The master himself

After the First World War Dursley Pedersen Cycle Co. closed down. Mikael Pedersen continued his activities in engineering fields other than manufacturing bicycles and his design was soon forgotten.

In 1979 Jesper Solling, a bicycle mechanic in Christiania, near Copenhagen, rediscovered the design and started manufacturing hand-made frames. He manufactured about 6000 of these exquisitely handcrafted frames in the last 30 years, which are true pieces of art.

Here is the story and pictures of the beginnings of Jesper's manufacturing in Christiania.

http://www.pedersenbicycle.dk/more1978.htm


In the following, there is an article about an American woman flying to Copenhagen to pick-up a Pedersen bike she bought over internet, just to find out that it was not in the best condition. What else to do, other than to find the master himself, to set things straight with the frame? Yes, there is people willing to do anything to get a Pedersen. I am not the exception...

http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/strange-and-not-unpleasant-experience


And finally, here is the master in his workshop, teaching us how to braze a bicycle frame.

Jesper Solling at his workshop (youtube)

Donor bike

To look for a donor bike there are few criteria I had to take into account and which I describe in detail in the following.

General layout
I need a donor with a steel frame brazed with lugs, out of round steel tubing. This is essential as I want to cut the old frame and use parts and tubes. Since I will be using brazing to join the parts of my frame, sophisticated alloys of Aluminium, Magnesium and other aerospace materials so favored in modern high-end bikes are out of the question. Standard alloy steel is the way to go.

Frame geometry
The rear part of the donor bicycle's frame will be used complete as a module for my new frame. This includes the pedal bottom bracket and the chainstays. Therefore the shape of this module has to fit my needs. The shape of the rear dropouts is very important, as I would prefer a semi-horizontal rear dropout with wheel disassembly to the front. I want to avoid horizontal dropouts with rear disassembly that require adjusting bolts to tense the chain, which are common in many older bikes.
I do no have a use for long 1 inch tubes such as the top tube, seat tube and down tube, as the Pedersen design is based in thinner and longer 1/2 inch tubes. On the other hand, I need a strong head tube, but much shorter than in a standard bike. I need a frame with a head tube that can be cut to the desired length and recycled. For recycling I will have to turn the head tube in the lathe to cut out the old brazed lug. Therefore, if possible, I have to look for one that is best suited for this operation.
The front fork is the most complicated part in the Pedersen construction, consisting basically in 4 tubes assembled in a truss type of structure. The two tubes in the rear of the fork are bent at a subtle angle of about 15 deg, exactly at the point where the fork bracket is located, about mid span of the fork length. I have observed many woman bicycle frames, which in order to replace the top tube on a standard diamond frame use two long and thin tubes from the rear dropouts to the head tube with a slight bending about mid span when passing near the seat tube.
I think I could recycle such tubes to be reused in the fork, being the dimensions and the bending angle very similar to what I need.

Gears and brakes
I want the bike to be functional in the street and also on the road, for longer several days cycling tours. Thus, a minimum of gear ratios availability is to be secured. At least a range spanning from 3 to 7 meters per pedal revolution is needed, to cover from some modest climbing to flat or slight downhill cruising. Getting pedals radius of 170mm or 175mm will not be an issue.
Brakes will probably not pose a problem, as I would rather go for caliper brakes both in the front and rear and they are commonly available in old bikes. They are simple and reliable and fit for the purpose of this bike.

Accessories
The more accessories I can recycle from the donor, the less I will have to search for later on. The handlebars in a Pedersen are along with the fork and the hammock saddle the most conspicuous features. They have this very particular shape, bent in the "wrong" direction, that provide a confortable wrist position when riding. If I might find an aluminium granny-bike type handlebar, I could mount it upside down in the stem and adjust it to match a Pedersen shape.
An old fashioned leather saddle Brooks-style could be recycled for the hammock saddle, if I can find one.
Finally, if I can get a donor that comes with fenders, rack, dynamo and lights, all these extras are welcome.


Having in mind the complete set of specification as described above, I set to search for a prospective donor. This is what I found in the local dump: an old Swiss Condor woman type bicycle from the late 80s with 28 inches wheels and 6+2 Sachs Huret combined derrailleur with internal hub, caliper brakes and the bent "top tubes". General status is acceptable. The only problem being both original Weinmann 700C rims bent. The rear one is most severely bent, as seen in the picture. However, nothing that some patience cannot bring back to true.

Pedersen on a budget

As mentioned before, one of the very reasons for existence of Badenia cycles is challenging the paradigm and stereotypes of bicycle construction.

Therefore, it was for me clearly obvious that the first project of Badenia cycles was going to be a Pedersen bicycle.

What is a Pedersen bicycle anyway?

