TOUR OF CPH - Sunday 2 July 2023

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On 2 July 2023 - to coincide with the opening of the world architecture congress in the city - a car-free cycle route was established around the centre of the city with a major cycle event for families - for any citizens as well as any tourists who could rent or borrow a bike - as long as they were on two or three wheels.

The ride covered about 8 kilometres in all through the streets of the old city and with twenty stopping places at key historic sites and major buildings where there were panels with QR codes for information.

The route took cyclists first from the Danish Architecture Center over Lille Langebro and along the quay, on the Amager side of the harbour, before riding through Christianshavn and then up to Holmen and close to the opera house.

Heading back along the canal past the Arsenal, they crossed back to the centre over the Inner Harbour Bridge to Nyhavn and then out towards Tolbod before heading across to the King’s Garden and then down through some of the busiest shopping streets in the city to Gammel Strand and around Frederiks kanal and so back to the Architecture Center.

There was an app for route.

All cars and all other motor vehicles were barred from the whole route with just five crossing points, with barriers and marshals, where some locals in their cars were allowed in and out but the only point where there was free and open access for vehicles to enter the central area was at Knippelsbro where vehicles could cross the bridge from Amager to the centre because bikes on the route were under the bridge on the quay.

Cyclists could join and leave the route at any point but there was an official start and finish at the Danish Architecture Centre where there was a festival area on Bryghuspladsen - in front of BLOX - with activities divided into four themes ……..

Green Everything - food, urban gardens and Hello Kitchen
Splash Splash - Green Kayak rubbish collection + fishing in the harbour
Active City - street sports, dancing and Parkour
Game’ on Move it - gaming, exercise + working out

TOUR OF CPH
Sunday 2 July 2023
12 to 15pm

I’m not sure if this event was as well as or instead of the annual Car Free Sunday.
If a date and a route is published later in the summer, I will post it on the blog

car free Sunday September 2021

Many of the cyclists were wearing T shirts with the motto Driving Change for Healthy Cities …. a campaign supported by Novo Nordisk that continues on from a similar cycle ride last year when the barriers for the opening section of the Tour de France last year were kept in place for a second day so that cyclists in the city could try the route

In the city, bike jams are surprisingly common.
OK …. not that surprising when you think about the number of bikes here.
But it’s usually at busy road junctions in the morning or in the evening when cyclists are commuting between home and work ….. here it was simply a hard turn to the left and then immediately a turn to the right to ride down to the canal in Christianshavn that slowed down the cyclists on the Tour.

 

a quick dip in the canal?

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Unfortunately, bikes do end up in the harbour and every so often someone comes round to hoik them back out.

It looks as if these bikes, on the quay of Frederiksholms Kanal near Stormbroen, have been in the water a bit longer than usual

 

update April 2022:
Every Spring a team, with a diver, goes round the harbour and the canals in the centre of the city retrieving what has been thrown into the water.
This year, along with 101 bikes, the haul included:

Three electric scooters
Three electric bikes
Eight standard scooters
Seven shopping carts
20 tyres
11 road signs
30 roadblocks
A flower box

Two bins
Seven scaffolding parts
A table
An umbrella
Two ladders
47 chairs
Three trolleys
Two shotguns

 
 

copenhagen by bike

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This is a new section of the web site.

Because it’s January, I was doing some basic tidying up and general housekeeping for the blog, and I realised how many posts there have been here about bikes and about biking in the city.

Most of these posts have focused on planning issues - on new bridges for new cycle routes or new street layouts - but it is probably useful to pull all these together in one place so, over the coming weeks, old posts will be copied across to this new and separate section.

Recently, I came across this amazing photograph. It appears to date from the early 20th century and shows a man with a bike, out on the frozen harbour, with the triangular fort in the background. For me, it sums up the Copenhagen attitude to having a bike. Basically, there should be nowhere in the city where you can’t cycle.

And you certainly can’t accuse people here of being just fair-weather cyclists.

cycle city copenhagen

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It has been said many times and in many places that there are a lot of bikes in Copenhagen but, even so, it's worth repeating because there really is an amazing number of bikes in the city.

Certainly more bikes than there are cars but the statistics actually show that there are more bikes than people ... approximately five bikes for every four people.

Four out of ten Danes own a car but nine out of ten Danes own a bike and, in Copenhagen, around half of all journeys to work or to school or college are by bicycle.

Bikes first appeared on roads in the city in the late 19th century and by the 1920s and 1930s bikes had become a common and popular form of transport for ordinary people.

The city is relatively flat and, even now, Copenhagen is relatively compact so it is about 15 kilometres (or 9 miles) from Charlottenlund, in the north, to Ørestad or Kastrup on Amager in the south and 13 kilometres (or 8 miles) from Brøndby on the old western defences of the city to the beach on the Sound on the east side of Copenhagen.

Children here learn to ride a bike when they are very, very young and many, from the age of seven, cycle to school alone. Teenagers, with several friends, are happy to pile onto a cargo bike to head out for the evening and everyday you see parents on bikes taking very small kids to nursery school or picking up a bike basket of food at the local shop. As many elderly people continue to use bicycles, they are clearly the popular choice for easy and cheap transport across all age groups.

Bikes are not just used for practical everyday trips but at weekends you see whole families or large groups of friends heading out on trips and racing clubs and bike events, like triathlons, are incredibly popular both with participants but also with large crowds of spectators.

In the inner city, with its narrow cobbled streets, bikes can certainly be quicker and easier than using a car and if you think that finding a bike rack is a hassle then try to find a place to park a car.

