Originally Posted by
crank_addict
Riding one of these is such a strange and different feel. Without mentioning traditional bent over body placement, its the sway of the saddle and body -as if one is kind of floating. No seatpost directly below or connection to the frame. Its weird but works.
I struggled at first getting up to speed on a Pedersen, especially because of it's lateral wiggle at the saddle, which made road riding in a tight group scary, and apparently even scarier to watch!
What I figured out, soon enough, is that the hammock saddle needs to be adjusted taut, something that I rarely see on a contemporary Pedersen.
But from old photos, in those days the owners somehow had the information that the saddle needs to be taut, thus sparing themselves of any wiggling or of any "wedgie" effect.
The Pedersen's "truss" fork does feel rigid in use compared to a regular fork, not that a regular fork absorbs all that much though. I used a Softride stem on my Pedersen when I was doing XC races, mainly so that my vision didn't blur when I attacked rocky descents, and at the time I felt that the 700c wheels offered further advantage.
Note that a Pedersen's riding position borders on semi-recumbent, so the irritation of shock through the fork and handlebar is taken rather well.
The Truss fork on the OP's pictured bike is very different and appears to have a bit of designed-in flex due to uppermost curved tubing used in place of straight tubes. But that being a
disc-braked bike, the lower legs need to be rigid in use so as not to flex independently.
All disc braked bikes have this need of rigid fork legs, or the steering will pull to the left whenever the front brake is used hard.
The Pedersens that weighed so little as claimed were actually special racing models, and rather few were made. Production Pedersens had to be much heavier and my own replicas weigh nearly 30lbs with 700c road wheels and CX tires. The truss fork on mine (by itself) is much heavier than a normal steel bike's fork.
But the Pedersens indeed were very light in their day. The saddle, back then, was made of very light woven material and needed no steel frame, but the 17-tube frameset structure needed careful design calculation to achieve light weight.
