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On Roads, Joe Moran (2009)
Profile Books, 9781846680526 312pp £14.99
An entertaining journey through the recent history of the UK's
major roads
 
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Cyclists spend an awful lot of time looking at roads. They form our
field of vision for hours on end; we obsess about how their routes hug
or defy contours; and, their surfaces render our rides pleasure or pain.
Yet cycling writers obsess about bicycles, and very rarely turn their
attention to roads.
This may be about to change. Carlton
Reid promises a book on the subject in the near future. In the meantime,
Joe Moran's tome merits a detour.
As he announces just a few pages in, this is not a complete history
of the road. It covers the motorway era and its main focus is the mass
experience of motoring. Moran has easily enough to say, and his analysis
is sufficiently penetrating, however, for there to be plenty here to interest
roadmen who are not reliant on internal combustion.
It is a warm-hearted, occaisionally personal, frequently amusing tale
whose canvas is the cultural meaning of the highway.
A lot of the interest for pedal pushers comes from side stories to his
main narrative - how the routes of country roads were formalised at the
time of agricultural enclosures; Alfred Watkins ideas about lay lines
and roads from the 1930s; and, land-speed record breaker Malcolm Campbell's
youthful prosecution for cycling too fast. Even without these, though,
Moran's meditation on the curious nature of these anonymous, abstracted
places has much to commend it.
As the book progresses, its attention does steadily move shift form
roads to motoring, but this too is worthwhile. Even for those among us
who eschew private cars, few can say that they are not dependent on motorway
logistics to feeds us, furnish our homes and fill bikes shops with products.
Surely we owe such a bedrock of modern life at least a little serious
consideration.
The narrative ends with a very poignant allusion. Moran reveals that
unsold books are frequently crushed up to create bitumen modifier, which
is then used in road building to hold the blacktop together. I'm sorry
to say that I picked up my copy of his book from a remainder book shop.
Snap up a copy while you can, and chalk it down as a stand against road
building, even if its story leaves you on the hardshoulder.
TD Jan 11
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