I want to ride my (Danish) bicycle

Well, hello there! If Norwegians are born with skis on their feet, Danes are born with bike pedals on theirs (ours). Please join me on a little bike ride, and bicycle talk, on a cold but sunny January day on the outskirts of the third largest city in Denmark. (I apologize for the occasional, rickety sounds of my bike).

Music by Epidemic Sound:
Not as Cool as You Think (instr. version) – Mindme feat. Emmi
A Letter from the Caspian Sea – Daniel Kaede
Northern Sunrise – Nylonwings

Hello and welcome to this new video today i’m going to take you on a little bike ride with me but first i need to put on this it’s not your most stylish thing and it does nothing good for your hair believe me but i tend to prioritize my brain over my hair

And there are these built-in earmuffs which are really practical in fact sometimes i keep the helmet on once i’ve left my bike somewhere uh i do get some looks but who cares my ears are kept warm and today it’s about maybe minus two degrees celsius so it’s pretty cold but it’s also

Sunny so let’s go in some ways denmark is more like holland than the rest of scandinavia it’s a lot smaller than norway and sweden but a bit larger than holland denmark is nearly as flat as holland too which probably explains why both countries are so fond of bicycles

In fact despite the title of this video my bicycle was actually made in holland my two bikes before that as well the brand being betavis but i had to tweak the title a bit so as not to offend queen who of course inspired the title as you can see from

The right i’m taking you on it is quite flat around here it’s not just the flatness though it’s also the infrastructure of cities like copenhagen and owens where i live that makes it bicycle friendly they’re the two cities in denmark that are doing the most to reduce our carbon footprint

And create good conditions for cyclists including miles and miles of bicycle paths in copenhagen there are more bikes than cars about 90 percent of the danish population own a bicycle and use it as a means of transport one out of every six trips made in denmark is made on a bike

Bicycles aren’t nearly as popular in the rest of the world in the uk for instance a bicycle is apparently mostly viewed as either a toy or as a means of transport for the poor or the strange we don’t see it like that quite the contrary to most danes it’s viewed as

Part of a healthy lifestyle and has been since bicycles had their breakthrough back in the 1920s and 30s you don’t need a license for it it’s an inexpensive way of getting around and yet the people who cycle the most here are those with higher than average incomes and those who are educated above

Average most children here brought up riding a bicycle my youngest daughter cycled to her kindergarten from age three she had little support wheels at first and in the beginning she would ride on the sidewalk with her dad or me cycling slowly next to her on the bicycle path or on the side

Of the road what i love about riding my bicycle is the sense of freedom i get i’m not dependent on anyone i don’t have to worry about getting stuck in rush hour traffic or search frantically for an expensive parking spot it’s freedom on two wheels unmotorized maybe that’s why people here sometimes

Refer to it as our iron stallion or iron horse it’s a way of staying mobile even if it’s only in my own country these days and mobility of body can lead to mobility of mind you don’t stand still you don’t stagnate you keep moving even if you’re not going very far okay

So there are way more people out here than what i usually experience and i can’t really blame them because it’s corona lockdown so everybody’s wanting to get out of their houses and the weather is nice for once so everybody is out here i tried filming here yesterday it was pretty much the same

Cars going by people cycling people running It’s freezing cold i have to say well that’s because there aren’t any clouds in the sky this in itself is worth celebrating i have to say which is why all these people are here i know because i’m the same ah but this is nice i have a friend who lives on the other

Side of the water here in the summer she goes kayaking not too much in the winter because water tends to seep into the kayak and it’s just too bloody cold these days where i’m cycling right now is a place called well the road leads to a place called st which is that

Place where everybody goes when it’s nice out and now the other side of me here we’ve got um a bunch of allotments there aren’t that many people there now but in another month or two people will begin to put stuff in their gardens as will i hopefully

As much as i like walking you get nothing for free when you walk you have to take every step a bicycle will do part of the work for you going downhill for instance you can just sit back of course the opposite is the case when

You have to go back up but that gives you a mild kind of interval training you can then congratulate yourself once you’ve reached the top you can go further on a bike too which makes your range of movement that bit larger maybe psychologically speaking too

A few years ago i spent a week in london where i walked between twelve thousand eighteen thousand steps a day which i loved especially in london but i experienced an acute sense of relief when back in denmark i hopped on my bike again i felt it immediately in my lower back

Riding a bike is especially good for people with lower back problems i’ve been told by many physiotherapists over the years if there aren’t bicycle paths where you live invest in a good helmet and wear bright clothes many danes cycle on country roads that have no bicycle paths especially right after

The tour de france the cars have gotten used to the cyclists One of the most inauspicious bike rides i’ve ever been on was one where i was a passenger the chauffeur was a new york city taxi cyclist unlike all the yellow cabs that went past me once the drivers saw my rather large suitcase this rickshaw guy was willing

And able to get me to penn station on time for my train to newark airport and new york city is not what i would call a bicycle-friendly city it was daunting but i survived and he had survived for years by then which goes to show you can ride your bicycle almost anywhere If you’ve stayed this far i appreciate it thanks for watching Wow