A new version of the David Evans book Ingenious Mr Pedersen, is to be published shortly with the new name Mr Pedersen: A Man of Genius.
As he strode through the town in Norfolk Jacket, tall, long black beard blowing in the win, lost in thought and heeding no one, he carried with him the aroma of strong, sweet coffee. Mikael Pedersen was different. Born near Roskilde, in Denmark, in 1855 he quickly showed his powers of invention. One idea he patented was a milk separator which revolutionized dairy practice. It was taken up by the engineering firm of R. A. Lister and Co. in Dursley, Gloucestershire, into which town Mikael settled in1889. With him came his genius for inventing and for providing unique solutions to engineering problems. He is known now just for his bicycle of unusual design - the Dursley Pedersen - but in his time he was highly regarded in engineering circles and played significant roles in The First World War. At the end of that war he and his family vanished and the rest of his life was for long a mystery. What happened to him was first revealed in the writer's "The Ingenious Mr Pedersen", published in 1978. In this present book David Evans tells Mikael's unusual story again with very much more information about this highly talented man.
The original Pedersen cycle was patented in 1893 and pioneered the use of small diameter tubing for bicycle construction, which was taken in a different direction 90 years later by Alex Moulton.
After a long period of absence, the Pedersen was then re-interpreted in 1978 by Jesper Sølling, and today there are over 6000 modern Pedersens around the world.
Picture from http://www.pedersen.info/
Curiously enough, around the same time - perhaps a year earlier, Alex Moulton was looking for a new frame structure that would be lighter than his Y-frame.
Alex Moulton wrote the foreward to the original book, and is rumoured to actually own a Pedersen himself, and probably studied it's construction while he was developing the first X-frames in the late 1970s.
The new book is published on 1st October by Tempus Publishing Ltd. ISBN: 0752445057.
Yes, Dr. Moulton owns an original Pedersen, and he did study the lugged construction of the original Pedersens.
He also hints in the forward of the first edition of David E. Evans book, that a bike with features of the Pedersen may be built in the future.
The Moulton spaceframes then did not have lugging, due to cost and weight saveing.
It has been joked, that if you leave an original F-Frame Moulton and a Pedersen longe enough over night in a Garage, (or Stabelblock) they may crossbreed into a Spaceframe Alex Moulton Bike
A Pedersen was, and the replicas still are very usefull, and fun to ride bikes.
I have owned and also ridden (Many classicbike collectors own orginals, but hardly ride them) a Copenhagen Pedersen since 1985. Mileage sofar more the 80 000 Km in 23 Years with the bike rebuilt 4 times on the same frame, and an excahnged fork after a headon collision in 1989.
Ralf Grosser
Darmstadt Germany