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About Thomas Tempelmann

I'm about 40 years old, 193cm tall, become fatter every day, am clumsy and tend to be rude. Sometimes, however, I can be quite nice and still am in a good shape provided that I wear appropriate clothes ...

I was born in Oldenburg i.O., Germany, and lived in Munich, Germany, at age 22 to 32.

At age 19 to 32, I worked as a freelancer on many software projects.

Fro of April 97 until October 2002, I was living in California, USA, where I developed software for the Macintosh.

Since December 2002, I am living in Munich again, working since 2004 at the Technical University of Munich.

To be prepared for the next gas supply breakdown, I'm the proud rider of a Pedersen bicycle.

 

"Older" photograph of this type of bicycle

 

Here are the two bikes I owned so far:

 

This bike was stolen several years ago in the English Garden in Munich.
Until then, it was a beautiful day for me.

 

This is the bike I am driving ever since. Daily, of course.
BTW, this guy (his name is Arne) does actually not drive the bike as one's supposed to. :-)

 More Pedersen web sites:

• This store in California sells Pedersen bicycles in North America.
• Here's a German Pedersen Website by Thomas Leißle who organizes tours for Pedersen riders.
• And this is the shop where I had my bike serviced when I lived in Munich: Radl-R. It has become an online-only store now.

 

About the Pedersen bicycle:

"The Dursley-Penderson bicycle is a distinctive roadster that was developed in 1893 by Mikael Pederson (1855-1929), a Danish engineer living in Dursley, England, and is still reproduced and ridden by many enthusiasts. The bike has a space frame design, based on the Whipple-Murphy bridge truss, made of fourteen separate narrow diameter tubes, joined in 57 places, making 21 triangles throughout the bike. Central to the design is the suspended hammock saddle which transfers a cushioned, sometimes swaying, stately ride. The truss was originally woven from 45 yards of silk and an adjustable buckle allowed variations in saddle tension.

Pederson produced about 8,000 bikes around the turn of the century and developed a lightweight folding bike for military use. The century old Penderson is a connoisseur's bike that has been modified by various builders. In 1978, Jesper Solling, a metalshop worker in an alternative community in Christiania, Denmark, revived the original frame plans and has refined the design with modern components. With three co-workers, they currently produce about 700 Copenhagen Pendersens per year, including about ten tandems. Pendersens are popular in Germany, with makers such as Michael Kemper in Dusseldorf, and in England, where admirers met in Dursley to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Pendersen patent application." ["Bike Cult" by David B. Perry (pp105-106)]

 

What else?

 

 

 

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