If you live in an inner-city apartment building then finding on-street parking for a car is almost impossible but most courtyards have bike racks and, if push comes to shove, or if you have a much cherished and very expensive bike, then carrying the bike up into your entrance hall or up and out onto a balcony, if you have one, is an option.

Each year about 500,000 bikes are bought in Denmark with a population of 5.6 million and I presume most of those are upgrades rather than replacements for bikes that have been lost or stolen although, to be honest, dredging the canals and the harbour for discarded bikes is a well-organised annual event. 

Statistics taken from Cycling Embassy of Denmark
Bicycle statistics from Denmark

Nørrebrogade in the 1950s

 

the bike lane on Vester Voldgade is well used but here, on this particular day, slightly less frantic than Nørrebrogade

this is the route from Lille Langebro, the new bike and pedestrian bridge over the harbour, to Rådhuspladsen - the City Hall and the square in front of the city hall

Lille Langebro

 

Københavnerkortet / The Copenhagen Map

What makes cycling in the city easy and popular is the infrastructure for bikes ... that's the network of designated bike lanes along roads - to separate cyclists from other traffic - that makes being on a bike as safe as possible and there are also green bike lanes, with bikes segregated from vehicles, that make riding a bike fast, safe and a pleasure.

The first bike lane was laid out along Esplanaden, below the citadel, in 1892 so, this year, that's an astounding 130 years ago.

But, of course, there is also a win-win situation for cyclists where the more bikes that there are in the city then the more bike shops and bike repair shops there are and the more enthusiasts and the more bike makers there are and the more chance there is to find exactly the right bike for you.

Perhaps, the only serious problem for cyclists in the city is finding somewhere to leave a bike while you are at work or shopping or when you're out for the evening.

For people commuting every day, cyclists who have lived much of their lives or all their lives in the city, they know exactly where they are going and how they are getting there. That is why cyclists here move fast and get frustrated with tourists or pedestrians who drift around on bike lanes or dither and saunter across at pedestrian crossings .... but, even if you know the city well, keeping track of new bike lanes or plotting a route out to a new place can be a bit of a problem.

I have been meaning to post about Københavnerkortet - The Copenhagen Map - that is an amazing on-line resource.

It's a dynamic map site that is great for planning analysis but you can select features such as bike lanes with bike parking and zoom in or out and turn and save jpg images or even print out maps. It's a great way to understand an area that is new to you or to plan a bike trip out.

Københavnerkortet

 

bike racks at Nørreport on the north edge of the historic centre … a major transport interchange with local buses, a metro station and the busiest train station in the country with suburban and inter-city trains

 

cycle routes across the city with “existing bike path” in maroon and planned bike paths dotted

A “Green Bicycle Route” is marked in green, appropriately, and you can also find the location of racks for City Bikes - the rental bikes - and find bike racks

bike lanes are getting wider .... they are generally 2.3 metres wide, so two people can ride side by side, but the most recent lanes in Copenhagen have set a new standard being 2.8 metres wide which means that a fast-moving cyclist can get past a cargo bike or two cyclists side by side without moving out into car traffic.

it has been shown that when a new bicycle lane is constructed, bike traffic on the road increases by between 10% and 20%

cycle lanes around the historic centre with bike racks … with narrow cobbled streets in the centre of the city, there are very few designated bike lanes although recommended routes are marked

coming into the city there are fast bike lanes into the centre from the north east along Store Kongensgade and out of the city along Bredgade, and from the harbour and the south part of the city to the city hall along Vester Voldgade.

new, better, cycle-friendly lanes are being laid out from Nørreport down Nørregade and, further out, recent road works have improved the bike lanes and road markings on Østerbrogade and along the city end of Amagerbrogade

bikes are given priority or separate time intervals for crossing at busy junctions with traffic lights and blue lanes across junctions are used both to mark clear routes for bikes and to warn drivers in cards and vans and lorries of the danger if they are turning across lanes where bikes have priority

 

copenhagen cargo bikes then …

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Københavns Stadsarkiv

Copenhagen is famous for the number bicycles in the city but it’s also a great city for cargo bikes because, compared with many cities, it is relatively flat and relatively compact. There is busy and, at times, fast-moving traffic but there are cycle lanes through much of the inner urban area that are safe and most are wide enough for cargo bikes.

Looking at old photographs in the archive of Københavns Museum, it is clear that early cargo bikes with three wheels - two at the front and one wheel at the back - were common by the 1930s and took features from earlier handcarts used in markets and used around the city for lighter loads.

Cargo bikes with two wheels and with a wide and shallow basket or rack on the front were used by delivery boys - particularly butchers’ boys

Recent statistics show that, with a population of approximately 600,000, the city has 120,000 cars but 675,000 bikes of which over 40,000 or 6% are cargo bikes. Just over 20% of families in the city own a car but 17% own a cargo bike. Some families who have a cargo bike might well have several traditional bikes as well, with old bicycles for trips to the office or to the station and expensive racing bikes, or touring bikes, used at weekends.

I am curious to know if there are statistics for car use in Copenhagen that have compared journey frequencies and methods of transport for families with just a car and for families with a car and a cargo bike or bicycles? Is it the weight of a load or distance that makes a family leave the bike and take the car.

In the inner city, the postal service and DHL deliver post and small parcels by cargo bike and there are independent deliver companies and courier services that use cargo bikes. One independent and cooperatively-owned delivery company has brought back the old BY-EXPRESSEN name.

With the pandemic there are now more food-delivery services by bike although most orders for meals, for instance a pizza ordered by phone, are usually carried in large insulated back packs and on a standard two-wheel bike rather than by cargo bike.

