The Veteran-Cycle Club’s annual Pedersen Gathering is being held on 12/13 April, 2025 at the Kingshill House Creative Centre, Dursley, Gloucestershire. This popular gathering of owners of Pedersen cycles and their friends was first organised in 1979 on the 50th anniversary of the death of the creator of this very special machine, Mikael Pedersen. There have been one or two years when no gathering occurred but, following the enforced two-year break for the Covid epidemic, members of the Club’s Glavonwits Section organised a meeting of 10 of their friends which resulted in much interest from other Veteran-Cycle Club members. This was followed in 2022 by a well-organised ‘pilgrimage’ of over 40 Pedersens and supporting riders which was repeated in subsequent years.
2025 is the Veteran-Cycle Club’s 70th anniversary year and we will again be returning to Dursley to celebrate the life and work of this iconic inventor. For those wishing to attend please refer to the Club’s website: https://v-cc.org.uk/event/annual-pedersen-gathering/. For interest, a brief account of the history of the machine and its inventor is included below.
The Story of the Pedersen Bicycle
Mikael Pedersen comes to Dursley
Mikael Pedersen was known as the ‘Danish Engineer’ employed by the agricultural machinery manufacturer, Lister and Company. Born on 25 October 1855 in FlØng, near Roskilde in Denmark, to farming parents, he became interested in agricultural machinery and in milk production in particular. While working for Maglekilde Maskinfabrik as a smith, he invented, amongst other things, a corn thresher that could separate the chaff, a gear system for horse-drawn mills, and a braking system for wagons.
As world grain prices plummeted during the 1860s Denmark’s economy evolved with the formation of agricultural co-operatives to supply meat and dairy products to an increasing urban population. In 1878 Maglekilde Masinfabrick produced and patented the first continuous centrifugal cream separator, however, demand was so high that in 1881 the manufacturing rights were sold to Koeford and Hauburg in Copenhagen. Although this machine had been patented by the Maglekilde company, Mikael Pedersen’s part in its invention had been ignored. As a result of this he went to work for Roskilde Masinfabrick. Here he improved and refined the original design, which was then patented by him and Jens Neilsen and marketed by Koeford and Hauburg as the Alexandra Cream Separator.
During the late 1880s Robert Ashton Lister visited Denmark and acquired the sole rights to market the machine in the UK and its colonies. He was so impressed by Mikael that he persuaded him to move to Dursley as a consultant-cum inventor at his engineering works and when, in 1892, the Danish manufacturing company was unable to keep up with sales, production of the Alexandra Cream Separator commenced at Listers, thus enabling the growth of Listers and the development of Dursley.
The Bicycle
When Mikael Pedersen moved to England he brought with him drawings of a completely new type of bicycle frame with a design based on the ‘cantilever’ principle used for building the bridges of the time, including the famous Forth railway bridge. In the same year he constructed his first machine using ash sticks fastened to tongued plates protruding from metal joints and crowned with its unique hammock saddle designed for the comfort of its owner. This machine was built for Mikael’s own use and ridden for many thousands of miles up and down the steep hills and valleys around Dursley. It was not until 1895 that the second machine was constructed, coinciding with a boom in cycling that occurred at the time.
The opportunity to sell the idea was grasped and Pedersen Cycle Frame Co was formed on 16 December 1896. In 1897 both metal and wooden machines were exhibited in London’s Agricultural Hall, Islington.
Metalworking as we know it today was in its infancy. Steel was relatively plentiful, but the method of production meant that control of the elements necessary for altering its properties was difficult. Although this steel could be heated to a high temperature without reducing its strength, welding and brazing techniques using acetylene were only just on the horizon so filler metals with a much lower melting point were utilised. In the case of the Pedersen frame, a lead solder was used to connect the small diameter lightweight Accles and Pollock tubing with brazed points where extra strength was required. Doug Pinkerton, an expert in the restoration of Pedersen frames, states that:
“There were three places with a DP frame that was tack brazed in position using small amounts of brass;
- rear fork end plate;
- spacing/guide plate at the top, inside the front forks and underneath the tapered top plate that has the head badge on;
- the support collar, also on the head plate for the bearing race.
All the joints on a DP frame also had a small square nail which held each joint in the correct position while the frame was lead soldered together.”
This machine was expensive to make and would not be easy to mass produce!
It is thought that there was no intention to build the machines in Dursley but to sell licences to other makers so marketing began with improvements to lighten the machine which resulted in the production of one weighing 14-15lb. This was followed by a 22 inch machine weighing 11lb made from 32 gauge tubing with 24 inch wheels with wooden rims and Dunlop tyres. A 9 lb machine was built under licence in the USA. However, despite this, and perhaps because of the strange design coupled with a hostile press, there were few takers.
In 1898 one of the Pedersen Company’s financial backers was declared bankrupt and it was at this point that Robert Lister stepped in to save the company with the formation of The Dursley Pedersen Cycle Company which received a licence from the Pedersen Cycle Frame Co Ltd to make cycles. The new company agreed to pay the original one 5 shillings for each cycle based on a set number per year. By 1900 quantity production was underway and for 3 years the company seemed to run well with Mikael continuing to modify and invent.
It was Mikael’s three-speed variable cycle gear, patented in August 1902, that proved the undoing of the Dursley company. His relationship with the commercially minded Listers was already strained and he was forced to reverse his decision to have the gear manufactured elsewhere. Meanwhile, the mechanisms already produced by the rival company were proving faulty. The Dursley company, despite full order books, were unable to meet the demand and on 10 February 1905 all assets and liabilities were taken over by R A Lister & Co Ltd.
At the peak of production in 1908 sales were valued at £22,841. Demand fell as the wealthy buyers of Pedersen machines transferred their interest to the more fashionable motor vehicles. Sales of the Dursley Pedersen bicycle finally ceased in 1917.
This was not the end of the story as Pedersen’s design caught the imagination of other builders, with later machines being manufactured in London, Cheltenham and Burton on Trent in the UK, as well as Copenhagen in Denmark. Pedersen cycles are still being built to this day by Michael Kemper in Erkelenz in Germany.
The people of Dursley also remember the genius of this inventor as in 1979 a plaque was placed on Raglan House, Mikael’s old home. This coincided with the 50th anniversary of Mikael’s death in connection with which David Evans of the Veteran-Cycle Club organised a weekend event to celebrate his life and work. In 1995 money was raised to bring Mikael’s body back from Denmark to Dursley for re-burial. the service being attended by over 300 people including the Bishop of Gloucester, Mikael’s grandchildren and a representative from the Danish embassy. There is now a move to create a lasting memorial to this great inventor in the form of Pedersen bicycle sculpture on the green opposite Raglan House.
Sources:
Evans, David – 2007: ‘Mr Pedersen – A Man of Genius’, Tempus Publishing.
Pinkerton, Doug – 2024: personal email, Pinkerton Classic Cycles,
Wodschow, Finn – 1998: Mikael Pedersen 1855-1929, available from National Cycle Archive, Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, UK.
Hancock, Cyril J – 2010: The Veteran-Cycle Club – 1955-2005, John Pinkerton Memorial Publishing Fund.