Two-Wheeled Vikings and why I own three bikes: Danes and Cycling

Hello and welcome to the How to Live in Denmark podcast. I'm Kay Xander Mellish. In a country where new cars are taxed at 180%, That means a $20,000 car will cost you $56,000. Bicycles are bound to be popular. Everybody bikes in Denmark. You'll see executives, male and female, in gray pinstripe business suits riding bikes. You'll see people toting their kids around in special bike trailers. You'll see old ladies biking very, very slowly with lots of people behind them. And you'll see me trying to balance my fresh dry cleaning on my bike, because I don't have a car. The fact that Denmark is relatively flat helps. Nobody likes to bike uphill. As does the fact the climate is temperate. Denmark is as far north as parts of Alaska, but it usually isn't bitterly cold in the winter. So even in the winter, you'll see Danish commuters pumping their bikes through the snow. In Copenhagen, the bike lanes get plowed before the streets do. Most people in Copenhagen have more than one bike, sometimes 3. One might be a sport racing bike or a mountain bike, and the other might be a shopper bike, one with a big basket for bringing home groceries. It's also quite common to have an extra ugly bike. An ugly bike is a bike that gets no love, and often no maintenance. It's a rusted, broken-down bike you use for short commutes and then leave at the train station. When I used to work at Carlsberg, the beer company, I'd take my shopper bike to the train station by my house, get on the train, get off at the stop near Carlsberg, where I had another bike waiting— an ugly bike. It wasn't a very nice neighborhood, so I needed a not-very-nice bike, something that wouldn't be worth the effort to steal. I'd ride the ugly bike to my office, and then at the end of the day, I'd ride the ugly bike back to the station by Carlsberg, leave it there, get on the train, get off at the stop by my house, and ride my shopper bike home. 2 bikes and a train— that's a pretty typical Copenhagen commute. If you want to live in Denmark, You will need a bicycle. Bikes are so important that the government actually teaches immigrants how to bike so they can get around. Apparently it also teaches the immigrants good bicycle etiquette, because they have much better cycling manners than the native-born Danes. For Danes, bicycle lanes are the Vikings' last stand! These gentle blonde people, these people who will wait 2 minutes at a red don't walk sign instead of crossing an empty street, Armed with a bike, they turn vicious and brutal. They'll scream at you, lose their temper, start pointless arguments in the bike lane. They'll ring their bicycle bell dozens of times if they think you're holding up their all-important trip to the supermarket. They'll also text while they're cycling, talk on the phone while they're cycling, groove to music through giant headphones while they're cycling. They go through red lights and intentionally go the wrong way in bicycle lanes. They ride straight down sidewalks, ringing their little bells to tell pedestrians to get out of the way. Now, occasionally the police in Copenhagen do bicycle raids. They hide around corners and watch Danish bicyclists do all the things they do on a daily basis. Then they hand out tickets for 750 crowns, which must be a nice little money earner for the kommune. You know, now that I think about it, if they could write a ticket every time Danish Viking bicyclists did something aggressive or illegal, you could cut down on some of those notorious Danish taxes. Think about that, guardians of the welfare state. And that's the How to Live in Denmark podcast for this week. This week's podcast has been sponsored by americanvoice.dk. If you're looking for an English voiceover in Denmark, this one Contact us at americanvoice.dk. Music arranged by George Garvis. See you next week. Remember, the How to Live in Denmark book is available for download on amazon.com. You can read it on any phone or tablet. All you need is the Kindle app, and the Kindle app is free. The book's not free, but it's not very expensive either. If you read the book and enjoy it, please leave a review on your local version of amazon.com. It helps other people find the book and find the podcast.