velocipede

Whether the job was to jump on a stolen velocipede, win over a band of pirates, visibilize invisible ink, pen a sonnet, or don a disguise, Simon Harley-Dickinson was the man for it.

It was not edelweiss, of course, for edelweiss is not native to England, but it was close enough to make Penelope’s thoughts gain force and speed, like a velocipede flying down a hill.

“You there, in the tweed cap! May I borrow your velocipede?”

Bike-adjacent inventions that roll atop train tracks have been known by many different names — handcar, draisine, kalamazoo and velocipede are just a few — since they first cropped up around the 1860s.

And between two wooden luggage carts from the late 1800s sits a railway velocipede, a three-wheeled handcar that was operated by pedals.