Here in Copenhagen, many people either have or can borrow a cargo bike and cargo bikes can be rented so this may have restricted or slowed down the emergence of more commercial companies delivering by cargo bike: people can and do pick up and take home much of what they need themselves. Denmark is still an Amazon-lite country but if they do get a foothold here will that mean more deliveries by bike or more white vans delivering from large distribution centres on the edge of the city?

Any bike can carry cargo - it depends on how hard pressed or foolhardy the cyclist - and even ordinary, light-weight bikes can have a rack or a basket for the stop off at a supermarket but, strictly, a cargo bike has a fixed box or a platform for loads. The most common types are the traditional Christiania with three wheels and a front box in plywood or the stretched two-wheel bike with a low platform between the wheels.

Bikes with a stretched frame have a fairly-well established history here and were often referred to as Long Johns which is slightly confusing for English readers who think long-johns are long and thick under wear although, I guess, in cold weather you could have a delivery rider on a Long John in long johns.

Some cargo bikes you see here are fitted out for all possible circumstances …. some with a full set of parcel racks, child seats and even a separate trailer.

Overloaded cargo bikes are a common sight because most people here think that how you stack up the parcels, dogs, children, house plants and furniture, when you move home, or how you transport a load of friends, when you party, is really up to you.

post is delivered to my apartment by cargo bike … here’s the proof

above - people queuing for firewood in a yard off Solvgade in the 1940s and it shows clearly the similarities between a traditional handcart and a three wheel cargo bike.

below, a photograph of Borgergade in the 1950s with different types of cargo bike … note the bike on the left, parked at the kerb, with a deeper loading platform and with thicker pneumatic tyres that were clearly meant to take heavier loads.

Københavns Stadsarkiv

Københavns Stadsarkiv 6498

Norsk Farforetning specialised in meat balls. Their shop was on Værnedamsvej - in what is now known as the French Quarter - and this photograph of their delivery boys and their bikes was taken in the courtyard behind the shop in 1935

BY-EXPRESS delivery boys with their bikes

this depot for Danish Railways was on the corner of Nikolajgade and Laksegade - two blocks south of Sankt Nikolj Kirke - was some way from the railway station so appears to have been an early example of a strategically sited distribution centre
it loks as if parcels arrived on a flat-bed truck and were collected and taken to their final destination on cargo bikes

 

… and copenhagen cargo bikes now

A number of companies and engineering works here produce cargo bikes so the choice and range is enormous. Here I’ve picked just four of the obvious and best-known companies.

Christiania bikes
Fabriksområdet 91.
1440 København
www.christianiabikes.com

The Christiania bike has been in production since 1972 and has to be seen as a model for the modern cargo bike by which all others are judged.

The design is distinctive with a large cargo box in plywood and a simple horizontal bar, returning down at each corner of the box, rather than conventional handlebars.

More than any other bike it seems to survive whatever the weather and the kids throw at it.

There is still a workshop and sale point in Christiania although the main factory is now out on the island of Bornholm.

 

Butchers & Bicycles
Flæsketorvet 18,
1711 København K
www.butchersandbicycles.com

This cargo bike was designed by Morten Wagener and Morten Mogensen and it was given a Danish Design Award in 2020.

The distinct feature of the bike is the articulated front wheels on either side of the cargo box so a rider can and does lean into the curve of a turn …. just stand on the Eliasson bridge, opposite the Black Diamond library, and watch how riders with these bikes come through its smooth but tight sequence of curves.

 

Bullitt
Frederiksborggade 43,
1361 København K
www.larryvsharry.com

Designed to be fast and manoeuvrable, the first Bullitt cargo bike was produced in April 2008.

Overall, the bike is 243 cm long and 46 cm wide and the basic model, without accessories, weighs just 19 kg.

Including the weight of the batteries, the eBullitt - released in March 2015 - comes in at 28.8 kg.

With a load platform very close to the ground, this bike keeps the centre of gravity for the bike, the rider and the load as low as possible for stability. The platform is 71 cm long and 46 cm wide overall and the maximum recommended load for the bike is 174 kilos including the weight of the rider.

I had to include this link to a recent promotional video for the Bullitt bike.
For reasons I can’t quite explain, it makes me smile each time I see it.
Maybe it’s simply that it sums up so much that is good about living and biking in the city.

 

Biomega PEK
Biomega
Østerbrogade 78,
2100 København
www.biomega.com

Designed by KiBiSi and Biomega, this bike has a large fixed baskets that is reminiscent of the racks that were used on bikes for butcher’s boys or post boys in the early 20th century.

With a light aluminium frame, the PEK weighs only 17 kilos so it is actually light enough to be picked up with one hand for lifting up steps or to carry the bike inside.

The front carrier is 39.7 cm wide and 47.5 deep for a recommended maximum load of 50 kilos.

note:

Biomega have just announced that they are to produce an electric version of this cargo bike and are now accepting pre-release orders. From photographs, It looks as if the battery will be in a deep cross bar.

Also promised on the Biomega web site is a stylish and “weightless” trailer that has a long tow bar and a single wheel but its own drop-down stand for when the bike and trailer are parked.

KiBiSi … Kilo Design (Ki) / BIG Architecture (Bi) / Skibsted Ideation (Si)

 

cargo bikes

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Yesterday, there was an interesting article in The Guardian about using cargo bikes rather than vans for deliveries in urban areas.

It was prompted by the recent publication of a report on the benefit of using cargo bikes in London that was compiled by Ersilia Verlinghieri, Irena Itova, Nicolas Collignon and Rachel Aldred, and has been published by Possible - a UK based climate charity that is working towards a zero carbon society.

