Bikes, Bikes, Everywhere Bikes!

The thing that has astounded us most here in Denmark is the absolute respect motorists have for bikes.  There are on road bike lanes on all the major roads and at intersections the bikes have right of way.  At face value this doesn't sound much different to at home in Canberra.  Except that here, the cars actually give way, to the extent of reversing back from the bike lane if they drive out a little too far then see a bike coming!

The law here is that if there is a bike lane, bikes have to use it, and the law is pretty stringently applied, so that may have something to do with it.  As a result of the mutual respect however,ignificant numbers of people ride, and there are bikes of all shapes and sizes imagineable, everywhere you look. The bike parking areas at the railway stations are bigger than the car parks and are full of bikes from people commuting to Copenhagen from regional centres such as Ringsted and Roskilde, and its impossible to walk down pretty well any street without walking past rows of bikes. There's a lot of 'town bikes' - upright straight barred bikes with all the necessary guards that allow people to ride in suits and skirts, but there's a lot of hybrids and the occasional mountain bike. 

Bicycle parking in Copenhagen

People ride in every sort of clothing imagineable and mainly without helmets - don't want to spoil the hair on the way to work after all!

Here's an example of one of the more modern hybrids around the place.  Note the brand name stamped into the frame.

A Copenhagen "Avenue" bike

And what of the other bikes that we're actually here for?  Today we spent some more time on the course.  The wind was even stronger than the last time, but coming from a slightly different direction.  With the weather so far, there's no question that the wind will be a significant influence once racing begins, unless the forecast for rain is accurate.  The wind seems to drop a bit when the rain comes in.  If we're really lucky we might get both!

Here's Sue and Kerry getting ready to spend some more time etching the twists and turns of the race circuit into their memories.  As you can see from Kerry's attire, it was a bit cooler this morning.



Sue and Kerry mounting up.  Note the Avis van - graffiti artists are alive and well in Denmark too.

I took the following photo to give some idea of how tights parts of the course will be.

This is the narrowest stretch of road that the bunches have to pass through. It's about halfway through the race lap.  You can see a street sign at the back of the picture.  This signifies the T-junction immediately after this little squeeze.  The competitors have to make a tightening right hand turn at this T-junction, just to keep it interesting. And interesting it will be when the field of 40+ men's tandems, 20+ women's tandems or 50+ men's C1-3 bunch come through. Could be a good place to take photos!

I had to include the following photo just to prove we really are in Denmark at the World Para Road Cycling Championships.  The picture is a lot like the rest of the country - a curious mix of traditional and modern.



Not the oldest street sign I've seen, but almost ancient by comparison with the UCI sign beneath. This is the turn onto the finishing straight

  The mixture of traditional and modern is illustrated everywhere in Copenhagen.  We took a train ride into the capital this afternoon and treated ourselves to a canal tour.  Everywhere you look there are original buildings built as early as the 1600s (maybe earlier, but that's what I noticed) and right next door something extemely modern. In fact the "Black Diamond" is a renowned extension to the original city library and is a huge black, glass encased building constructed off the original, centuries old library building. Quite fascinating.

From the canal tour you get a good appreciation of how important boats are to the Danish people, although from the state of some that we saw moored in the canals, some people are a little more familiar with the bridges now joining Denmark to surrounding islands and countries than they may have once been with their boats!

Some of the more impressive craft along the canals

With more rain forecast for tomorrow it looks like being another wind trainer day, but we will wait and see.  Only two more days til racing starts, so we're nearly at the serious stuff.  Stay tuned...