Well, there are many sites that deal in detail with Pedersen history, design, ergonomics, functionality, etc., etc., as the few examples below

http://www.pedersenbicycles.com/form.htm
http://www.dursley-pedersen.net/index.html
http://www.pedersenbicycle.dk/

In short, Mikael Pedersen was a Danish engineer and inventor who developed this bicycle concept at the turn of the XIXth century. At that point in time, the diamond frame so-called "safety frame", as opposed to the penny-farthing type of frame, which was not considered to be particularly safe, was established as a standard in bicycle construction. The whole Pedersen concept originates at challenging the paradigm of the bicycle saddle. The notion of what a bicycle saddle should look like comes probably from transposing the heritage of equestrian tradition into wheeled vehicles. Pedersen wanted for his bicycle a hammock saddle. His frame concept originates from the necessity of developing a structure around that saddle to provide the two anchor points for such a hammock.

Pedersen manfactured his bikes commercially in England from 1897 to about 1917, vanishing after that the concept into oblivion. Here is an example of an original Dursley Pedersen from 1910.




Project specifications of my recreation of the Pedersen concept

- street bike with 28" wheels
- based on a discarded "donor" bike, probably a woman frame type
- utilizing as much as possible the original components or other recycled components
- silver-brazed frame with lugs
- dismountable, bolted frame construction
- decent amount of gears to render it functional (if possible internal hub gear)
- estimated 200 hours of work (nice winter project)

Laying the foundations of Badenia cycles

Motivation

I am an avid cycling enthusiast: commuting to work every day, some short tours or even day tours on the weekends and at least two cycle tours a year, one of them longer than a week.

Owning three bikes, I do myself all mechanical work. Every one of them has its own story, its own role in my cycling life. None of them is an expensive bike and yet I developed kind of a sentimental attachment to each one. I know them intimately after many complete overhauls over the years and after many thousands of kilometers. It would be difficult to decide parting with any one of them.

Being an engineer, and having a strong do-it-yourself approach, I usually have a couple of projects in the pipeline. Some of then reach a certain reasonable level of completion just before entering the misterious status of "on hold". Just a few are ever definitely finished. While visiting my main source of metal and material for my projects, the municipal dumping place, I noticed over the years the large amount of bicycles that are discarded. Among many cheap mass-produced mountain bikes, it is not difficult to spot once and again high quality gems manufactured in the old days, with lugs hand-brazed frames, with top edge classical components like Campagnolo, Weinmann, Shimano, Sachs, Brooks.

On the other hand, a certain fact came to attention as I was reading an article about cycling statistics in Britain. The article analyzed the number of active cyclists and compared with the number of new bicycles sold every year and the number of bicycles scrapped every year to reach the conclusion that a large amount of bicycles have a life cycle that includes being purchased, "owned" and scrapped rather than ridden.

Bicycles became, at least in Europe, USA and other developed countries, more a consumer article than a true means of transport. A standard bicycle shop in Switzerland, for instance, will have on display very expensive models, in general over-engineered for the purpose. Of course, a downhill mountain bike cyclist with serious competition goals will need specialized adjustable full suspension, titanium and magnesium alloy frames as the serious racing bike enthusiast will intend to reduce every gram of weight by using reinforced fibre carbon components and aerodynamically shaped frames and spokes. However, the fact remains that for most of the standard cyclists the bikes are over-engineered for the function that they are targeted to perform. Without exaggeration, I can say I have seen grandmas cycling to the supermarket on nice urban paved roads, basket included, on bikes with full suspension and hydraulic brakes worth 2 or 3 thousand CHF.

Many organizations exist that address the bicycle life cycle issue by recycling
http://www.bicyclerecycling.co.uk/
http://bikerecycle.org/

and it is not only about non-profit organizations; there are also some shops trading in used recycled vintage parts for restoration projects
http://www.recycledcycles.com/
http://oldroads.com/bicycles_for_sale.asp

Things did not change dramatically in the history of the bicycle since the introduction of the so-called "safety frame" in 1880s as opposed to the high wheel bicycle type or penny-farthing. The diamond frame became since then the very paradigm of bicycle construction.

I was always attracted to alternative bicycle concepts that would challenge the paradigm in a true Kuhnian sense (I cannot help it!). Recumbents, tandems, Pedersen, folding frames, rowing propulsion... Such bikes, even if you can find what you are specifically looking for, cannot be bought for reasonable money, as they are hand-made and usually carry a premium tag price for rarity, scarcity or oddity. They are out of reach for a reasonable and price-to-functionality minded engineer. A hand-made Pedersen, for instance, will offer for more than a couple thousand Euros basically the same functionality than a second-hand granny bike for 50CHF. After all, even if the Pedersen concept is charming, such a bike represents the very consumer object that I so deeply reject.

Therefore, and in order to give way to my interests on alternative non-standard bicycle concepts, my interest on workshop activities and to explore my creativity and sensitivity as a plastic artist; I am founding Badenia cycles to create rolling sculptures out of discarded and neglected materials and scrap metals at hand in the local dump.