The article summarised important key conclusions from the report:

  • electric cargo bikes can deliver parcels faster than vans in a city centre - some 60% faster … cargo bikes can drop off, on average, 10 parcels in an hour to six parcels by a van driver

  • a delivery bike can pick up and deliver by tighter routes - taking more short cuts - and bikes can often cut around traffic congestion

  • delivery bikes can usually get closer, door to door, and waste less time trying to find somewhere to park

  • even with a power-assisted bike, there are considerable reductions in emissions and pollution

Research for the report included an assessment of routes used by the delivery service Pedal Me with deliveries from 100 random days over a season analysed and then compared with calculations of the equivalent mileage and time that vans would have clocked up.

For that sample alone, over just 100 days, cargo bikes saved four tonnes of CO2.

The conclusion was that "with the 100,000 cargo bikes introduced in Europe between 2018 and 2020 they are estimated to be saving, each month, the same amount of CO2 needed to fly about 24,000 people from London to New York and back."

I presume the conclusion was not that if there were more delivery bikes then more travellers could make more trips to New York because that really would be a particularly perverse form of carbon offset.

The important conclusion of the report was that "estimates from Europe suggest that up to 51% of all freight journeys in cities could be replaced by cargo bikes."

These photographs were taken on the inner harbour bridge and I thought that was a clever idea … most cyclists in the city move fast and the idea was that the slope, on the run up to the bridge, would slow them down a bit but I’d underestimated just how fit and fast the local cyclists are.

So it’s not my finest set of photos.

For a start, I should have set a wider aperture and shallower depth of field but then I’m more used to taking photographs of buildings and chairs that do not move.

And it was frustrating because, as I walked up to the bridge, three girls, dressed in their best, came past in the box of a Christiania that was decked out in pink ribbons and flowers on the way to a hen party and, as I headed for home, a bike came past with a second-hand Arne Jacobsen Swan Chair strapped to the front and I missed that too.

If I have time, I might have a second go at this and will update the gallery.

 
 
 

The report has some useful graphics with one (reproduced above) showing different types of cargo bike with possible loads and average widths .... a crucial consideration for planning departments when upgrading busy cycle routes that may need wider lanes and wider spacing for any bollards that are there to deter or block access by motor vehicles.

Replacing just 10% of motorised deliveries in London could save “133,300 tonnes of CO2 and 190.4 thousand Kg of NOx a year” and "would reduce urban congestion and free a total of 384,000 square metres of public space usually occupied by parked vans and 16,980 hours of vehicle traffic per day."

By 2019, there were 4.1 million vans registered in the UK with 58% of all vans owned by a business but 46% of the kilometres covered by van deliveries are in urban areas and a Department for Transport survey shows a proportion of daily journeys - 39% of those collecting or delivering goods and 43% of vans delivering materials - were no further than 25 kms from their home base and that makes more deliveries by cargo bike feasible.

Cargo bikes deliver faster and cleaner than vans, study finds,
by Damian Carrington, The Guardian Thursday 5 Aug 2021
Possible
The Promise of Low-Carbon Freight: Benefits of cargo bikes in London

 

Copenhagen - directing and protecting cyclists in the city

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cyclists come out of nowhere, - going somewhere - gong there fast

In Copenhagen there are now long-distance bike routes through and across the city for fast and safe journeys where bikes are separated from motor vehicles but on the narrower streets, particularly in the old part of the city, that segregation is not always possible.

Streets that mix together cyclists and pedestrians but without cars are surprisingly successful though maybe it's not that surprising because many of the people walking are cyclists themselves. Most people here started riding bikes almost as soon as they started walking … or actually before they started walking if you count being in a child’s seat on the cross bar or in the box on the front of a Christiania with their parents pedalling. And, unlike tourists, locals appreciate that once a cyclist gets going, then the last thing they need is a pedestrian vaguely sauntering around with no real idea where they are going or someone who is so busy looking at their phone that they end up making cyclists swerve or stop.

Where there is no option and bikes have to share a road with fast moving cars or heavy traffic then there are marked cycle lanes.

Here, Store Kongensgade is a busy road but it’s a one-way street, so at least traffic and bikes are all going in the same direction. The road has a lot of cars and buses and commercial traffic and they can be moving fast because it's a main route into the city from the suburbs and towns along the coast to the north.

Here, the last time the road was resurfaced, the bike lane was made wider so faster cyclists can overtake slower bikes, but, and more important, a high kerb was formed between the bikes and the cars to stop cars parking on the lane and to stop them swerving into the cycle lane to get round a car turning left too slowly on the left side of the road.

This is the new surface across Gammel Strand in the centre of the city.

Here, the long triangular space was dug up when a new metro station was constructed. That was the opportunity to re plan the space. Cars can no longer drive through so the area of tables and chairs at restaurants along one side of the space can expand outwards but inevitably pedestrians start to saunter and take odd diagonal routes or stop suddenly and without warning. Bicycles have a sort of recommended route along the space that is defined by smooth stone setts rather than the rough setts of the rest of the area. Cyclists literally feel they are on the right line but I'm not convinced pedestrians are as quick to spot the difference.

post on Gammel Strand

At major junctions, particularly where there is heavy or fast-moving traffic, there are blue bicycle lanes across the roads. In part, these are to remind cyclists not to cut the corner but - and much much more important - they remind drivers of vehicles that if they are turning into a side or cross street then cyclists on the inside lane of the road have absolute priority when they are going straight on.

