things-to-do
Cycling in Copenhagen: How the City Gets Around on Two Wheels
Copenhagen is built for bikes, with segregated lanes, dedicated bridges and a strong everyday cycling habit. Here is how to ride the city like a local.
How we reported this
Few cities are as closely associated with everyday cycling as Copenhagen. Bikes are not treated as a leisure pursuit here so much as a normal way to get to work, school and the shops, and on weekday mornings the cycle tracks along the main streets carry a steady stream of commuters in ordinary clothes rather than sports gear.
What makes it work is the infrastructure. Most major roads have kerb-separated cycle tracks that keep riders apart from motor traffic, and junctions are designed with cyclists in mind. The city has also built dedicated bicycle links across the harbour and railways. The best known is the Cykelslangen, or “Cycle Snake”, an elevated orange cycle bridge that opened in 2014 and curves over the harbour to connect two districts without forcing riders onto stairs or busy roads. A network of Cycle Super Highways, the Supercykelstier, extends smooth, direct cycling routes out into the surrounding municipalities for longer commutes.
For visitors, riding a bike is one of the best ways to see Copenhagen, because the terrain is flat and the distances in the centre are short. Rental bikes are widely available, from hotel and shop hire to app-based city bikes, and many are ordinary sturdy town bikes rather than racing machines.
There are a few local rules and habits worth knowing. Ride on the right, keep to the cycle track where one exists, and use hand signals: put an arm out to indicate a turn and raise a hand to show you are stopping. Lights are required after dark, front and rear, and the police do enforce this. Bikes can be carried on the S-trains and the metro under certain conditions, which makes it easy to combine cycling with public transport.
The payoff of all this is a city that feels calm and human-scaled at street level. Cycling keeps traffic and noise down, makes the flat centre quick to cross, and gives visitors a genuinely local way to move between the harbour, the parks and the older neighbourhoods. Even a short ride along the lakes or out to the waterfront shows why so many people in Copenhagen simply reach for a bike first.