a cyclist’s point of view”) this format does not seem to have caught on. This is possibly due to its high production cost and consequent price, said to be more than for the same map in dissected form on cloth. It also gave off an unpleasant odour (still detectable after 120 years), though this did not prevent the use of pegamoid for clothing and furniture. Though several mapmakers experimented with it (W. H. Smith from 1896) or similar waterproofing products, it never really caught on, and its usage petered out. The Ordnance Survey tried waterproof one-inch maps in the 1920s, and some modern producers such as Harvey and Goldeneye issue maps solely printed on plastic – in some cases much bulkier than the pioneering efforts. Waterproof maps would appear to be the ideal format for outdoor users such as walkers and cyclists, but it is a fact that most physical maps are still printed on paper. Perhaps greater durability is not valued so much in our throw-away society, perhaps we don’t go out on the rain as often nowadays 

While on the subject of paper versus cloth-backed maps, of surviving Victorian maps published in both versions, survivors on cloth are greatly in the majority; indeed some were only available mounted on cloth. Although the cycling ‘experts’ of the time all had different views on the relative merits of the various map productions, they were unanimous in the view that paper maps were too prone to tear and no serious cyclist ever bought them. Cloth-backed maps were clearly then the format of choice; yet by the 1970s ‘on cloth’ versions of maps had been universally dropped.

As a contrast to its earlier relaxed attitude to other publishers using its Ordnance Survey information, the  Ordnance Survey began insisting on royalty payments for deriving information from its maps and eliminate the the blatant copying of the maps themselves. In particular, it was long in dispute with Bartholomew, who refused to enter into any agreement, claiming what would now be termed ‘grandfather rights’ and deriving updates for its maps from other sources. The Ordnance Survey’s arm was strengthened by a new Copyright Law in 1911 and that year an advertisement for their maps rather pointedly stated

As the Ordnance Survey is the basis for all maps now published, Motorists and others will usually find it more satisfactory to use the official maps rather than unofficial reproductions

 As the 20th century progressed, the increasing number of motorists resulted in a new breed of map directed exclusively at them.  Alongside the traditional, very detailed maps aimed at all road users and the public at large, much simpler maps, confined to main roads plus a few secondary roads, began to appear. 1908 saw the introduction of G. W. Bacon’s ‘Clear Print’ motoring maps and ‘Montagu’s Road Maps’ by the motoring pioneer Lord Montagu – 'after careful thought, I have considered that too much detail on a map is not wanted by either the travelling or touring motorist… Therefore, while all principal towns and villages are given, amounting to tens of thousands in the aggregate, the smaller hamlets are left out so as to enable the map to present a clear and unencumbered face, marked only by essentials'. Whilst these and other similar ‘motoring’ map series were of some use to cyclists, and there were plenty of more suitable maps still available for them, it marked the end of the dominance of cycling in the road map market.

Cycling had changed also: ever fewer cyclists were going for prolonged tours with a batch of maps in their saddlebag. An attempt in the 1950s by the OS to resurrect their own half-inch maps was abandoned after a few sheets. Ever-increasing traffic was forcing cyclists off the main roads onto the quieter back roads, where the accuracy of their old cycling maps was suspect, and where larger-scale maps were more useful. Ramblers, once a not insignificant proportion of half-inch map users, had long switched to the OS one-inch maps which showed all paths (and from the 1960s indicated Rights of Way).  Motorists generally could manage with maps on smaller scales, especially following the introduction of road numbering and more systematic direction signing. This was long before GPS and electronic maps threatened the very existence of paper maps.

I am constantly surprised by the number of elderly maps that one comes across on the internet and in bookshops. In most areas any map more than a few decades old is of little use, such has been the changes in the road network and urban development: in fact, there has never been a period when the cyclist could rely wholeheartedly on a twenty-year-old map. One would have thought that these relics would have long been consigned to the bin. Yet one comes across maps eighty or more years old, patched up with yellowing tape and bearing the inked-in routes of those who are now touring in a world where all the hills are down, where the sun always shines, and cars are banned. These maps must have been held onto as souvenirs of past exploits by riders, then becoming ‘Dad’s old maps’, then ‘Granddads old maps’ before being cleared out. At the same time, one comes across maps and guidebooks in pristine condition, obviously never used. That many of these date from around the start of WW1 tells its own story.

This overview gives I hope a background to how cycling has developed from the 1870s to the present day and how maps have responded and developed to meet their needs. Other pages cover the products of the main map publishers in detail. For those coming across an old map of unknown period there is a section on dating maps, while in the Black Museum are displayed a number of blunders to confuse the map user.

 

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