HC Andersens Boulevard is a fast road with heavy traffic from the main bridge over the harbour at Langebro, on up past the city hall and Tivoli to the lakes. Roads crossing this are also generally busy … here with Ny Kongensgade to the right and Niels Brooks Gade to the left and with Carlsberg Ny Glyptotek on the corner.

From above it is possible to see how feeder lanes towards the centre of the wide road have been marked out for traffic waiting to cross over in front of oncoming traffic, but this not only takes up a lot of road width but it also means that clear road markings and signs for cyclists are even more necessary to protect those cyclists.

So, here there are also white dashed lines on the edge of the blue lane to reinforce the fact that cars have to stop and check and give way to cyclists who in this situation are on their inside or what is called in the UK the driver’s blind side.

the pedestrian crossing at the north-east corner of Kongens Nytorv with the square to the left - in this view - Bredgade straight ahead and Nyhavn to the right

One of the more complicated junctions in the city where bikes and cars and pedestrians are all trying to do different things is at the north-east corner of Kongens Nytorv.

Or, at least, it's the place where I have heard, more than anywhere else, tourists taught choice Danish swear words by Danish cyclists,

The main road traffic going round the square is heavy but at least rational … it’s one way and all going anticlockwise. Some of the traffic that has come past the theatre and Charlottenborg Palace, turns left, here at these lights, to go across the front of the French Embassy - the elaborate palace in the photo - and then on up Gothersgade but most of the traffic carries straight on along Bredgade … a long and wide one-way street that takes traffic north out of the square. It’s the main road to Østerbro and then on back to those suburbs north along the coast. Store Kongensgade - the road bringing in traffic from the north (see above) comes in at the north-west corner of the square.

To the right of the photo - to the right of the sign to show vehicles cannot turn right - is the north quay of Nyhavn - one of the most popular tourist destinations in the city. People heading for Nyhavn tend to come from Strøget - the Walking Street - and walk across the central part of the square and that's all fine and they wait at the very wide pedestrian crossing to cross to Nyhavn and that's all fine except that many are chatting and are distracted or are looking across to the harbour ahead or looking at phones to check for details of the name of that restaurant that some app or other has recommended. They are vaguely aware of cars coming from their right and driving round the square on the normal side and in the normal direction but ……..

…. but virtually none of them realise that there is a very busy and fast bicycle lane that comes down Gothersgade - in the opposite direction to the vehicles following the one-way system out. Then, at the square (top right on the air view) the cycle route continues, between the road and the central area of the square, to the opposite corner at Bredgade. There are lights and two bike lanes marked and a narrow blue bicycle lane that lets anyone on a bike go straight over and then to turn to their left into Bredgade but most want to do something pedestrians don't expect …. so, if the lights are with them, cyclists, without slowing down much, can turn sharp right at the corner, still against the traffic, and then sharp left again to cross the road at the corner of Charlottenborg, to go down the south quay of Nyhavn to the new or newish cycle bridge - the inner harbour bridge to Christianshavn. And a lot of cyclists do and particularly when they are heading back from work to home in Christianshavn or Amager.

And you learn the swear words and see just how angry cyclists get - and quite justifiably - when tourists, anxious to get their drink or grub, either ignore the red man on the traffic light and try to cross but don’t look to their left or, and as bad, start to edge forward and crowd over on to the first part of the pedestrian crossing so they are standing on and blocking the cycle route cutting across left to right.

That's why the real message to all tourists would be to wait for the green man. You don't have to wait for long. Cyclists move fast and they are quiet - until they swear - and if cyclists, in retaliation, start to ignore red lights - or more ignore a red light than do now - then there really will be mayhem.

Kongens Nytorv overall view from Google Earth and a detail of the north-east corner of the square with red arrows to show the different routes taken by cyclists …. in contrast motor vehicles come from the left and either go straight on or turn to their left past the French embassy.

Approximately 19,000 cyclists a day use the inner harbour bridge and a significant proportion of them ride along the south quay of Nyhavn so coming from the bridge or heading to the bridge they use this junction.

Google have not updated their air photographs since the new Cityring of the Metro was completed. During the construction work, the square was a huge building site with the centre fenced off with hoardings but the circle line of the metro opened last Autumn and the square has been returned to the city with new stone setts and young lime trees have been planted in a double oval around the central equestrian statue

today is United Nations World Bicycle Day

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“Acknowledging the uniqueness, longevity and versatility of the bicycle, which has been in use for two centuries, and that it is a simple, affordable, reliable, clean and environmentally fit sustainable means of transportation, fostering environmental stewardship and health, the General Assembly decided to declare 3 June World Bicycle Day.”

UN World Bicycle Day

 

new cycle lanes at Dybbølsbro

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New and very wide cycle lanes have been added between two existing bridges that cross the main railway close to Dybbølsbro railway station. The work was completed at the end of October but there have been a few problems.

Not structural problems but working out how to deal with very large numbers of cyclists and how to separate out vehicles, pedestrians and bikes.

The work has meant extensive alterations to the existing bridges … one bridge with a road for traffic in both directions and an outer footpath and also bikes heading away from the city centre and, to its east, a separate narrow bridge for pedestrians and a lane for bikes heading into the city with a gap between the two bridges.

That arrangement could no longer cope with the rapidly growing number of pedestrians and cyclists crossing over the railway.

A large new area of housing at the south harbour, below Fisketorvet, means more and more people use the route over the railway to get to Vesterbro and from there to the central railway station and beyond that to the city centre. In addition, the construction of extensive developments of housing and apartments along the harbour on the Amager side, in Havnestad and Bryggen Syd, are now being completed so, again, this has meant a growing number of cyclists using Dybbølsbro to reach the city.

