cycling as a religion

©expat copenhagen - sortedams sø

©expat copenhagen - østerbro bycycle path

when moving to another town, commuting is always an issue! will you take the car, the tram, go by foot, take the metro or the bus or, like 36% of all copenhageners, use the bike to go to work. here in vienna it's rare that you find people who really commute with the bike. here it's dangerous, and it is hard to keep a bike since thieves steal everything from the sattle to the wheels.

so what makes copenhagen so different? first of all they have a high tax on cars! well, we austrians are used to high taxes because we have the luxury tax and this and that, but in denmark, cars have a registration tax of 180%! (no kidding! I didn't believe it till I've read it on the ministery home page! (very good explanation of this problem ...)

secondly, copenhagen is flat and has perfect street conditions for cyclers! there are blue colored pathes over large crossings, 3-4m wide bike lanes, stops and facilities to park your bike. if you like to see some of that the best web tip is copenhagen cycle chic. this is a web blog with beautiful pictures of people cycling in copenhagen.

during our first visit over new years eve we didn't rent cycles because we liked to walk a lot and had our little doggy with us. that was a big mistake, we realized in early february when we visited copenhagen the second time and rented bikes for the whole week! it was fantastic, you reach every part of the city within at least 15 min cycling and you feel the freedom of going where ever you want to! of course we had muscles burning after the first and second day! but you start realizing why people look so fit and healthy there!

since that visit we started thinking of buying bikes when we move to copenhagen. well we will take our lovely car with us but since we never took it to work here in vienna we wouldn't in copenhagen. it's just good to have one to make weekend trips to skane (sweden) or to the beaches,... jen's favorit bikes are the velorbis, very beautifully old fashion bikes with high quality. since I'll have to carry our lovely whippet (doggy), a bike with a large basket will be my choice! There are a lot of these typs of bikes on the market, like the christiania bikes, the nihola bikes or more fashionable, the trio.