Copenhagen By Bike

This is the cliché shot of a crowded bike stand in Europe. This was outside the train station; there was not a spare spot for my bike.  There was an "overflow lot": anything else which you could safely lock up to (17,000 bikes are stolen each year in the city.).  This one had valet parking, and good thing: who could find their bike in this after a hard day?

Some bike lanes in Copenhagen have their own right turn lanes, which have their own turn signals and turn markers in the pavement. The bike lights operate like they do at drag strips:  on your mark (red), get set (red and yellow, and everyone stands on their pedals) go (green).

I always thought these were a novelty item, but when you see someone pedaling one down the street with his dog, or pregnant wife, his child, or all three at once, you begin to see the utility.Copenhagen is utterly flat, which is crucial for this kind of thing to work.  They are essentially tiny cars.

In a single day more people commute by bike in Copenhagen than do in the entire U.S. Much of the mandatory automobile driver education class is devoted to bike awareness.  If you are not doing head checks left and right and looking in the bike lanes during your driver's test, you fail.

At first it was unnerving to bike in Copenhagen because the pedestrians, the cars, and the bikes all know the rules, so no one hesitates:  if you do, like I initially did, you disrupt the flow. People pass each other with little room for error; people confidently squeeze around cars because they know the drivers are aware of them; and because pedestrians don't stutter-step in front of you, you can easily predict where they are headed.

After I got settled in, I shot some video by holding my phone in one hand and steering with the other. I joined everyone else who seemed to be biking one-handed, drinking coffee, talking (texting!) on the phone, or holding a bag of groceries.

I challenged a friend to estimate the number of bikes in this video.  Once she saw it, she thought the challenge should be "estimate the number of blondes in this video".  I hadn't noticed!    But my neck is still killing me.....

Little Yellow Houses

We stayed at an AirBnb in Copenhagen in a neighborhood tucked inside a rail yard.  100 years ago the railway built these houses close to the yard for workers to respond  quickly to derailments or other accidents.  Now the city owns and rents them; our host had been on a waiting list for 6 years before getting hers.  They are historically significant, so their exteriors can't be renovated in any way.

our home

our neighborhood

our evenings

Jesus Saves! But Tero Scores on the Rebound!

I took a bullet train from Copenhagen to Stockholm (what a city! More about that in another post) at 8 am. Lauren and I got to the train station early with both bikes broken down and put into zippered black bags (we had brought these bags with us the entire way. Some Swedish train and bus operators do not allow bikes on board so we  had to disguise them as huge artists' easels). She helped me load the bikes and we said a hurried goodbye; she was to depart later that day for Amsterdam, the lucky girl. After a few stops a couple sat down with me.  I thought he was in his late 40s or early 50s.  He had long brown hair with faint streaks of grey, and a foot-long goatee cinched with rubber bands. He wore a dark casual wool suit jacket, shorts, and sandals, and had a woven black satchel in his lap.  His partner had striking greenish-blue eyes, silver hair cut fashionably asymmetrically, and because she had not a wrinkle on her face, I thought she had to be at least 10 years younger than him (turns out she too was our age).

I don't think we knew what to make of each other.  Compared to him, I look like a CIA agent. I had several back issues of the New York Times with me and had prepared to read and sleep the entire way.  We might have passed the trip without a word. But I made a move anyway.

They were on their way back home to a small town of 10,000 north of Helsinki, Finland, after a three-week multi-country tour. It was obvious from the start that  that they were a very happy couple. Tero was a truck driver, or forklift operator, I couldn't really be sure from his description;  Eija worked in textiles. He had played center as a hockey player (hence the title of this post. Back in the 70's, the bumper sticker "Jesus Saves! But Espo Scores on the Rebound!" was popular with fans of the Boston Bruins and their center Phil Esposito).  He said he was the "central nervous system" on the ice:  he was not the fastest skater, but made up for it with craftiness.  From the twinkle in his eye, I believed it.

within an hour, friends....

with Eija and Tero

Tero explained, somewhat ruefully, that they were coming from Copenhagen, the land of beer, through Sweden, the land of vodka, back to Finland, the land of.....milk. (apparently Finland's control over the sale of alcohol is tight).  After we established that I had no problem with booze, Eija produced an unopened pint of vodka from her own satchel. An orange juice mixer might have been appropriate at that hour but since we had no orange juice, just vodka had to do. When I held the pint bottle and talked too long before taking a swig, Tero admonished  "please, it's not a microphone".  Before long, an hour of conversation, and the contents of the bottle, were history. Then it was off to the bar car where we shared a beer or two.