The remodelled bridge is not complicated in itself, being a straight run of just over 300 metres between the area of Vesterbro and a shopping centre called Fisketorvet and from there, by way of two relatively new bridges that cross the harbour, cyclists can get across the harbour to Amager.

Fisketorvet, the shopping centre, is about to undergo major remodelling to add outward-facing shops around the outside of present covered shopping mall and that work will coincide with the completion of a new metro link with a new metro station at the south end of the shopping centre. There is to be a new inner-city IKEA along a narrow plot of land between the railway and Kalvebod Brygge and, in addition, a new bus station is planned for a narrow strip of land along the railway below the bridge on the harbour side.

Added to all this is the unusual topography and what appears to be an ad hoc approach to planning in this area in the middle of the 20th century so the problems are compounded.

The main railway line that heads into the central station to the east is in a deep cutting with the main platforms of the Dybbølsbro station reached by separate staircases down from the east pavement of the bridge. In fact, this is not a cutting down for the railway but a massive building up of infill on either side because the railway must be close to the level of the sea bed in a wide bay here through to the late 19th century. 

The original line of the beach was along what is now Sønder Boulevard so over 700 metres back from the current quay of the harbour.

The first railway line into Copenhagen, built in the 1840s, followed the beach and then, through the last decades of the 19th century, new wharves, a meat market and gas works were constructed on new land claimed from the bay beyond the railway. The main rail lines were moved outwards, to the present course, with engine works to the west and with a dock road - Kalvebod Brygge - beyond. Then further new wharves and smaller boat yards and industrial buildings on down beyond a power station built in the 1930s below the site of what is now Fisketorvet.

Fisketorvet was the site of the main Copenhagen fish market from 1958 until 1999 - hence the name of the the shopping centre built on the site. Docks and wharves here and on the Amager side, along Islands Brygge, were busy through the 1950s and 1960s but then began a relatively rapid decline and that released the land for massive areas of new housing with some as close as a kilometre but none further than 3 kilometres from the central railway station.

It is the massive increase in the number of people living around the south harbour that explains why there are now more and more cyclists crossing Dybbølsbro.

looking from the south towards Vesterbro with the new cycle lanes

 
 
Dybbolsbro.jpg
 

view from Google Earth that shows the previous arrangement with two bridge over the main railway at Dybbølsbro
- the gap between the two parts is now a 10 metre wide cycle route with lanes in both direction

But coping with the massive numbers of cyclists is not a simple problem.

The previous arrangement at Dybbølsbro had two bridges with a gap between them. The narrower east bridge had a single direction cycle way for bikes heading towards Vesterbro and a relatively narrow pavement on the city side with the steps down to the station platform so it was very busy for most of the day. The wider bridge to the west had a road with cars going in both directions and, on the outside or west side, a cycle track for bikes heading south from Vesterbro to Fisketorvet and Amager.

Add to this four busy roads with bike and car traffic converging on the north end of the bridge and, at the south end, slip roads up from Kalvebod Brygge for cars heading to Veterbro or for cars wanting to drop off people or pick up people from a tight round-a-bout in front of the main entrance to the shopping centre.

Then, finally, the planners had to take into account the cyclists who regularly use the bridges. A new bridge for pedestrians and cyclists was built over the harbour between Amager and Fisketorvet in 2006 and this has a straight and wide lane for bikes separated from the pedestrian side by a high solid spine so bikes can move quickly but safely over the bridge. Then, in 2014, a new bridge just for bikes - Cykelslangen or Cycle Snake - was built to take them from the front of the shopping centre and in high sweeping curves above the water of part of the harbour and a swimming pool to the bridge over the harbour. Those banked and sweeping curves have meant that cyclists get up quite a speed and maintain that all the way across.

The solution for Dybbølsbro was to fill in the gap between the bridges. The outer west side of the old bridge is now a foot path and the east path, formerly for bikes, is now for pedestrians but the real gain is 10 metres in the middle for the widest cycle track in the city with bikes going in both directions. That is not the problem. The problem is, in part, the number of bikes and, in part, the speed of the bikes …. although that’s fair enough when you find out just how far some cyclists ride on their commute. Then add the very complicated junctions at each end with cars, pedestrians and bikes crossing and recrossing each others lanes.

1 the turning circle in front of the entrance to the shopping centre looking north to the bridge
2 crossing over Kalvebod Brygge
3 the bikes in the foreground have just come over the harbour heading to Dybbølsbro

 
 

In the last two months there have been several changes to lane markings and an unusually bewildering number of new road signs have appeared and it is still not right.

Maybe it needs fewer signs and simpler bold road markings or possibly no road markings.

At the Amager side of the harbour bridge there are bikes coming in from all directions; bikes coming over the bridge fast and pedestrians crossing backwards and forwards to get to the harbour ferry that has a stop close to the east side of the bridge on the Amager side and as long as no one dawdles and no one dithers and changes their mind then there don’t seem to be any accidents. 

 

looking across Bryggebroen - the bridge over the harbour - towards Amager from the Fisketorvet side

from the Amager side - the view over Bryggebroen - the harbour bridge - looking towards Fisketorvet

the way to Islands Brygge from the harbour bridge on the Amager side

 

Supercykelstier - two new Super Cycle routes for Copenhagen

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Zoom out from Dybbølsbro and its temporary problems and you can see how it fits in with a wider long-term plan to create long-distance bike routes through and round the city. The circuit of the harbour with a loop of 13 kilometres of bike paths is now complete and plans are well advanced for two major new dedicated bike routes down through Amager.

Much of the best planning in the city is now about linking more and more of the parts so about linking together the pedestrian streets, linking together, in an appropriate way, the green corridors and linking together the bike routes.

