Copenhagen bicycle culture

What's it like to arrive in a city where it's more important to ride a bicycle than speak the language?Does a city have a special sound? Visual icons, yes. Perhaps even a trademark smell - of the sea, or of exhaust. But a sound?

By Henry Grabar Sage, a new yorker blogging for Danish Architecture Centre.

I haven't been in Copenhagen long, but I think that it does have a sound: the soft, quick click-click of the bicycle chain. This is the soundtrack to the city, from dawn till dusk and then again from dusk till dawn.

The bicycle is omnipresent here - completely ingrained in city life - which makes isolating the subject exceedingly difficult. Questions about "bicycle culture" become questions about Copenhagen, about Denmark, and about life, here and elsewhere.

And even with a sufficiently wide angle, you can't live in Copenhagen and be a detached observer of "bicycle culture," because before you know it, you too are riding a bicycle. Then you are a Rider. And your opinion on the subject cannot be trusted. It took me only two days here to equip myself with an old bicycle. But I will try to explain, while I still can, what it's like to arrive in a city where it's more important to ride a bicycle than to speak the native language.

Bikes, bikes everywhere

There is not a place in this city, not a bridge, not a park and not a dead-end block, where you cannot see a bicycle. You could stand with your face to a wall and you would catch the flicker of a moving bike in your peripheral vision. They are parked against trees, against buildings, in town squares and in bike racks, and never chained up to poles or trees for security.

Safety and order

But since nobody bothers to secure a bike, nobody has to. There's safety in numbers. And that principle applies to the actual riding of the bikes, too. Over a third of workers commute by bike. They also bike to the park, to the grocery store, and to the club. Even policemen ride bikes.

On every street with substantial automobile traffic, there is a bike lane physically separated or elevated from the roadway. Drivers wait for passing bikers to make a turn. To an American, this level of respect for cyclists is incredible.

Cycling in Copenhagen is safe and organized, as it must be - with the amount of bikes involved in the morning rush-hour, signals are indispensable and bike traffic is a real issue. Everyone stops at red lights. You are more likely to break a rule than break a bone.

Urban biking as counterculture

The popularity of bicycles in Copenhagen has brought new infrastructure, legitimizing the activity. And that legitimacy, in turn, has made cycling even more popular. But legitimacy and popularity have their disadvantages, and after my awe for the sheer quantity of bikers had subsided, I began to feel some nostalgia for urban biking as counterculture.

There are so many bikes in Copenhagen, it's hard to get a little space for yourself - physically and culturally. Waiting in a line of forty-five cyclists at a stoplight, I had to admit that something had been lost in the expansive infrastructure and the popularity: the freedom of the open road. Stoplights, narrow paths, signals, traffic: cycling here has high degree of regimentation and order that can be constricting and frustrating. Every time you work up a little speed, there's another red light. And the morning commute feels like a mountain climb on the Tour de France.

There is something endearing about a city where cyclists are rogue agents, passing through red lights and, having broken free from traffic, making wide s-turns across the avenues, owning the street. Urban cycling, where I'm from, is for the rebellious, the impatient, and the fearless. It's a burgeoning counter-culture, it's unsafe and disorganized, and it's great.

A cultural bridge

But for now, I'm willing to make the trade. I've never ridden a bicycle as much as I do here. For while cycling is a highly regulated, organized and popular - all adjectives I generally frown on - ubiquitous infrastructure and societal customs also make cycling an easy cultural entry point. Having a bicycle unlocks the city, shortening geographic and cross-cultural distances. Nothing makes me feel more like a Copenhagener than joining the chorus of well-oiled chains click-clicking through the city streets.

Chaos vs. order

How one responds to this trade-off, chaos for order, remains to be seen. Do anarchic impulses, deprived of one outlet, reorganize around a new illicit activity, like graffiti? Or does bike-induced obedience spread to other aspects of behavior, rendering the rider a patient and respectful citizen?

Copenhagen X