Danish bike envy

Posted by: Georgina Combes

I recently visited Copenhagen and fell in love… with a bike. Despite its battered appearance and cries for a good oiling, my trusty stead – a classic sit-up-and-beg-style bike as favoured by the Scandinavians - was a great ride.  

Two wheels are definitely a Dane’s best friend. From young to old people, pregnant ladies to city workers, they all make cycling look so effortlessly stylish. The Copenhagen Cycle Chic blog (unbeknown to everyone I quizzed during my visit) is packed with pictures of Danish girls on bikes showing how high heels and short skirts don’t inhibit the practised peddler!

And what better place for cycling. The bike tracks across Copenhagen are as wide as the bus lanes and in most places raised from the traffic. It’s an infinitely superior system to London’s slim cycle pickings where squeezing up along the inside of a bus requires adept balance and a good dosage of bravery. In Copenhagen I didn’t once feel unsafe weaving through the city’s highways helmet-free.

There’s also a lot less bike theft than in London. It’s possible to be a lot more “pragmatically reckless” (a phrase I’ve coined from Al the globe circling cyclist – see below) and leave your wheels unchained while you pop into the corner store. Perhaps it’s their laid-back culture, surely enhanced by the cycle culture, or the fact that everyone already owns a bike so why steal someone else’s, but I like it.

And talking of cycling adventures, last night I heard Alistair Humphreys talk about his epic four year journey round the world by bike at the Royal Geographical Society. After 46,000 miles his trip could best be summed up by one of the quotes he illustrated his talk with “Holy Cow, what a ride!” What I like most about his story is that by peddling into towns and villages across the world he arrived in the most unassuming, often quite dishevelled, fashion, just a man on two wheels, trusting in the kindness of strangers, carrying what he needed to survive. And it worked for him.

Big up to bicycles to save the world!  

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