They both loved music ("Vivaldi is for the morning, rock-and- roll in the evening") and in particular Neil Young (fate? I had started this trip with a Neil Young connection). Tero had an encyclopedic knowledge of rock-and-roll, and we got into a Laurel and Hardy routine with the rock bands The Who and Yes:  "You like The Who? Yes! Oh, you like Yes! No,Who. Don't make me guess who. Oh, you like The Guess Who? No, Yes! Yes or no, do you like The Who? Yes!.....".  He had a more-than-passing resemblance to De Niro and could quote him : "You talkin' to me?.... Yes? Who?" . He explained that, as a hippie, he had never been in a fight in his life....except when playing hockey where  it was a necessary part of the game.  Once they were in a bar in Finland with another hippie couple and got heckled by the (entirely) younger, male, and macho patrons. Tero diffused the situation by saying that they should all look at themselves in a mirror, because he and his friend were the only ones in the bar who had women with them. The bar then thinned out, he said, because so many of them went home to look at themselves in the mirror.

Tero led the way with most of their stories, but Eija was the perfect straight man.  She demonstrated her hand signals to control him ("two fingers: peace. One finger wagged at him: time to settle down"). They were extremely funny together and had a wonderful-to-observe interaction.  They had both been married once before and had kids from those relationships, had been together for 5 years, and apparently had already made plans to marry.....25 years from now.  It was plain that they loved each other very much.


When the announcement that we were arriving in Stockholm came over the loudspeaker, it had been the shortest 5 hours I'd ever spent on a train.

Trip Details for Bike Wonks

We obtained a great map for our route from a company in Sweden:

email: cyklamera@cykelframjandet.se

facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cykelframjandet

This is an 8 by 11 booklet with color maps detailing a route from the northern border of Finland to the southern town of Ystad. It can be purchased with an English translation of the text which contains  facts about the history of the towns that you'll pass, and a list of campsites and hostels that you´ll find along the way.

The route is signed the entire way and  follows an incredible and varied array of  quiet paved roads,  dirt roads, lanes through woods, tracks along farmer fields, and it guides you through towns on the omnipresent bike paths. We deviated from the route by taking the ferry from Oskarshamn to the northern tip of the island of Oland, then re-joined the route in Kalmar.  Except for the headwinds on this island it was a worthy detour.  I could without too much exaggeration state that we passed more pedestrians and baby strollers than cars for the great majority of our mileage, and I would estimate that only 5% of the time we were on busy roads.   Only twice did a passing vehicle come too close for comfort.

Here's our route.  It is only approximate and does not show the exact roads.

I have a million redundant photos of the beautiful conditions we encountered.  Here are but a few.

Fun at Castles and Museums

"Let me at that bastard King Jodfrey"

Scoring a Gold Spun Dress at "Value Fiefdom"

Queen Lauren has put on a few....

Darwin Moment: Is this thing loaded?

Anatomically Correct!

Early 1700's Ikea dresser. Assembly manual is 3,000 pages long and takes 5 years to put together

Queen Lauren

King Benjamin on the throne. Where is the flush handle?

Princess Lauren writes a "Dear Prince John" letter to leave on his desk

Tony making a minor brake adjustment on his 50's Fiat

Another Generation of Torstenssons

Fredrik Torstensson, the father of Our AirBnb family in Stockholm,  noticed that Lauren and I would be passing within a few miles of his Dad and Mom's summer place after about a week into our bike trip. On cue, at the end of a very long day of  exhilarating biking but feeling hot and exhausted, we called Torsten and Karin and got directions to their cabin. After some extremely poor orienteering on my part (which ended with Lauren and I pulling our bikes on the ground underneath a fallen tree snag that blocked  my clever  "shortcut" through the woods), and after asking a kind man who turned out to be Torsten's cousin exactly which (red, obviously) cabin was Torsten's, we found them.  They were babysitting Fredrik's kids Edith and Sigge, and also two other grandchildren, Tuva and Adrien, for the week. We had met all four of these kids in Stockholm a week earlier and so got some familiar hugs.