 

Proposed routes for two new Supercykelstier / Super Bike Paths 

① Dybbelsbro - new bridge October 2019
② Cykelslangen / Cycle Snake 2014
and Bryggebroen 2006
③ Inderhavnsbroen / Inner Harbour Bridge 2016
④ Cirkelbroen / Circle Bridge - Olafur Eliasson 2015
⑤ Lille Langebro 2019
⑥ Alfred Nobels Bro over Frederiksholmsløbet 2018
to link Fisketorvet to the housing of the south harbour

a new store for Biomega

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Biomega - the Danish bike company - have moved their store out of the city centre and they are now at Østerbrogade 78 so out north of the north end of the lakes and just beyond Trianglen.

Biomega

Donkey bikes

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I guess I spend too much time looking up at buildings as I walk around Copenhagen and don’t give enough attention to things on the pavement because I have only just noticed these bright orange hire bikes from Donkey Republic that have appeared around the city. Actually, I only noticed these ones because a clutch of three were left near the front of the apartment. Is there a collective term for bikes? Presumably not a fleet ... like for cars when they are for hire.

The design of their web page is pretty good with clear instructions for how to set up a hire and unlock the bikes, some advice about rules for riding a bike in the city and some good recommendations for places to visit but I was a bit curious about the text on the bike carriers. Several Danish friends have told me that they don’t understand English puns … or rather their grasp of the meaning of the words is spot on … it's just that they can’t understand why the English find puns quite so funny. But then I suspect that these are aimed at tourists and visitors and not so much the locals. 

Looking at the map on the Donkey app this evening one bike seems to have got as far as the airport and another to Ballerup so if I’m bored I might keep tracking that one to see if it is heading for the west coast.

Donkey Republic

 

you can now cycle ... or run ... around the harbour in Copenhagen

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the information panel at Nyhavn

 

on the far side of Inderhavnsbroen looking across to Paper Island

 

With the opening of Belvederebroen at the south end of the harbour at the end of last year … along with Cirkelbroen or Circle Bridge designed by Olafur Eliasson that opened in August 2015 to cross the canal on the Amager side of the harbour and the Inderhavnsbroen that opened in July 2016 to link across the harbour between Nyhavn and Holmen … it is now possible to bike, run or walk around the harbour in Copenhagen. 

The complete circuit is 13 kilometres although shorter loops around smaller chunks using the older bridges at Knippelsbro or Langebro or by crossing over Bryggebroen - the bridge at Fisketorvet - there are shorter circuits of two or four or seven kilometres.

At intervals there are distinct signs in dark blue … appropriately close to the paint colour called Copenhagen Blue. Each post is at a key point on the route and they give, in Danish and in English, a short description of the immediate area and its history. If I was running the circuit I’d probably be using the sign for support as a tried to regain my breath … well beyond taking in the information but trying to pretend I was doing a few stretches before lurching off on the next section. My guess would be that most Danes running and certainly all Danes on bikes are going much too fast to read anything as they dash by.

These signs also have a map that shows the route and the stops of the harbour ferry - the Havnebus - if you feel like seeing the harbour from the water. But what is interesting, and more important, is that the maps mark the dedicated cycle routes into and across the city. This tells you something significant about the planning policy in Copenhagen … there is a historic core where transport has to be co-ordinated and there is the well-known and well-established and coherent policy to encourage cycling rather than car use but, more than that, the cycle routes and the harbour circuit are about linking the city together, to make places accessible to everyone so this circuit is about much more than the regeneration of the docks.

A map of the harbour can be downloaded if you want to plan your route but why not live dangerously and just go for it ... follow the signs ... you could end up back where you started ... or somewhere you hadn't planned to end up ... so much more interesting.

down by Belvederebroen

Dursley-Pedersen update

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Back in May there was a post here about the Dursley-Pedersen bike that had just been added to the collection at the design museum in Copenhagen.

The bikes are still in production but I have still not seen any actually being ridden in the city so it was worth a trip over to Christiania - to the bike workshops of Christiania Cykler there - to see the current models.

I’m still not sure how people on these bikes cope with Copenhagen cobbles or is that the real benefit of that long low-hung hammock for a saddle - or cope with the pressure and rush of a Copenhagen peloton at full speed on a commute over one of the bridges and through the traffic. 

The options for different handlebars and modifications to the arrangement of the frame were impressive but I did note that none of the bikes in the showroom had that vicious-looking spike as all the bits of the frame came together above the handlebars in the early version … surely lethal if you hit a rut or a drain at the wrong angle and go hurtling over the top when the bike stops abruptly. Versions had the handlebars at the top so if they are straight then the posture is upright … sort of more Dutch … but some had handlebars that swept down like demented bull’s horns. Perhaps that’s the way to deal with pedestrians who try to cross when their little man is on red and your light is on green … 

 

a Dursley-Pedersen cykel - a new acquisition for Designmuseum Danmark

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Designmuseum Danmark has acquired an original Dursley-Pedersen cykel for their collection.

Mikael Pedersen, the Danish engineer and inventor, moved to the English town of Dursley in 1893 to work for a company that made agricultural machinery … Pedersen had invented a new and successful design of milk separator.

In 1896, his design for a bicycle went into production and over the following years more than 30,000 were made. 

The seat, made from netting covered with leather and held by straps and wires and springs, was lighter than what was then the conventional form of heavy leather saddle but it was also designed to make the ride more comfortable … the bike was nicknamed the hammock. 

There was also a lightweight racing version of the cycle and a tandem and a folding design that all used the same form of triangular frame that had been inspired by bridge engineering.

