Wheeling happiness

I don’t recall the specific moment I began riding the bicycle, just as I don’t recall my first bite of food. The bicycle has always been a part of my life. I remember riding around in the yard where I grew up, going on trips with my parents, and later cycling to school. When my daughter was born, we added a seat to my wife’s bicycle. Like most children in Denmark, she has been ferried on it since she was old enough to sit.

Most kids start biking once they can walk. You see toddlers balancing on“running” bikes without pedals. Some parents don’t even attach training wheels to their children’s first bikes. An afternoon in the yard, is often enough for the kids to pedal around by themselves, maintaining perfect balance.

In Copenhagen, there are more cycles than inhabitants or cars. With almost 400 km of biking lanes, the world’s busiest biking lane sees up to 40,000 cyclists passing daily. The bicycle is used for every purpose and occasion. Depending on the time of day, you see people in business attires, parents with children on the back or swerving slightly on their own bikes, young women in summer dresses, drunks on the way to bars... I once spearheaded a caravan of 30 university students on a pub crawl through Copenhagen on bicycles, making sure everybody was keeping up, while simultaneously giving directions as to where we were headed. Luckily we got through the evening, happily drunk and with only a few bruises. The mayor of Copenhagen, politicians from parliament and CEOs ride bikes. My uncle works in an office where he does a lot of business with Chinese officials and businessmen. He likes to make a point of arriving to those meetings on his bike, just to see the look on their faces when he tells them: “Yes, of course I cycle, how else would I get to work!”

A lot of businesses are using bikes to move goods and provide services. It’s cheaper and often faster than a car. There’s a cycling locksmith, pizza delivery and mail delivery service. The famous Christiania bikes are used by families to transport their children and cargo, sometimes together. The most unusual biking encounter I’ve had was with a local undertaker. She has a specially built bicycle for transporting a coffin from the church to the cemetery. I almost couldn’t believe it at first, but it made perfect sense. Cycling is such an ingrained part of life here, that some are keen to make their final journey on a cycle.

I’ve grown up in Copenhagen, and most of my childhood friends and I don’t drive. It is uncommon for people our age (late 20s, early 30s) in the city to own a car. Even those with a licence don’t own cars because, honestly, they wouldn’t use it. It’s impractical and expensive.

Biking definitely has made the city more equitable. The politicians and city planners in Copenhagen keep up the work with expanding the network of safe and inclusive cycling infrastructure. Owning a bicycle is not seen as a low-status means of transportation, and I haven’t met anyone who was “too good to ride a bicycle”. I know some who have bought an electric cargo-bike instead of a car. They can go far and fast on those, and they have plenty of space for children and groceries. Those bikes cost almost as much as a small car.

There is one ride that I will always remember. I was attending a party at my university, some 26 km from where I lived. I used to commute that distance, and since I began doing that, I lost my patience to wait for the train. It didn’t matter that, in the end, the train might have transported me faster by several minutes. It was the feeling of being inert, while I could be making my way home on my bike. So even though it was late, I decided to cycle home. It was June, so the air was warm. The route was almost completely straight, and the streets were empty, so I didn’t have to stop at any point. Northern summers have short nights, and sometimes around summer solstice, you can see the first light of dawn while the waning light from the sunset is still around. It was amazingly beautiful and I felt complete peace in my body and mind when I got back.

When you grow up in Copenhagen, it’s easy to take for granted how big a freedom being able to ride a bike really is. Cycling means being free to be on-the-go always and live with carefree abandon. Little wonder the Danes are among the happiest lot in the world.

Oskar Funkworks with urban planning and mobility in Copenhagen

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