Being in Denmark is kind of like you died and went to bicycle heaven. In my last post I mentioned I feel like I have landed in a past vision of what 2010 was supposed to be like…the only thing that the past futurists could not have anticipated: the future is FULL OF BIKES! It’s so awesome. I mentioned the underground bicycle garage at school…it’s magnificent! Since crime is not a big problem here (although someone did steal two bungee chords out of my bike basket that I bought on sale at a hardware store), no-one locks their bikes to anything, and most everyone uses this “bracelet” bike lock, as I call it, which merely locks the tire. (The bracelet lock is not dissimilar to the Japanese bike locks I wrote about here during the 2007 Tokyo trip.) But the Danes also have a second sidewalk for bikes. And now that I have had a chance to ride it, I must say it’s a brilliant invention; it completely (well mostly completely) removes the problem of cars driving into the bike lane, since there is a double curb and the first one is between the cars and the bike lane. The bike lane is at least as wide as the sidewalk, sometimes wider, with plenty of room for passing.
The bicycle garage at ITU.
It’s a funny and inverted experience. In both Atlanta and LA bicyclists are actually at the bottom of the street traffic pecking order. Pedestrians are second to last, and cars are of course first. Here it is the opposite. Bikes seem to be first. In fact, if you are walking and you stop at a zebra crossing (British style crosswalk) here, the cars will stop for you but the bikes won’t. They just whiz right by. I love this bike lane, but I have to say that I’m having a bit of trouble getting used to it. The bikes go pretty fast, and you can’t just stop in the middle of the lane or you will get instantly mowed down by other cyclists. If I am sight seeing and want to stop, I have to pull the bike onto the pedestrian sidewalk. Your reflexes have to be really fast to pull this off.
Above-ground bicycle parking at the apartment building.
One of the other visitors here, though, pointed out to me today the downsides of the bike road. First, he said as a cyclist he likes to make up his own routes to get places, and I must say that part of the fun in riding in bicycle-unfriendly places is playing the game of figuring out where all the ramps are between home and a building on campus, or whatnot. The other byproduct of this is that you have to follow the rules. But then he pointed out something else I hadn’t thought of: the bike path creates bicycle traffic! When I got back on it later that day, I realized that it’s really a bicycle freeway. And when looked at in that way, it took on a whole different meaning. I started thinking about merging into traffic and such. Although I can see that a bicycle freeway is sort of a not-so-great way to look at it, at the same time, the metaphor helped me do a better job of navigating. C'mon I'm from LA! I know how to deal with freeways!
Speaking of being from LA, it’s a little chilly here, but still moderate enough to ride, but everyone rides everywhere even when it's raining. In spite of the fantastic underground garage, there are still piles of bikes in front of the ITU building and the dorm building across the canal. By the way, did I mention there is bike parking in the basement of the apartment building I’m staying in AND outdoor bike parking areas? I’m sure there will be more to report on this phenomenon! It’s one of my favorite things about this place!
[Stay tuned for more bike postings and pictures of the bicycle freeway!]
(No caption necessary.)
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