Creeping Danish-ness 1.1 - Cycling

So there are many ways that our lives are becoming more decidedly Danish, hence the title. Cycling is just one of the ways, but clearly warrants more than one post, hence the 1.1.

We arrived on a Friday afternoon, and the VERY first thing we did on Saturday morning was to have Danish-style bike locks and kickstands installed, so we could park them anywhere and avoid hauling around chain locks. We had brought both our bikes over at some expense and considerable inconvenience (finding boxes and packing them, taking a van to the airport, having Bo's parents pick us up with a trailer, and reserving two 'seats' for the bikes on the train from Randers to Copenhagen). But it is inconceivable that we would not have bikes here. In addition to the long recreational rides we have been enjoying, we use them to get everywhere around town. So does everyone else.

And I must say, it feels great to whip through the city on the smooth, flat paths. There is a special set of lights and directionals for bikes, which are often travelling faster than the car traffic. I try to pick out a cyclist travelling at a pace I feel comfortable with and follow their moves around trucks or other obstacles. But I'm still not comfortable enough to head into town during rush hour, when the lanes are pretty packed.

Bikes near Christianborg

Believe it or not, the point of this picture was not the bikes. There just happen to be a lot of them. And although it is not fair to judge during the vacation season, there are decidedly fewer cars in the city because people are generally on bikes.

Bike counter on Norrebrogade

This much graffiti-ed and stickered over machine is a cyclist counter on one the major avenues into the city. On that morning, 1,563 cyclists had crossed the bridge on the outbound side by 9:30AM, and 2,119,221 this year. (The estimated population of greater Copenhagen is 1,935,746, as of this April.) Last night, when we crossed this point coming home, more than 18,000 others had done so as well  - and this on one of the most popular vacation weeks of the year. The section of Norrebrogade nearest the city has double-wide bike lanes and automotive traffic is limited to busses and delivery vehicles. Besides devices like the counter that raise awareness of cycling, there are also cute little footrests at some intersections with messages like "Thanks for biking!" and events where commuters on bikes are served free coffee and rolls.

The cycling-centric culture is not at all limited to Copenhagen. There is an extensive network of national bike routes - these are routes with less traffic or dedicated cykel-stier ( bike paths). Communities maintain their own network of bikepaths, sometimes along major thoroughfares, and sometimes behind and between other routes. We have designed whole vacations using these maps - purchased from the Dansk Cykelforbund
( http://www.cyklistforbundet.dk/), which has a very cool shop near Orstedsparken. The maps and related guides describe the routes and interest points along the way (castles, historic sites, bike hotels. campgrounds, toilets), and also point out major routes with good bike paths.

Last Thursday, for example, we spent the day biking on a mixture of designated routes and regular bike paths along roadways. We biked from Copenhagen up to Fredriksborg Slot in Hillerod ( site of the national history museum and one of the most spectacular castles in Europe), and came home by crossing over to another important royal castle in Fredensborg and down Kongevejen (the King's Road)  to join up with a numbered bike path into the city. The beginning and the end of this trip were definitely on important commuter paths, with wide lanes and constructed alongside (but fenced off from) major highways. But we picked up Bikeroute 31 in the morning between Farum and Hillerod, which took us through forest, some typically Danish fields and marshland, and which included considerable gravel or grass paths away from roads. Definitely scenic, but on the way home we opted for a large chunk of non-numbered bikepath along Kongevejen - which was smooth, straight and very fast. We met up with Bikeroute 50 which brought us back into the city, but not before passing through amazing beautiful rural stretches in Allerod, where we shared the paths with people on horseback. 

A few pictures from our "Castle Ride":

Frederiksborg Slot seen from its Baroque Garden

Fredensborg Slot

Bikes and helmets taking a rest