Cycling is a great hobby of mine. In the second year of studies I was mugged in a tram in Zagreb and for a short period of time I was afraid of
using Zagreb public transportation. That didn't last long but it lasted long enough for me
to notice the crappy old green bike in front of the apartment. I think
dad bought it when I was a kid, but nobody ever used it. That time I
thought, why not, let's try. Oooo the freedom.... being independent from
public transport, not wasting your life away in traffic jams and the commuting speed. It was
love on the first sight and it just grew from there.
First it led to me working as a bike courier as I was wrapping up my
studies. And I loved that stupid job. Roaming around the city on the
bike for the whole day, beautiful!
After
I got into the grove I was doing between 50 and 80 km a day and then
one day I woke up and asked myself: "How far could I go if I just cycle
in one direction?" The answer was the coastline. Zagreb is located a bit
less then 200km from the coastline. And that was it, eternal love between my bike and me was
sealed.
As it turned out
my dear friend was equally crazy about cycling as I was.
From 2010 to 2016, 4 out of 6 summers we spent on cycling trips around
Europe: Berlin, Tirana, Lake Ohrid, Swiss Alps, Krakow, Sarajevo,
Dubrovnik, Prague; to name just a few places we have seen with our best 2
wheeled friends.
Cycling is just a part of me and it will always be a part of my life in a smaller or larger degree.
Before
I moved to Denmark I knew that Denmark has an amazing cycling
infrastructure and that the cycling is a big thing there. Even with that
knowledge I wasn't prepared for reality, which was just WoW.
First
time Al'Shadar took me to the center of Copenhagen I felt like a small
child, full of awe and wonder for the new world. Bike lanes were
everywhere and they were wide enough so you can overtake and
they were packed! First group of people commuting was around 70 bikes
large! Up to that point the
largest group of other fellow cyclist I was waiting for the trafficlight
in Zagreb was 5! So I recon you can understand my surprise when I saw a group of that size.
Danish
cycling infrastructure is just amazing. There are not two places in
Denmark that are not connected with a bike lane. Bike lanes are just
everywhere in Denmark even between nowhere and nowhere. For real! There
are even bike lanes in rural area with just couple of people living in
them.
But, cycling lanes
is one thing but bicycles are something else. Before I moved I expected
that in a country with such a great infrastructure, quality of the bikes
will follow but it doesn't. Most of the bikes you can see in traffic are crappy old city bikes and when I say crappy I mean crappy! If bikes were
supposed to pass some road safety test, most of the bikes on Danish roads
would fail. At first I was surprised with that but as I started to get
to know Danish culture it started to make sense. People in Denmark don't
cycle because it is there hobby, they cycle to commute. Bicycle in Denmark is a transportation device and Danes
treat them as such. Bicycles are tools to be used for commuting and not
hobby items you will pamper.
But
that can also be seen on the Danish streets. During workdays most of
the bicycles looks like they will fall apart if you look them in a bad way.
Weekends are a different story though. Then avid cyclists pull out
their babies out of storage and these bikes are something else. Sexy roadies worth 10000 dkk or more. Mountain bikes
are a rare sight in Denmark. When you get to see one, you will remember
it, and that makes sense. Of course mountain bikes are not popular and
why would they be. Denmark is FLAT and the usefulness of mountain-bikes
is very limited. You just don't need mountain-bikes in a flat country.
But
there is a lot of weird looking bike-things that are used for
transportation of people and/or things. On multiple occasions I have
seen a parent transporting their two or more children in children-bikes.
Some of them are three wheeled with a transport spaces on the front axle, some of them have two wheels with transportation space between
the wheels, but these are made just to carry cargo. The most interesting
one I have seen is for transportation of blood.
To
conclude, biking is huge in Denmark and you can see it everywhere. But
it isn't huge because Danes are passionate bicyclers, it is huge because
it is a mean of transport. But if you are a passionate cyclist, moving
to Denmark will be a huge quality if life improvement.
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