I'm helping Michael out with his school project on cycling (tracking down suitable web links and such) and came across a biography of Mikael Pedersen, inventor of the eponymous bicycle, which was so interesting I thought I should share it.
Apparently he was at one time very rich, based on his invention of a continuous cream centrifuge and other devices, and led a colourful life (much of it in Dursley in the Midlands) but was not shrewd financially so died destitute, buried in an unmarked Danish grave. He had no monument in Denmark despite the importance of his inventions, and the first memorial was raised by English cyclists in 1979. In 1995 a fund was started to exhume his body and re-bury it in Dursley.
I'm helping Michael out with his school project on cycling (tracking down suitable web links and such) and came across a biography of Mikael Pedersen, inventor of the eponymous bicycle, which was so interesting I thought I should share it.
Apparently he was at one time very rich, based on his invention of a continuous cream centrifuge and other devices, and led a colourful life (much of it in Dursley in the Midlands) but was not shrewd financially so died destitute, buried in an unmarked Danish grave. He had no monument in Denmark despite the importance of his inventions, and the first memorial was raised by English cyclists in 1979. In 1995 a fund was started to exhume his body and re-bury it in Dursley.
Quoted message said:
Guy
I have 'The Ingenious Mr Pedersen' somewhere as well as a 10-speed Pedersen replica bicycle, which I can't ride now.