Their cabin sat on the edge of a bay. Torsten talked us into our swim suits and the three of us plus Edith went to the dock below the cabin.  Torsten held a picnic basket with three cold, tall, cans of beer. Although he and Karin and the kids had already eaten, he grilled me some hot dogs and made Lauren some pesto pasta and we had round two of beer (or was it wine?) sitting on a table in the late evening sun back at the cabin. They let us stay the night  in a cute side-cottage and served us breakfast in the morning. Because Lauren's knee was a bit sore from the previous day,  he then drove us 20 miles or so to the next town on our route so we could camp and convalesce (Lauren's knee bounced back nicely after this rest).

Torsten had a friendly track-and-field rivalry with an American (whose name escapes me, unfortunately) over 40 years ago and they and their wives have kept up a friendship ever since.  They travel together roughly every other year.  Due to this, and to Torsten's work with the Swedish Immigration Bureau which sent him all over the world, his and Karin's English were both excellent.  Karin was a warm and welcoming person and we felt at home with them.  It made  the "practice random acts of kindness" bumper stickers peeling off of  70's vintage VW busses not look so time-worn, after all. It's hard to adequately thank them for their generosity at a time in our trip when we needed it.

Torsten and Edith

Out in the back yard discussing bike routes

Dinner in front of our cottage

Lauren and the kids catch some TV

With the Torstenssons before we left.

Euro-Camping in Sweden

Lauren and I camped several days during our trip down the east coast on our bicycles.  On  the first few nights we found small private camp sites in idyllic campgrounds on the outskirts of towns, making it easy to get to food and drink after setting up camp.

Later down the road,  we were introduced to a phenomenon which may be quite common everywhere but the U.S.:  the mega-campground.  These places have undeniable assets: multiple outbuildings with hot and functioning showers, full kitchens for hostel-type meal preparation, rooms with tables and chairs and often some books, electricity, and heat.  So, if you wish, you can easily get out of the smelly confines of your tent and far away from your tentmate's annoying habit of putting on headphones and singing along, off key and irritatingly loudly, to "Sail Away" by David Gray.

These camping suburbs were a source of bemusement and incredulity to Lauren and me.  In hindsight, and with experience, I see their appeal and charm: European families are on vacation, out of their homes and into second homes, their kids have the run of the place and its bike paths, jungle gyms, etc. It is an economical and simple "home away from home".

But their sheer vastness  did intially shock. A picture is worth a thousand words; Lauren and I shot this in a campground that could hold 2500 people.

We had fun at these places.  Some of them have mini-golf, pools and water slides, none of which we used, but one place featured a band playing swing music on a rickety stage in front of a wooden dance floor. We we were just about to give it a go when a couple finished their own dance and passed us on their way off the dance floor. The woman immediately approached Lauren and asked if she could braid her hair. Before I could even register the appropriateness of such a request, Lauren gamely and without hesitation said "sure". Birgitta confessed that she had been admiring Lauren's hair earlier while we had been eating at the same restaurant, and that she loved to braid beautiful hair. So, while she braided, I got to know Jonas, we all became friendly, and after the braiding session they brought us back to their campsite for a beer.  They had come on a Honda GoldWing Motorcycle and towed a small trailer to carry their tent and sleeping supplies. They had almost gotten a divorce the previous evening when Jonas confessed he had forgotten the instructions for putting up the tent, which was evidently manufactured by Ikea.  You can see his bumper sticker for the wagon;  it seemed  horribly un-PC until we realized the irony:  how can the thing be a "pussy wagon" when it's barely bigger than a Fischer-Price toy?  Then it seemed pretty damn funny.

The Dance Floor

The Braiding

Ta Da!

No Caption Necessary