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.....