A modern version of the design has been produced in Denmark by Jesper Sølling since 1978.

at the moment the bike is in small exhibition area before the cafe at Designmuseum Danmark

 

a recent window display at Illums Bolighus

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I guess that only in Copenhagen would a high end furniture store come up with a window display that put a cargo bike - be it a high-tech cargo bike - with plates of marshmallows and champagne glasses. 

Not following fashion fashion … is this sort of flesh colour what everyone should be buying this Spring? Even for a bike?

 

265,700 bikes in Copenhagen and counting

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Cars in Copenhagen are now outnumbered by bikes … it must be official because it was in a recent article in the Guardian.

Someone has calculated that 35,080 bikes have been added to the total this year alone so that means that there are 252,600 cars in the city and 265,700 bikes and half of them are at Nørreport railway station.

 

 

Two-wheel takeover: bikes outnumber cars for the first time in Copenhagen, Athlyn Cathcart-Keays, Guardian, Wednesday 30 November 2016

Bike City Copenhagen

bikes at northmodern

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Most of the posts here about the design fairs at northmodern have focused on furniture, and on design and craftsmanship but each fair has an extensive range of exhibitors showing products that are more broad in their context … what is sometimes described as lifestyle design.

Of course for Copenhagen you can’t get anything more ‘lifestyle’ than bikes. Danes may have a reputation for the design and quality of their lighting and their furniture but when it comes to spending their hard-earned money and treating themselves to something special, design wise, it’s just as likely to be a bike as a lamp or a chair that they buy … it’s difficult to appreciate just how many bikes there are in the city. Not just bikes but extremely expensive bikes. And an amazing number of bike shops.

At northmodern this August there were a fair few designers and manufacturers showing their latest bikes. Several showed bikes with amazingly small but incredibly powerful motors that are supposed to take away some of the effort but having had to leap for the side as people zoomed past trying out the bikes in the aisles of the exhibition, with rather broad grins on their faces, the boost was slightly more than a gentle push.

Two companies stood out. The first was, but don’t repeat this, not Danish but, scandal of scandals, French but the colours of the bikes from Martone Cycling Co are amazing.

The other company is actually from Copenhagen. Butchers & Bicycles make what appears to be THE luxury cargo bike but the real selling point is that their bikes are built to tilt™. Watching their videos, articulation of the frame allows the rider to lean inwards as they ‘bank’ around a sweeping corner … rather like motorcross and not that much slower.

 

Trafiklegepladsen in Copenhagen

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Writing about Blinkenbikes I mentioned Trafiklegepladsen. It’s on the edge of a large park called Fælledparken on the north side of Copenhagen and is close to the main football stadium. It’s laid out with an extensive and fairly complex arrangement of roads with round-a-bouts and crossings and traffic lights but all scaled down and it is where Copenhagen children learn about riding on roads. There are classes there but there seems to be open access most of the time so you see parents with their kids at weekends and in all sorts of weather.

A new building was completed last year at the entrance that was designed by the architecture practice MLRP with toilets and large areas under cover that can be opened up by folding back doorways for teaching and repair spaces and there are stores for go karts. The area also has picnic tables, play equipment and fun things like vertical rotating brushes of a car wash though I’m sure most parents are relieved to find there is no water.

 

 

I liked the idea that clearly the little boy was teaching his dad to use a scooter.

Just after I took the photo of the little girl in a pink hat I had to leap for the pavement as she came racing past. Admittedly she had the green light at the cross roads and the little man on the crossing light was on red and my Danish is not up to arguing the point that actually she was on the wrong side of the road ... better to just get out of the way when a Copenhagen cyclist gets up a bit of speed.

 
 

Schools and nursery schools around the city often have their own miniature road layouts in their playgrounds. Children in Copenhagen start riding bikes on the public roads at a very early age and this is a good way to teach them to be confident and safe.

 Above is the road system laid out in the playground of Kastanie Huset nursery and kindergarten on the north edge of De Gamle By in Copenhagen.
All the bikes upturned by the kids, presumably for servicing, made me smile.

 

 

Close to Kastanie Huset is the new Forfatterhuset kindergarten designed by the architectural practice COBE completed last year and also with its own road layout in the playground.

 

Blinkenbike

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Nikolaj Blinkenberg Willadsen started his company Blinkenbike about 18 months ago and he has taken customer involvement in the design process a step further. He has used two nephews and two young nieces to test-ride the bikes at each stage and he took prototypes to the Trafiklegepladsen in Fælledparken … thats the Traffic School with child-size roads and round-a-bouts and small-scale traffic lights in the main park in the north part of the city where children in Copenhagen are taught to ride bikes on a safe simulation of the public roads …. and left them and walked away to watch from a distance how toddlers played with his bikes.

The results are pretty amazing. Children, watching the bikes being put together, engage with the whole process very quickly and at a much younger age than I would have anticipated … I think Nikolaj said that his nephew was just 14 months old.

There are very clever ideas here like the round, square and triangular slots in the cover to the ‘tool box’ on the cross bar which links to the standard shape-recognition toys nearly all young children have seen but that quickly develops to the next stage with a nut and spanner arrangement and a robust screw driver that is used for a wooden bolt with a wood screw thread that adjusts the height of the saddle. If you think about that, it is a very complex mental image, to try to work out how and why a screw thread works and it’s something that is hidden as you turn the top … many adults I know still struggle with remembering which way you turn a bolt or screw to tighten it or slacken it.

Again, as with the shelves from Wood Junkie, there are various accessories to customise the design and, that important word again, ‘engage’ the user.

Blinkenbike