Tag: History

Mr Pedersen: A Man of Genius

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.

BoA 2007: Alex Moulton's greatest hits

Alex Moulton and the MBC experts called for examples of each model from the first Standard to the present day from which they judged the best example of each - usually the most original and well maintained. They scrutinised each model in such detail, that they ran out of time at the AM-GT.

Below are a few shots that took my fancy.

The need for speed...

Paul Grogan's Speedsix skips into view...

These gorgeous Speedsixes lost out because their mudguards weren't original...

This one had the original alloy guards...

A lovely blue Moulton S Safari...

And an S Stowaway...

But winner of the S-class was this immaculate chrome S Safari, owned by Ken Butterfield

Lovely rear end...

The crowed oohed and ahhed at the sight of shiny chrome...

Mike Woolf's completely original Moulton S Deluxe was not eligible, due to being a Moulton Preservation bike...

Alex Moulton told some of the history of the S-Works, and the work of Jack Lauterwasser...

Can't read the decals from here, but I think this was a Series 2 Deluxe...

Mike Woolf described the Raleigh era of this Mark 3 as a "mixed blessing...

On to the Alex Moulton era and the AM 7...

Alex Moulton described how the F-frame evolved into the Y-frame prototype, which eventually led to the X-frame - the basic shape of the spaceframe AM.

He recounted feeling distraught when some French club racers told him the Y-frame was wonderful, but too heavy. This led him to develop a frame structure that was entirely different to anything that went before.

Here is a lovely AM2...

Checking a serial number on an AM Speed...

Finally, the AM-GT... the first stainless steel model. Alex Moulton talked about how wonderful a material stainless steel was, and alluded to the skill of the silver brazers at Bradford on Avon. He told the owner of this AM-GT that stainless steel lasts forever, and he would pass the bike on to his great grandchildren.

Weird and not at all wonderful

BikeRadar is at the Eurobike exhibition, and reports this morning on a new bicycle from Cannondale

...the Hooligan, a small-wheeled, hub geared urban machine that looks like the bastard offspring of a BMX and a Moulton.

It sounds weird but it might just work. Those small wheels will give you excellent acceleration (ideal for urban riding) and a long wheel base should make for stable and predictable handling, the hub gears mean low maintenance, and the burly frame certainly looks tough enough to cope with city streets - we shall see, we've already ordered one in for test.

Of course we all know that Moultons are pure breeds, and while it's vaguely possible that a frustrated early APB might fantasize about a dirty weekend with something classy like a Rivendell, it would certainly never mix it's genes with a BMX.

When you look at those fat tyres, only one thing comes to mind... the Raleigh RSW.

Fed up with newcomer Moulton selling so many bikes, Raleigh needed to hit back.
They badly needed to compete with the Moulton bicycle, but couldn't get around Moulton's suspension patents.

So they developed the RSW. At first glance it was vaguely similar to a Moulton. They used balloon tyres to get around the discomfort factor of unsuspended small wheels.

Raleigh RSW

The RSW was inferior in every way to the Moulton. It was 6lbs heavier and felt like cycling through treacle. But it was cheaper to manufacture, so Raleigh could sell it more cheaply.

The unsuspecting customer, walking into a bike shop to buy a Moulton could easily be convinced to buy this thing that looked a lot like a Moulton, but was over 10% cheaper, and had Raleigh's name on it.

Neo-liberal mass market corporation's greedy marketing tactics win out over sound engineering shocker.

So is history about to repeat itself. I don't think so. Firstly, Alex Moulton is unlikely to sell his company to Cannondale, as he did to Raleigh in the 1960's.

But more importantly, the original Moulton was sold to the mass market, and so was vulnerable to mass market competition, and big bicycle manufacturers.

Today's Moultons are a very much specialised product for a niche market. People who buy Moultons are a very different segment of the market to the majority of the market: mountain bikes that never see a mountain, junk hybrids, supermarket bike shaped objects and tour de france clones.

Unique Moulton Speedsix

The story of Peter Lea is quite an amazing one. During his cycling career, he averaged over 17,000 miles per year and over 187,000 miles in total.

Peter ordered a Moulton S Safari in 1965, with a massive 68t chainring, close ratio block and completed a hugely impressive mileage on it.

The photo above shows Peter on the record breaking S Safari.

Peter completed over 75,000 miles on the S Safari, including a record breaking 30,108 in one year, all while holding down a full time job. When Alex Moulton heard of the record, he put the S Safari in his museum, and gave Peter a custom Moulton Speedsix as a replacement.

Ken Butterfield has since acquired the tangerine Speedsix for his collection.

Ken says...

I knew that in exchange for their new high mileage exhibit, Moulton bicycles had built Peter Lea a replacement and that this was a tangerine orange speedsix which was assembled at Bradford on Avon in 1970. This is remarkably late for a series two, as the Mk3 was in full production over in Nottingham and development work at the Hall was taken up with this latest frameset. Other speedsix specials are known to have been built in this period though, including ones built by Jack Lauterwasser himself. Peter Lea’s experience must have been considered valuable, as Alex Moulton wrote to him asking if he had any advice for a young rider who was going to ride to Australia on a cycle that he was making for him. This was of course the Marathon, and the young man was Colin Martin!

The pictures show Alex Moulton studying the unique Speedsix, at the Moulton Bicycle Club weekend at Bradforn on Avon in September 2006.

You can read more about Peter's unique history in issues 48 and 78 of the Moultoneer, which is the magazine of the Moulton Bicycle Club, and in Tony Hadland's excellent book, The Moulton Bicycle.

This is a stunning and unique bike, as the pictures show. Thanks to Ken for sharing.