History
of the Bath
Road Club 1886 to 1946
'This information is taken from the 1946 Diamond Jubilee Dinner Menu'
The story of the Bath Road Club opens on the day of the November 7th, 1886, when a band of hardy winter riders net at the New Inn, Ham Common, after a customary week-end ride. During the tea-table conversation a suggestion was made that those present should band themselves into a road club of their own. Agreement was unanimous, rules were drawn up forthwith and the club given the name of the Bath Road Club. A more logical title would perhaps have been the Ripley Road Club, as the riders made regular use of that famous stretch of highway, but as a club of that name was presumably already in being and the only other decent roadway - the North Road-was the name claimed by a club formed the year earlier, the Bath Road-not the then the cyclists' ideal-chose itself.