I started riding on June 19 from Florence, Italy, and there were many times when I wondered if I would actually get to Copenhagen. It’s a long way, just shy of 1700 miles (2700 km), and I had my fair share of challenges along the way.
I seriously considered stopping in Berlin but then several people told me that the ride from Berlin to Copenhagen was great and so I kept on pushing along. So arriving in Copenhagen was really special for me. I’ll spend a couple days here visiting the city, which seems lovely and full of positive energy, and then head home.
Yesterday, there was a weather forecast of rain from about 2 PM until 10 PM in Køge, where I was planning to spend the night. And the forecasted rain came through basically on schedule. I never got rained on while riding, but once I stopped at the campsite, the rain never left me.
I set up my tent in the first little bit of drizzle, and managed to keep the inside of the tent dry as I got it together. That task completed, I went out for beer and pizza.
The tent kept me and all my bedding/belongings dry, but in the morning everything outside was well and truly soaked. So I drank coffee in the sun while my tent hung over shrubs, getting some of the moisture off.
A good deal of the ride these past couple days has been on small country roads, through housing estates, and along highways with divided bike lanes which was always safe and easy, but not always with filled with wonder. But the last 15 miles coming into Copenhagen was really lovely.
Just as I was entering Copenhagen, I noticed two people on the side of the path that I recognized: Aline and Jean-Pierre, a father/daughter duo from Belgium, who are doing their first bike tour from Berlin to Copenhagen!
They had stopped to fix their second tire puncture in just the last few kilometers! After cycling almost 800 km with no issues, they had two in a row. But in the way that was good since that meant we connected again and they kindly asked me to join them for lunch.
My next task was to find a bike box. I looked on Google maps and found a few bike shops within close proximity of my hotel, and rode my bike over to see if I could get something today rather than waiting for Sunday when most of the bike shops are closed. I got lucky on the first try, scoring a large enough box to hold my bike. The owner was a sort of a funny but grumpy Russian or Eastern European guy, but two of his customers at the time were these two Italian ladies who I really enjoyed chatting with.
I folded up the box and hitched it to my bike with a combination of a strap and my cable lock so that I could wheel it to the hotel without too much trouble. That’s my biggest issue of staying in Copenhagen solved
Tomorrow, I’ll go out with Søren, a guy I met in Germany on his first bike tour. He lives in Copenhagen and offered to take me on a 2-wheeled tour of Copenhagen to see all the tourist sites. I can’t wait!
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